Honor (10 page)

Moments later, upstairs in her bedchamber, she locked the door, undressed, and put on a comfortable tea gown. Just as she was about to recline on her fainting couch, she glanced at the mantel and spied the carved owl.

Suddenly, sweeter memories from a more innocent time assailed her: Robert patiently tutoring her in constitutional law, Robert championing her against Hubert Adcock, Robert carving the owl…

Honor closed her eyes and let the hot tears fall. He had said all men were cowards about something. She wondered if women were as well.

When she couldn’t cry any more, she pulled herself together and dried her eyes. Oddly enough, she could forgive him for abandoning the hapless Priscilla Shanks, because men had their weaknesses, but she could not forgive him for hiding the truth and thinking it wouldn’t matter.

Exhaustion finally claimed her. She closed her eyes again and slept.

The following day, Honor dreaded facing Robert in class. She needn’t have worried; he sat on the other side of the room, kept his eyes trained on the professor, and took notes. When class was over, he disappeared before Honor had time to collect her books.

His behavior never varied during the ensuing weeks, and Honor knew their relationship was truly over.

Then one Monday morning in mid-May, she noticed that Robert was absent from all his classes. His chair remained empty on Tuesday and Wednesday as well. When he was absent on Thursday, Honor reassured himself that he was sure to return the following day.

Friday morning, when Honor walked into her estate law class, she searched every face. Robert’s was not among them.

Something’s happened to him, she thought. He would never miss a week’s worth of classes. Never. His career is at stake.

“Miss Elliott?” Pudding Weymouth said. “Please see me after class.”

When class was over, Honor went up to his desk. “Yes, Professor Weymouth?”

“You and Mr. Davis are friends, are you not?”

“Acquaintances.”

“Friends, acquaintances…mere semantics.” His three chins shook as he shifted in his seat. “Do you know why he has been absent all week?”

“No, I don’t.”

He gave a patronizing groan as if he didn’t believe her. “This institution doesn’t pay me enough to chase after delinquent students, Miss Elliott, but because Mr. Davis has a brilliant future ahead of him, I will make an exception. Tell him that if he doesn’t have a good excuse for missing my class, I will give him a failing grade. And he won’t graduate with the rest of you next month.”

Chapter Six

“I really should get a Duryea motorcar,” Theo declared, looking out the carriage window as she and Honor raced to Robert’s rescue. “The traffic is so slow, it’s taking us forever.”

Honor, seated beside her, fiddled with her locket, reassuring herself that she worried about Robert needlessly. They would arrive at his boardinghouse and find that he had some perfectly reasonable explanation for missing classes all week.

You’re deluding yourself, she thought. There are no reasonable explanations for him to miss class.

Why was she so worried about a man who had concealed an unsavory part of his past, a man she claimed she never wanted to see again?

When they arrived in the city’s poor South End, they had little trouble finding Robert’s address—a rambling frame boardinghouse, sandwiched between row houses in the middle of the block on a narrow street.

After disembarking from the carriage, Honor paused at the gate of a defiant white picket fence, noticing the small but well-kept front lawn and the clapboard house’s fresh coat of white paint—Robert’s meticulous handiwork, no doubt. She opened the gate, which squeaked a warning to the house’s inhabitants, and marched up to the front porch with her aunt following at her heels.

Honor rang the doorbell while Theo uneasily scanned the run-down neighborhood with more curiosity than disdain.

The door opened just a crack. “What do you want?”

“I’m a friend of Robert Davis’s,” Honor replied. “He hasn’t been to school all week, and I’m worried about him.”

The door swung open, revealing a woman of about sixty-two, with every graying brown hair in place and her appearance as well tended as her property. She regarded Honor and Theo out of narrowed, suspicious eyes, but once she discerned they were gentlewomen, she said, “Come in,” and stepped back to allow them to enter.

Once inside, Honor introduced herself and Theo while she glanced around the surprisingly genteel, carpeted foyer, with its dainty floral wallpaper and a tall rubber plant in one corner. Only the faint odor of yesterday’s cooking clashed with the carefully cultivated air of gentility.

“I’m Mrs. Routledge,” the woman said, her tone turning warm and familiar, “and you must be Mr. Davis’s young lady. He’s spoken of you so often I feel as if I know you. But one can never be too careful answering the door these days. So many foreigners about, you know.”

Honor forced herself to smile. “If Mr. Davis is here, please tell him that we’d like to see him.”

Mrs. Routledge gave an aggrieved sniff. “He’s sick.”

Honor flashed her aunt a look of alarm. “Has he seen a doctor?”

The woman shook her head.

“Where is he?” Theo said.

“In his room,” Mrs. Routledge replied. “Follow me.”

Once upstairs, she stopped before a closed door. “He’s in here.”

Heart hammering, Honor flung open the door. Immediately the sour odor of warm, stale air and sickness almost made her gag. The small room appeared large because it contained only an armoire, a table cluttered with notes that served as his desk near the window, and a narrow bed where Robert lay.

Honor took a deep breath. She was too late. He was already dead.

Her wail of anguish caused Mrs. Routledge to jump. Honor hurled herself across the room to Robert’s bedside. She stared down at him, lying on his back, his gaunt white face turned toward the wall, a thin, moth-eaten blanket pulled up to his scruffy bearded chin. He shivered.

Dead men don’t shiver, Honor thought, hope galvanizing her.

“Robert,” she murmured, touching his cheek. His damp skin almost sizzled beneath her hand. He stirred. His eyes rolled beneath their lids but didn’t open. She felt his neck for a pulse and went weak with relief when she found the faint throb.

