Barely a Lady (11 page)

“I lay at your mercy, Miss Fairchild. Will you sit and hold my hand while it does its magic, Liv?”

“I will sit a while,” she said, disgracefully grateful for the fever. It might actually delay the inevitable confrontation.

“I hate to say this,” Grace said a few moments later as the three women headed down to the stillroom for ingredients. “But even with the honey, he’s in for a touch of rough weather.”

Olivia cast her a sharp look. “He’ll be all right?”

“He’d better be,” Lady Kate quipped. “I think Monsieur would object if he found a body buried in his garden.”

“The earl will have a fever for the next few days,” Grace said. “But I found a woman who can supply willow bark. With that and the honey, I believe he’ll weather it.” She gave a look upstairs. “As long as he doesn’t try and do anything stupid.”

“He’s a man,” Lady Kate snorted. “Of course he’ll try and do something stupid.”

Suddenly, all three women stopped and turned to look back up the stairs to where Jack lay.

“He was already sitting up,” Lady Kate all but accused.

Olivia rubbed at her forehead. “Which means he’ll soon push himself to stand. And then walk.”

“And, being a man, won’t be satisfied ’til he’s strolling down the street looking for his friends.”

Olivia pressed her fingers against her temples, thinking that she needed to get some headache powders for herself when they got Jack’s draught. “Where anyone might recognize him and ask questions. Where he’ll ask questions in return. Questions we can’t answer.”

“I certainly hope you can speak with Dr. Hume tomorrow,” Lady Kate said to Grace, “or Jack might walk right into a noose.”

And those who’d cared for him,
Olivia thought, looking at her two friends,
would follow right behind.

The next morning, the little group of women accompanied Grace back down to the battlefield to bury her father. Olivia had been to many interments. It had been one of her duties, especially for parishioners with no one else to mourn them. But she doubted she’d ever attended a more poignant service.

Following right behind the coffin, her hand on Harper’s arm, Grace carried herself with quiet dignity. The general’s surviving men formed an honor guard, and the Guards chaplain performed the simple, moving service. A Highlander piped the general home, as he’d always loved the fierce, barbaric sound. And then, as the last keening notes faded into the morning air, Lady Bea stepped forward, lifted her face to the morning sky, and began to sing the Twenty-third Psalm.

“My shepherd is the Lord,

I shall not be in want…”

And every person in that battered, bloody place stilled before a miracle. Olivia felt the chills rise at the first note, so pure it must have made God weep. So soaring that the usually tongue-tied old woman turned a grief-soaked battlefield into a site of celebration for the life of this blustery old general and his grieving daughter.

Lady Bea’s voice echoed away over the low hills, and the general’s men snapped off a seven-gun salute. Grace quietly thanked everyone for the honor done her father. And Olivia stood silent a few minutes longer and thought again how rich Grace was in her life. How vastly wealthy her father had been, in the love and respect of his men and his child.

But then, from what Olivia had learned, he had earned it. He had been loyal and protective and kind in his brusque way. He hadn’t condemned his own child when she’d needed him the most.

Ah, but that wasn’t a memory that belonged at the burial of a brave man. Impatient that she could still feel the loss, Olivia decided to wait for Grace back at the carriage.

Lady Kate was already there, giving Lady Bea a long, hard hug.

“You continue to astonish and delight me, my love,” the duchess was saying as she swiped tears from both their cheeks. “That was a lovely gift you gave Grace and her father.”

Lady Bea, bright red and bobbing her head in some distress, huffed a bit. “Laurel… laurel wreath…”

“Indeed, he does deserve honor. I’m just glad you were here to offer it, for you know that the last time I sang, every cat in the neighborhood thought one of their own was being strangled.”

Olivia helped settle the old woman into the coach.

“Poor dear,” Lady Kate said as she shut the door. “She really feels so deeply.”

“But her singing,” Olivia said with an awed shake of her head. “Who could imagine?”

