Lord Harry's Folly (28 page)

He fetched a long white linen nightshirt, exquisitely hemmed by his great-aunt Agnes, and with gentle efficiency stripped off her bloodied shirt. He tugged carefully at the laces on the chemise and snipped the straps with a pair of scissors. Once free of the tight garment, her breasts seemed to swell and round. He found himself wanting to smooth away the sharp lines that the tight laces had cut into her breasts. He frowned at himself. They were just breasts, just like the breasts he’d seen on so many other women in his life.

He pulled off her hessians, stockings, and finally her breeches. Wise of her not to wear tight-knitted pantaloons, he thought fleetingly holding the loose buckskins in his hands. Though her legs were long and slender and her hips rather boyish, anything but the loosest of breeches would surely have given her away. He found himself comparing her body to Melissande’s, realized what he was doing, and quickly slipped the nightshirt over her head. He smoothed it to her knees, then pulled the cover over her, bringing it just short of her chin.

After building up the fire, he pulled a large leather chair close to the bedside, sat himself down and prepared to wait. He looked up at the ormolu clock on the night table and saw with a start that it was but eleven o’clock in the morning. It was hard to believe that in just under four hours he had nearly lost his life, discovered that his opponent was a woman, and had decided to take sole charge of her care. He made a steeple with his fingers and tapped the tips thoughtfully together. What the devil was she going to do when she woke up and found the man she hated taking care of her? He couldn’t begin to imagine. However, she could have killed him, but she hadn’t. Why? It went over and over in his mind, he couldn’t seem to stop it. Well, he would know soon enough. When she awakened. If she awakened.

He wanted her awake. He wanted to look at her and know it was a woman he was looking at and not a young gentleman.

Hetty lay some minutes in half consciousness before she opened her eyes. In those few precious moments before her mind told her that all wasn’t well with her body, she looked about her, her thoughts clear and alert. She saw herself, foil in hand, jumping suddenly forward, catching Lord Oberlon’s blade at its base. She felt the shattering impact as his foil whirled from his hand to the ground. She clearly saw herself standing in front of him, her arm extended its full length, the tip of her blade against his chest. She saw his face, the clear darkness of his eyes, she felt the fearlessness in him, the odd questioning, though he’d said nothing. He’d waited, not moving. Why? She gasped, remembering how she couldn’t bring herself to be his executioner.

“Hello,” came a deep familiar voice from just beside her. She turned her head ever so slightly. He was leaning over her, his dark eyes intent on her face. He was whole and she wasn’t. Surely there was no justice in that. But why was he here? What the devil was going on?

“You? Can it truly be you? I don’t understand.”

“How do you feel? Can you see me?”

“Dear God, I must be dead and in hell since you’re here. Why are you here? That makes no sense. I wanted to kill you.” Without warning, pain that she’d never imagined pierced through her side. She cried out against it, her arms hugging herself, but it didn’t help.

“I know your pain is great. I’ll try to help you.” She heard his words, yet her mind refused to let her understand them. Her eyes were clouding and in but an instant he blurred into the shadows.

“No, dammit, no. I don’t want to lose to you, no.” She tried desperately to keep control, but it was slipping from her and there was nothing she could do about it. She flung out her hand to ward off the pain that was deep inside her, to ward him away from her. She felt strong fingers close over her hand.

The pain intensified. Her back arched. She twisted sideways, anything to lessen the agony that was making her an animal, without thought, without intelligence, without control. He was lifting her, tilting her head back. His voice was quiet and soothing, the sounds just that, sounds, with no meaning to her. Her mouth was forced open, and she choked on bitter-tasting liquid. She struggled against him. She hated him touching her. Was he forcing poison down her throat? She tried to fight him but the pain was too great and she was too weak. He was holding her very firmly, and she hated it, but she could do nothing about it. She hit at him, but he didn’t move, didn’t release her or loosen his hold on her. On and on it went. She was crying, knowing that it was so because she tasted her tears in her mouth, salty and hot. The arms went suddenly about her shoulders, pressing her firmly onto her back and holding her there so that she couldn’t move against the pain. She tried to draw her knees up to somehow ease the ferocious burning that was ripping through her side. But there was a weight on her legs and there was naught she could do but dwell within herself, within the pain, and know he was there.

