Two Little Lies (26 page)

“I beg your pardon?”

“Alasdair, Merrick, and me,” Quin clarified. “September last. We three were off on a lark, an illegal boxing match out in Surrey.”

“Merrick attended a boxing match?” she said incredulously. “You two scoundrels, I can easily see. But Merrick? Never.”

“Well, he shan’t do so ever again, I’m sure,” said Quin. “Not with his brother. Alasdair got caught playing tickle-tail with the blacksmith’s wife, and the chap decided to kill us all with a pair of old blunderbusses.”

Alice grinned. “How frightfully exciting! I must remember to tell Mamma.”

Quin shot her a dark look. “I cannot think you serious,” he said. “In any case, this Gypsy allowed us to hide in her tent.”

At that, Alice burst into giggles. “You had to
hide—?”

“Yes, but in return, she made us show her our palms and pay to have our fortunes read.” He paused to smile acerbically. “At the time, it seemed quite comical.”

“Oh, even now it seems quite comical,” said his sister. “So? What did she tell you?”

Quin grew quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, his tone was grave. “She said that in the past I had often acted rashly,” he admitted. “And spoken too quickly. She said that I would pay for it, and dearly. Then she said that my chick was coming home to roost.”

“But she meant ‘your chickens,’ did she not?”

He shrugged. “I asked her that, and she made me no answer,” he replied. “Then she said that the three of us had cursed ourselves with our dissolute ways, and that our pasts would come back to haunt us. Something to that effect. She said, too, that we would now be required to ‘make things right,’ whatever that meant.”

“Dear me,” murmured his sister. “You shall be very busy indeed if you’re to atone for your sins this side of the grave.”

Quin flashed her a chagrinned smile. “Yes, it is silly, isn’t it?” he said. “Still, it does make one think.”

“You, Quinten, are thinking too much,” said Alice tartly. “You must stop it at once, and go to bed, as I mean to do. And yes, I am only jesting about Mamma.”

Just then, somewhere deep in the bowels of the house, a clock stuck midnight, each bell a slow, almost mournful sound.

Alice rose from her chair, picked up her new pearls, and smiled. “Well!” she said with an enthusiasm which was only faintly spurious. “My long-awaited wedding day has arrived. Wish me happy?”

A smile twisted at his mouth. “More than you will ever know, Allie,” he whispered. “May you have a long and happy life with your Henry.”

“Thank you, I believe I shall.” She bent and kissed her brother on the cheek. “Merry Christmas, Quin.”

The Long Vigil

A
lice’s wedding day dawned in an almost magical burst of brilliant blue sky above a sparkling, snow-covered landscape. The snow was neither deep nor destined to last. Instead, it was just enough to dust over the winter’s stiff, ugly grass, and disguise the muddy, rutted roads, like some a fairy-tale carpet of white.

The vicar arrived just after breakfast. Alice and Henry said their vows in Arlington’s withdrawing room in a small, private ceremony, just as his mother had wished. The service was attended only by Quin, his mother, the children, and three of Arlington’s most senior servants. Alice was a beautiful bride in dark blue silk, and her brand-new pearls. Henry looked every inch a gentleman in clothes as fine and well fitted as any Quin had ever seen. Another benefit, no doubt, of their trip to London.

Afterward, Mrs. Prater cried, and kissed the bride and groom. Quin’s mother, too, dabbed discreetly at the corners of her eyes when she thought no one was looking. Quin shook Henry’s hand and kissed his sister’s cheek. The vicar beamed as if it were all his idea. And then the excitement was over, and it was time to go to the more public venue of St. Anne’s. It was Christmas Day.

Quin sat beside his mother in the tiny village church and tried to absorb the significance of the sermon, but his thoughts were admittedly elsewhere. He hoped a bolt from heaven did not strike him dead, but he could think only of Cerelia. Cerelia his daughter, cold and wan and trembling. Though paternal concern was an altogether new experience for Quin, the worry fit him like a well-worn shoe. He slid into it with ease.

When the service was over, the congregation flooded forth into the crystalline sunshine, the adults to quietly chat, and the children to expend their nervous energy in attempting to make snowballs out of what was fast becoming slush. Word of the morning’s marriage had spread through the crowd, and Alice and Henry were soon surrounded by well-wishers. So much for Alice’s wish for total privacy, thought Quin. Arlington Green was too small a village for that. He joined his mother in flanking the happy couple and tried to look pleased—which he most assuredly was. But the worry over Cerelia kept pressing in on him.

Soon, and much to his relief, the crowd about Henry and Alice began to disperse. Quin looked about, realizing that no one from Hill Court had attended the morning service, not even the servants. How very odd. Just then, he saw Lucy Watson winding her way through the crowd, two of her red-haired rapscallions in tow. She came straight at him with obvious purpose.

“Happy Christmas, Lucy,” he said.

“Your lordship.” She greeted him with a perfunctory curtsy. “I was thinking you might have took notice no one’s come down from Chesley’s.”

He looked at her curiously. “I did wonder at it, yes.”