Lady Kate beamed. “Miraculous, isn’t it? For some reason, it was unaffected. She can remember every lyric and note she ever learned. Not only that, but if she truly gets agitated, sometimes the only way to get any sense out of her is to have her sing it. She has no problem then.” Lady Kate looked over to where Lady Bea waited inside the carriage, plucking nervously at her gloves. “Isn’t the mind an amazing thing? I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost her.”

“She’s been your companion a long while?”

Lady Kate smiled. “Oh, didn’t you know? She is my husband’s youngest sister.”

Olivia tried not to stare. Lady Bea was surely four decades older than Lady Kate. Not knowing how to respond, she merely nodded. “Well, we should get her back, as well as Grace.”

She turned to see Grace surrounded by soldiers, smiling at them as an older sister would.

“That presents a problem I hadn’t anticipated before,” Lady Kate said, sounding unusually reluctant.

Olivia looked up. “What?”

Lady Kate waved toward Grace’s friends. “They will assuredly wish to follow Grace home to continue the general’s tribute. And once I have been seen opening my house to them…”

“There will be no reason to exclude it to everyone else.” Olivia closed her eyes a moment. If the house was opened up to visitors, how could they keep Jack a secret until they could prove his loyalty? How could they uncover the truth about Jack’s actions without betraying him? Without betraying themselves?

It was inevitable that Gervaise would come. And Jack was straining at the bit to get up. How were they going to keep the two of them apart?

“We have less time than we’d thought, don’t we?”

Chapter 9

T
hey got a reprieve. By the time they returned to the house, Grace’s prediction had come true. Jack wasn’t going to be walking anywhere soon. His fever was rising. While Grace accepted condolences in the Lavender Salon, Olivia cared for an increasingly irritable Jack on the second floor. But nothing she did seemed to make an impact on the fever.

“I don’t want this,” he snapped, his voice growing thin as he pushed away the gruel Olivia had brought. “Devil take it, I don’t want
anything.
”

“You have mentioned that,” Olivia said, rescuing the bowl.

He shook his head as if he hadn’t heard her. “I need to get up. I’ve wasted enough time as it is. I need to find it.”

Olivia’s head snapped up. “Find it?”

He’d said much the same before, when he’d woken the first time.

Jack was rubbing his fingertips against his eyes. “I can’t have lost it. I have to find it.”

“Jack?” She remained very still, her heart beating hard. “What are you talking about?”

Jack’s eyes popped open. “What?”

“What is it you think you’ve lost?”

Now he looked impatient. “Lost? I haven’t lost anything. Except,” he all but snarled, “my bloody memory. Which my wife hasn’t seen fit to help me recover.”

“Only some of your memory,” Olivia answered, feeling increasingly unsettled.

Her Jack would never have used profanity before her. He never would have used this tone of voice, which made it sound as if he were being fueled by a core of fury.

“It’s time for a bit more willow bark, I think,” she said, looking away from the harsh light in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Liv,” he suddenly said, reaching out to brush a hand across her cheek. “It’s just I bloody well hate being ill. Especially after I’d just started to feel better.”

“Yes,” she said, sidling away from him and toward the medicine. “I gathered that as well.”

“You’ll find it for me, won’t you? You’ll find her?”

It went on like that for hours, as Olivia fretted and Jack slowly succumbed to the fever. One minute he was lucid, the next caught between two disparate worlds, and then finally he slipped into a place she didn’t know. Grace stopped by to check the wound and told Olivia that this should be the worst night of it. Lady Kate suggested someone else spell Olivia. But she couldn’t let them. She couldn’t seem to walk away while Jack was so ill.

By ten o’clock, she was mentally and physically drained. Jack slept fitfully, a cool cloth draped across his forehead. The room was stifling. Needing air, Olivia lifted the window and stood before the tepid breeze.

The window looked out over the wide, elegant Rue Royale and the Parc beyond, where couples strolled beneath the lush trees and flickering lanterns. Somewhere church bells tolled the hour. It had been six days since the battle, and normal street sounds had begun to return: the rattle of cart wheels, the clop of horse hoofs, the singsong cadence of flower-sellers, the sound of conversations punctuated by the musical laughter of women.