Suddenly, the agony grew less intense, like a leashed monster pulling its fangs out of her flesh. She heard an odd sound, pathetic, low ugly sobbing, a sound of utter hopelessness, and she knew it was from her. She was making those animal sounds.

Gradually, his face became clearer above her, his words now distinct. She heard her own name sounding over and over in her ears, low and gentle, but insistent, calling her back into herself. “Henrietta, can you hear me? Come now, speak to me. Is the pain less now? Hetty?”

She managed to focus on that dark face above her. It seemed important that he understand. She said, “I’m not Lord Harry Monteith. Do you understand me? If I die, I want you to know that I’m not Lord Harry. You must tell my father and my brother, else they won’t know what happened to me.”

“I know who you are,” he said, his voice low and deep, his breath warm on her cheek. “You’re Henrietta Rolland. Does Jack call you Hetty? Yes, I remember that he does. May I as well? Of course I already have, haven’t I? Hold on, I know the pain is unbearable, but the laudanum will soon ease you. Soon now, very soon. Just listen to me, try to focus on my voice, all right?”

“All right,” she whispered, her hand now clutching his as if her very life depended on it.

“You are just as I imagined you would be when I met you at the Ranleaghs’ ball. Do you remember how I thought I was rescuing you from that drunken buffoon? You let me know that I wasn’t at all necessary, that you would have taken care of him had he persisted. I thought you full of bluff and bravado. Now I know that you would have probably slit his throat had he continued with his foolishness. Do you remember how well we waltzed together? That’s right, squeeze my hand. Do you remember? Just nod, that’s good.”

As the laudanum began to dull the pain in her side, she felt a dull pounding against the side of her head. She tried to focus on this new pain and moaned deep in her throat.

“I know you hurt. Soon you’ll sleep. We’ll sort everything out when you’re better. Yes, you’ve a lump and a bruise over your left temple. When you fell, you hit the only rock within twenty feet. Now, breathe deeply, that’s right. Just listen to me talk and soon you’ll be asleep. That’s right.” He paused a moment, studying her face. He saw that her blue eyes were vague, that the laudanum was taking effect. About damned time, he thought.

“Now, I will tell you that I visited your lodgings when I found out you’d been with Melissande. Your valet, Pottson, nearly dropped dead of apoplexy when I marched in, murder in my eye. I wanted to wring Lord Harry’s neck for poaching on my mistress preserves. Do you know what happened? I went into Lord Harry’s bedchamber and found a gown. I thought Lord Harry was a complete young rakehell. I thought there must be a young girl, quite naked, hiding in the closet. But it was your gown I found, Henrietta. When I waved it in his face, Pottson held firm. He has guts, that valet of yours.”

She was asleep. He had no idea how much she’d heard. At least for a while she was free of the god-awful pain. He gently replaced the covers over her and straightened. He dipped a strip of linen into the basin of cool water atop the commode and lightly bathed her face. The deep purple bruise above her temple was now ugly and swollen.

She whimpered, jerking upward, then falling back again. He froze above her. She quieted again and he drew a breath of relief and he straightened over her bed. Actually, it was his bed. He hadn’t really thought about it. He’d simply carried her to his bedchamber, a huge dark room with a bed that could hold a drunken battalion.

He found himself staring down at her, his eyes searching her pale face. It was such a young face, and vulnerable, with all the lines and expressions of Lord Monteith’s hatred and anger smoothed away. Vulnerable bedamned. He saw again the naked gleam of purpose in her eyes when she’d lunged at him again and again, until, through his own blundering, the tip of her foil pricked at his chest. He’d felt her hatred in that moment, a hatred so deep he couldn’t begin to understand it, to fathom what he’d ever done in his life to deserve such hatred, then her indecision. He felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck, uncertain now if he would have been able to wrench the foil from her hands. He didn’t know. He remembered Julien shouting at him to do it, but he’d just stood there, held by the naked torment in Monteith’s eyes. Yes, that was it, the boy had looked tortured in those few moments. No, he thought, not boy, she was a girl, very much a girl. What the devil had he done?