“Well, happen I went by early to give Aunt Effie her Christmas present.” Lucy’s eyes held his, as if she were judging what she might comfortably say. “Things are in a bit of a state up there. Lady Cerelia took bad in the night.”

Panic shot through him. “Bad?” he rasped. “Dear God! How bad?”

Lucy looked solemn. “She’s turned febrile,” she answered. “It came on quick-like. They’ve sent for Dr. Gould, and that’s all I know. But a body might wish to get up there straightaways if—well, if they wished to, my lord. That’s all I’m saying.”

Before Quin could make her any response, Lucy bobbed again quickly and vanished.

It took him but a moment to speak a quiet word in Alice’s ear, shake Henry’s hand, and make his way from the churchyard. He had been anxiously awaiting word from Viviana all morning. Only his concern for Cerelia outweighed his anger that she had not kept her promise.

When he arrived at Hill Court, Basham let him in without surprise. “I’m given to understand that the child became feverish around midnight, my lord,” he said. “Dr. Gould is with her now.”

Without explanation, Quin rushed up the two flights of stairs to Viviana’s bedchamber. He did not knock, but went straight in. The room seemed full of women. The governess—Miss Hevner, he thought—stood alone in one corner, her expression one of grave concern. Cerelia had been moved to her mother’s bed. Viviana was leaned over one side, the old Italian nurse at her elbow.

Bent low over the opposite side, Dr. Gould looked up and, seeing Quin, raised one eyebrow. Then he returned his attention to the wooden tube which he had pressed to Cerelia’s chest and set one ear to it, whilst sticking one finger in his opposite ear. Periodically, he moved the tube around, always keeping his ear against it. At last, he straightened up, placed an elaborate piece of ivory over the end of the tube, and restored it to his leather satchel.

“The heart is strong, but the lungs are growing congested,” he pronounced. “Her pulse is far too fast.”

Cerelia thrashed restlessly in the bed, but her eyes did not open. “What can be done for her?” Viviana whispered, her expression stricken.

Dr. Gould set one hand on Cerelia’s forehead. “Give the willow bark tonic more often,” he said. “Every hour. Spoon it in if you must. When she wakes, give her water or broth, as much as she will take. Should she worsen, send for me. If the fever does not break by tomorrow, we will need to bleed her.”

Solemnly, Viviana nodded. Gould spoke a few quiet, encouraging words to her, then took his leave. If he wondered at Quin’s presence, he gave no sign.

Slowly, the room returned to “normal,” whatever normal was under such dreadful circumstances. The housemaids, who had apparently come to change out the bed linen, finished with the little trundle bed and left. Miss Hevner excused herself, mumbling something about attending to the other children. Signora Rossi, the old nurse, busied herself by uncorking the brown bottles which sat on a tray by the bed and mixing their contents into a mug of water.

Viviana eased herself down into a chair by the bed and did not glance at him. Today, to his shock, she looked every one of her thirty-three years. Though Viviana was a tall, voluptuous woman, just now she gave the impression of being terribly fragile. Her eyes appeared sunken, and rimmed with dark circles. Her hand, clutching the chair’s arm, looked almost birdlike. Her hair was caught back in a bland, very ordinary arrangement, and for the first time he could see the slightest hint of silver glinting against the jet-black of her temples. He wondered if it had appeared overnight. One heard of such things occurring.

Perhaps it was Viviana’s gaunt appearance which tempered his ire, or perhaps it was the sight of Cerelia, so small and still in the massive bed. Whatever the cause, his anger seemed to dissipate, pouring out of him like some terrible, tangible thing and leaving him to feel enervated by grief. Whatever she had done to him, Viviana did not deserve this.

He looked about for a chair and pulled it beside hers. Viviana’s hand still lay on the chair arm, and impulsively, he covered it with his own. “How long has she been like this?”

“She began wheezing just before Dr. Gould arrived last night,” Viviana answered hollowly. “Then the fever came on, and she grew fretful. Around daybreak, there was something…something like
una convulsione?”

“Like a fit?”

Viviana nodded, but her gaze never left Cerelia.
“Si,
like a fit,” she said quietly. “Nicolo had one as a baby. It was the same.”

Quin tried to sound calm, though he was anything but. “She seems so still now. Has she not awakened?”

“A little,” Viviana admitted. “But she talks nonsense and thrashes wildly if we try to hold her or restrain her.”

Just then, Signora Rossi held up a second brown bottle, and said something to Viviana in rapid Italian.
“Si, grazie,”
Viviana replied, rising. The old woman left the room, taking the bedside tray with her.

Quin followed Viviana as she limped to the opposite side of the bed. She picked up the mug which the nurse had dosed from the brown bottles, and stirred the contents with a spoon.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Signora Rossi has mixed the tonic,” she said, dragging the back of her wrist across her forehead. “We must spoon it in,
un po’ per volta—
in drips,
si?—
so that it does not choke her.”

He watched her finish stirring. Her hand was shaking noticeably, and the opposite wrist was bandaged, from her fall the previous evening, most likely. “Viviana, have you had any sleep?”

“Non molto,”
she muttered. “Enough.”