Olivia desperately wanted to be out there. No, she admitted. What she really wanted was just to be away. To maybe run back to her little cottage in Devon, where she could regain her distance. Where she could recover her sanity. She wanted to be gone before she succumbed to this insane ride of emotions and made an irredeemable mistake.

She couldn’t afford to fall in love again. Jack’s memory would return, and he would once again abandon her. And this time, it might just destroy her.

She didn’t leave, though. She stayed where she was, listening to Jack toss restlessly in the bed, plucking at his blanket, patting where his pockets would have been, searching for something.

For someone.

“Mimi!” Jack called, just as he had been all evening.

“Probably his old pony,” Olivia heard behind her.

Olivia turned to see Lady Kate standing at the door. “If it is, she’s a blond pony with breasts like pomegranates.”

The little duchess stepped in, and Olivia saw that she was wearing another dressing gown, this one of shimmery peacock silk decorated in gold dragons that writhed across her shoulders.

“Pomegranates?” she echoed, staring down at Jack. “Good Lord. I know he’s changed, but who knew he’d grown poetic?”

Olivia considered Jack a moment. “He has changed, hasn’t he?”

Lady Kate did her own assessment. “He isn’t really our golden Jack anymore. I think life caught up with him.”

Olivia shook her head. “Something did.” Returning to her seat, she retrieved the now-warm rag from Jack’s forehead. “I just wish he’d cease being such a nuisance and tell us he’s innocent.”

“Well, he’d better,” Lady Kate said with a grimace. “If he doesn’t, I haven’t a clue what we’re to do with him.”

Olivia looked down on his poor, battered face and sighed. “If you’d asked me before Waterloo, I would have had quite a few suggestions.”

Lady Kate smiled. “It does play hell with your self- righteous indignation when they go and get themselves half killed, doesn’t it?”

Olivia dipped her rag and wrung it out. “It does.” She grimaced. “Until they begin calling for another woman anyway.”

Lady Kate huffed. “Well, then, he doesn’t deserve your devoted attention. You should take the afternoon off tomorrow and rejoin the living.”

“I might,” she said. “If I haven’t smothered him with a pillow and been carted off to gaol first.”

Lady Kate actually laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not easing your burden, you know. I need you to help with visitors.”

Olivia shut her eyes against the instinctive panic. She didn’t want to face those people. Especially Gervaise. She knew as certain as sin that he’d be there.

But would it be any easier up here?

“Someone will sit with Jack,” Lady Kate said, “and Grace will join us. It seems she can’t consult with Dr.Hume for at least another day, and she doesn’t trust anyone else.”

Olivia felt a bubble of anxiety well in her chest.

“I’ve quite a notorious circle of friends,” Lady Kate continued in light tones. “You’ll undoubtedly be offended.”

“Nonsense,” Olivia retorted, lifting a trembling hand to wipe Jack’s face. “I’m a divorced countess who is sheltering a possible traitor. I imagine they all pale in comparison.”

Lady Kate’s response was serious. “I think you need to attend, Olivia. You need to help us evaluate anything we hear about Jack.”

Not from Gervaise. She couldn’t face Gervaise.

“If Jack is better.”

“Even if he isn’t. I don’t think we can wait.”

Olivia sighed, knowing that Kate was right. “If Jack doesn’t remember soon, we’ll need to ask for help. But I don’t know who we can trust with the truth.”

“Funny you should say that,” Lady Kate said. “I was just about to suggest my cousin Diccan. He’s in the diplomatic corps, which should mean he can discover if there is any kind of official investigation. And I know for a fact he’s able to keep a secret.”

Olivia lifted an eyebrow. “Even if it jeopardizes the safety of his nation?”

For once, Lady Kate didn’t have a glib answer. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But you can see what you think tomorrow. He’s promised to attend my at-home. If nothing else, he should keep us entertained. He’s raised condescension to an art form.”

That undoubtedly sounded better to Lady Kate than it did to Olivia. “Fine.”

Kate had turned to leave when Jack began to toss again.

“Mimi!” he called. “
Ah, mignonne
,
je trouver vous!”

Lady Kate stopped. “That’s French.”