She was deeply asleep. He smoothed the covers over her. He turned away from the bed and strode to the long windows that overlooked the west lawn. The morning was gray and eerily silent. Even the peacocks that habitually strutted through the rose arbors, squawking loudly as they displayed their colorful plumage, were nowhere to be seen. As he stared out, her face rose in his mind, drained of color and laden with fear. They were to duel with foils, not with pistols as she’d so obviously anticipated. Yet her hatred of him had been so powerful, her determination so great, that she’d overcome her fear. Damnation, why? Jack was his friend. Indeed, Jack had sent him over to his masked sister at the Ranleaghs’ ball. No, he realized, it had nothing to do with Jack. Jack would have no idea. Unless she died. He shook his head at that. No way would he allow that.

He looked back at the bed. What kind of a woman was she anyway? A girl he would have said, but not now, not since he’d seen her look blank-eyed at the foils, overcome her shock and fear, and proceed to fence with him with all her skill. Hadn’t Jack said she was eighteen? He’d fought a duel with an eighteen-year-old girl. He would wager that no other gentleman either past or present or future, for that matter, would have come through what he had. He’d rarely in his twenty-seven years known a female who could even bring herself to discuss pistols and foils, much less known one who was so skilled in this, a masculine domain. She was brave, indeed, she’d shown herself fearless. It shook him, this girl who now lay in his bed, this girl who could die because of his sword thrust through her side. No, he wouldn’t let her die. He wanted to hear her tell him what he’d done to deserve such hatred from her, such hatred that she’d become a young gentleman and learned to shoot and to fence, all to send him to the devil, and yet at the last moment, when she’d won, she’d changed her mind. Yes, he wanted her to tell him and then He didn’t know. He strode over to his grandfather’s writing desk. He had to write Alicia and ensure that he needn’t have any worry from that quarter. Although he was fairly certain that his dashing, very feminine sister was carrying her child-swollen belly in the privacy of Sir Henry’s Devonshire estate, he intended to make doubly sure that she remained there. He thought of Henrietta Rolland in feminine ruffles and lace. He’d seen her in a mask and domino, her blue eyes glittering, her lovely mouth laughing. He remembered the feel of her in his arms as he whirled her about in the waltz, her gay laughter, he remembered all of it.

Damnation. She’d tried to kill him. You’re a stupid ass, he grunted to himself. He suddenly saw that ghastly, vulgar girl dressed in the pea green gown and ugly spectacles at his aunt Melberry’s soiree. Jesus, who had she been? Another role, obviously. She was very talented. And he was, after all, a man with many years’ experience and maturity. Surely he would be able to sort all of this out. He wanted to touch her blond hair, blonder than Jack’s hair, the curls soft and springy. He was becoming a half-wit. He quickly set himself to the task of writing to Alicia and then to Rabbell to cancel all of his appointments in London for the remainder of the week. Having finished, he rose and rang the bell cord for luncheon and went to his dressing room to change his clothes.

After eating thin-sliced ham, sweet garden peas, and crunchy warm bread, he returned to his vigil by her bedside. He allowed his mind to wander back to the various encounters he had engaged in with her. Whenever he caught himself either frowning or smiling at one particular memory, he gazed over at her. He was surprised to realize that the afternoon had melted away, and a frown settled upon his brow. She was sleeping overlong and he grew concerned. Perhaps he should fetch a doctor and damn the consequences.

The downstairs clock chimed six deep, resounding strokes. He saw her eyelashes flutter open. There was no awareness in her eyes this time. She stared unseeing at him. A low, aching moan came from deep in her throat. In a jerking motion, she brought her hand up to press against the swollen bruise on her temple, then with another gasp of pain, she dropped her hand and hugged her side.

He laid a damp strip of linen on her forehead, for he could not risk more laudanum so soon. He hoped, without much optimism, that it would relieve the pain in her head. He lowered himself gently down beside her. He pulled her arms away from her side, fearful that her frantic clutching would cause the wound to start bleeding again. She fought against him with surprising strength, but he tightened his grip until she lay still, moaning helplessly.

“Hetty,” he said against her ear. “You must try to lie still. I don’t want the bleeding to start again. Can you understand me?”