Quin frowned. “No sleep, and you can scarcely bear weight on that leg.” Gently, he took the mug from her hand. “Show me how to do this,” he ordered. “Then sit back down and rest.”

She looked up at him in some surprise, her eyes wide and questioning.

“I have a right, Viviana, to help her,” Quin said softly. “Do not refuse me a chance.”

Viviana swallowed hard and nodded. “Just put a little in the spoon,” she said.
“Si,
like that. And press down on her bottom lip. Sometimes, she will take it. If not, give drips only.”

It was a painstaking process indeed, though Quin did not complain. Viviana watched quietly, saying little. At first, he dribbled it down her chin, and had to hastily wipe it up again. Sometimes he could only press the lip of the spoon against Cerelia’s teeth, and hope for the best. In between the spoons of tonic, he would set the backs of his fingers against her feverish forehead. It was then that one truely realized the grip the illness held on her. Quin began to pray the fever would soon break.

Toward the end, Cerelia began to speak in muttered bursts of Italian, and thrash wildly.

Viviana scooted forward on the edge of her chair, her fingers clutching at the bedcovers. “She has been like this since the spell at dawn,” she said anxiously. “Signora Rossi says it is to be expected, but it…
Dio,
it frightens me.”

“It frightens me, too,” he admitted, looking pointedly at her. “But Signora Rossi knows best, does she not? You trust her?”

Viviana nodded, and slumped back into her chair. “She is wise,” she agreed. “But she is too old for this. She is…she is
stanchissima.
Very weary.”

Quin tried to smile. “As are you,” he remarked. “But I am neither, despite any appearance to the contrary.”

At that, she gave him a faint smile and sank back into the chair, her arms crossed over her chest. He was not sure if he should take the gesture as a sign of recalcitrance or just pure fatigue.

Quin returned to his work. Near the end, his back went a bit stiff from being crooked awkwardly over the bed, but at last all the tonic—well, most of it—was down.

“Bene,”
said Viviana with relief, when he set the mug down.
“Molto bene.”

Across the bed, he looked at her. The morning sun was flooding in through the windows, bathing her in cool, wintry light. Even in her agony, Viviana was beautiful. But the halo of madonna-like serenity no longer surrounded her; she had become the tormented mother, fearing the worst for her child.

Good God, how he hated to see her this way. Never had he wished to see her suffer. Suddenly, he wanted to snatch back every spiteful thought he’d ever harbored toward her. He was still angry, still felt he’d been wronged. But seeing Cerelia so diminished, he could understand a little better, perhaps, what drove Viviana.

He put away the mug and spoon, and returned to sit beside her. “Viviana, it is Christmas Day,” he said quietly. “Why do you not go spend just a little of it with Felise and Nicolo? I will stay here. I will call you if there is even the slightest change.”

“We have postponed Christmas,” she answered. “We have put it off until…until Cerelia is well again. It was Felise’s idea.”

Quin understood. “I brought some things back from London for the children,” he said. “I—I forgot them. I came straight from church. Shall I ask Basham to send someone to fetch them, just in case?”

She lifted her shoulders.
“Si,
as you wish.”

But Quin did not rise to go out, or to ring the bell, or to do anything. He was reluctant to leave Cerelia’s beside, even for a moment. Perhaps he was beginning to understand how Viviana felt in that respect, too. There was a sense of the ephemeral in the room; an illogical belief that so long as one remained vigilant, so long as one observed the rise and fall of Cerelia’s chest, and listened to the faint rasp of her breath, the life force would go on. But if one dared turn one’s back…

Viviana ran a hand through her hair and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I am so sorry, Quinten,” she said, staring down at the opulent Oriental carpet. “This is all my fault. I should have been watching her more carefully.”

“Viviana, do not be too harsh with yourself,” he cautioned. “How many children were there? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

Her eyes flashed with frustration.
“Si,
but only three of them were mine,” she responded. “And to them I owed my undivided attention. Instead, I was—” She jerked to a halt, and shook her head, her lips set in a tight line.

“You were what, Vivie?” he prodded.

A look of disgust flitted across her face. “Gossiping,” she said. “Chattering away with your mother like some foolish—foolish—oh,
what
is that silly thing, the bird name?”

Quin lifted one brow. “A magpie?”

“Si,
like a magpie,” she hissed. “Not paying attention, but thinking only of how to…” Her words fell away, and tears sprang to her eyes.

“How to what, Vivie?” He reverted to her nickname unthinkingly.

Viviana pressed her lips together and shook her head again. “How to impress her,” she whispered. “How to—to make her think that I was a person worthy of…of her good regard.”

“Oh, Vivie!” he said. “Vivie, you do not need the approval of my mother. Not for any reason. And yet, I believe you already have it. I believe you have even managed to cow her a little, which is no bad thing.”

Viviana sniffed a little pitifully. “Is it not?” she asked. “It sounds very bad indeed. I certainly do not think she is a cow.”

At that, he smiled. “Never mind, Viviana,” he said. Then wordlessly, he rose and touched Cerelia’s brow. “What about bathing her in cool water?” he suggested. “Mightn’t that make her feel better?”