Honor looked at Mrs. Routledge. “How long has he been this way?”

“Since yesterday,” the woman replied. “Before that, he was just feeling poorly.”

Honor peered under the blanket and saw that he still wore his shirt and trousers, apparently not having had the strength to remove them before tumbling into bed. The wrinkled clothes reeked of acrid fever sweat.

Honor looked at her aunt. “Let’s take him home.”

“Honor?” She found Robert looking up at her, his green eyes glazed with sickness and confusion.

Honor smiled and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Everything is going to be all right. Theo is here with me, and we’re going to take you home with us so you can get well.”

Theo said to Robert, “Do you think you can walk downstairs if we help you?”

He nodded, and Honor pulled off the blanket. The abrupt loss of its meager warmth caused a shudder to rack his body so hard that his teeth chattered. Still, he managed to swing his legs over the side of the bed and, with Honor’s help, sit up.

Minutes later Honor and their driver, Simms, each took an arm and managed to assist the weakened, feverish Robert out of the house and into the carriage, where he gave a long, shuddering sigh and collapsed in a corner.

Honor sat down and covered him with the blanket that Theo had taken from his bed. She drew his head down against her shoulder and placed her cheek against his hair.

Honor dipped a cloth in a basin of cold water and wrung it out before placing the cool compress on Robert’s burning forehead. He lay in the wide guest room bed beneath a mountain of coverlets that he was constantly trying to throw off and that Honor kept replacing. For the moment, he was sleeping.

She sat down in the chair by his bedside and closed her eyes. As soon as they had arrived home, Theo had summoned the doctor. He had offered them a prognosis: if Robert’s rising fever broke soon, he would survive.

What if he dies? Honor thought.

Her eyes flew open and filled with tears. She brushed them away angrily.

“What is wrong with me?” she said aloud. “He concealed a reprehensible part of his past, which is tantamount to lying. I told him I never wanted to see him again, and yet the minute I heard that he was ill, I went running to him without a second thought.”

She knew why: she loved him. She would never condone his callous treatment of Priscilla Shanks, but she loved him in spite of it. Surely everyone was entitled to one mistake.

As Honor removed the compress, now dry from his fevered flesh, and stared down at him, her loving gaze traced the straight sweep of his brows, the not-quite-straight line of his nose, and the sunken hollows in his gaunt cheeks. Though she tried hot to admit it, she had missed him, and if he still wanted her, she would marry him.

If he lived.

“Honor! Don’t leave me!”

She awoke with an unsettling jolt to find that she had dozed off in the chair by Robert’s bedside. The clock on the mantel chimed two in the morning. He was sitting up, staring at her out of bright, glittering eyes.

She rose and smoothed the damp hair away from his brow. “I won’t leave you ever again.”

His eyes focused on something only he could see. “Can’t lose her,” he muttered, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. “Won’t live without her.”

Then she realized why he couldn’t see her. His high fever had made him delirious.

“Honor!” His tortured cry tore at her heart.

She tried to push him back against the pillows, but he flailed his arms about with surprising strength, whacking Honor’s own arm so hard that excruciating pain shot all the way up to her shoulder and she staggered back, managing to break her fall by grabbing the chair. She stood there, still reeling from the shock of his unintentional assault.

His arms jabbed the air several more times as if he were fighting invisible demons; then he groaned and fell back against the pillows, where he thrashed about. Gradually the delirium demon released its grip and the fight went out of him. His body relaxed. His head lolled to the side. He sighed deeply, as if taking his last breath.

Her arm still aching like a sore tooth, Honor slowly approached him. She extended a cautious hand to his forehead. Where she expected heat, she found coolness against her fingers.

The fever had broken. Robert would live.

She let him sleep until almost five o’clock the following afternoon, and then she brought him a light supper.

Honor hesitated in the doorway, feeling suddenly awkward after the acrimonious way they had parted. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and walked into the bedchamber, where she found him sitting up in bed, propped up against a bank of pillows, his eyes closed.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, setting the tray down on the bed.

He opened his eyes, and the reserve she saw there saddened her. “I feel better.”

“Cook made you some beef tea to rebuild your strength.” She sat down at his bedside and watched him drink it.

When Robert finished the beef tea, he said, “Why did you come for me?”

“I was worried about you.”

“Did I ask you to interfere?”

“Interfere!” She fought to keep her temper in check. “If we hadn’t interfered, you would have died alone in that horrid room.”

He set down the empty cup. “I suppose you expect me to thank you.”

Why was he being so mean to her after she had just saved his life? Honor rose and set the tray aside, her expression blank. “I thought I was performing a kindness for a friend. Obviously I was mistaken.”

“Why the concern? The last time we talked, you treated me like a criminal. You didn’t care if I lived or died. Then I got sick and you ran to my rescue.” His voice softened unexpectedly. “Why?”

Her gaze slid away. “You had been absent from classes all week, and when Pudding Weymouth told me that he would fail you if you didn’t come to class on Monday, I had to let you know your law career was in jeopardy.”

“You could have sent me a note,” he pointed out with maddening logic.

“What if you didn’t receive it?”

That brought a wan smile to his lips. “You’re trying to avoid my question, so I’ll repeat it. Why did you come for me?”

She couldn’t avoid the truth any longer. “I was afraid something had happened to you.”

“But why would you even care? You told me that you never wanted to see me again.”

“Oh, this discussion is pointless.” She turned away, only to find that Robert had grasped her wrist to prevent her flight.

“Why, Honor?” he said softly.