Olivia nodded. “He seems quite fluent.”

Lady Kate stared. “His French is appalling! I’ve heard it.”

“Not anymore.”

“Mimi…”

“
Ici
, Jack,” she crooned until he quieted.
“Je suis Mimi. Soyez facile.”

Be easy
. As if it were that simple. Olivia thought the words would burn a hole through her chest.

Lady Kate stared. “I don’t suppose he’s said anything at all… important.”

“Like whether he was in the French Army or sold secrets to Napoleon? No. I’ve asked in English
and
French. All he’ll say is that he’s searching for something he swears he had. I thought it might have been that dispatch, so I gave him a twist of paper. He dropped it. So I think he’s missing something else.”

“Mimi,” he repeated.
“Où êtes-vous.” Where are you?

“Besides Mimi, of course, which I consider careless of him.” Her smile was hard. “A man should never misplace his mistress.”

She lasted another two hours. She’d been trying to dribble willow bark tea down Jack’s parched throat, when suddenly he grabbed her, knocking the cup over and splashing her.

“Tell me I didn’t lose her,” he demanded, grabbing her hand. “It’s all I have of…” His eyes were open, and they looked haunted. “
Tell
me.”

“You didn’t lose her,” she said so he would calm.

And, by degrees, he did. His breathing deepened. His grasp on her slackened, and his eyes closed. “I had it…”

He began to pick at his cover again, resuming his endless search. And suddenly it was too much. She couldn’t stay.

She rang for Harper. When the sergeant arrived, still tucking his shirt into his pants, Olivia handed Jack’s care over without a backward glance.

She didn’t know where she meant to go. She was exhausted, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. As she walked down the hall, what Jack had said kept replaying itself over and over in her head.
He’d had it.
Something he kept searching for. Something that might help him rest.

Suddenly she thought of the dispatch bag. The dispatches themselves rested in Lady Kate’s safe. But Olivia had returned the bag to her portmanteau. Could she have overlooked something? She hadn’t removed Jack’s personal items. What if she had missed something there?

Well, she’d get no rest until she looked. Carrying her candle with her, she returned to the room she shared with Grace.

Grace lay on her side, fast asleep, and Olivia heard the faintest whisper of snoring through Lady Kate’s bedroom door. No time like the present.

Setting down her candle, she knelt and retrieved the bag from where she’d stored it in her luggage, wrapped in muslin to keep Jack’s blood from staining her clothes. And then for endless minutes, she just stared at it, her hand instinctively against her locket.

She needed to put more space between her and Jack, not less. She should give this to Lady Kate to search. But even Lady Kate didn’t know Jack’s things as Olivia did. So she grabbed the bag and candle and fled to the kitchen, where she’d be alone.

The cook’s domain was pristine, every pot shining, every surface cleaned. Setting the bag on a scarred oak table, Olivia lit a lamp. The room beyond receded into darkness.

Taking a breath, she upended the bag. There was a clinking as the items rolled out. She ignored them and examined the bag. She turned it inside out and patted it to see if there were secret hiding places. She didn’t find any. Which meant she was left with Jack’s things.

She’d felt them before, identified them. Now she had to examine them in the light.

A snuffbox. A flask. Jack’s signet ring.

Oh
…

She loved that ring. Jack had slipped it onto her finger when he’d proposed, an ancient gold signet with the Wyndham griffin rampant etched across the face and the motto
Summum Laude
beneath.
The highest honor.
Jack had always laughed about the family motto, coined according to legend by a stiff-necked crusader. Meaning not the greatest accolades, but the perfect virtue. Jack had delighted in telling her that generations of Wyndhams had decided that since it was impossible to live up to the motto, they’d done their best to live itdown.

They hadn’t, of course. They had been exemplary landlords and responsible members of parliament. Olivia rubbed the old gold of the ring, as if conjuring the truth of Jack’s place in that line. Then, deliberately, she set it aside.

The gold and enamel snuffbox was uninteresting, except it carried with it fresh memories with the scent of Macouba and Spanish Bran, Jack’s favorite mix. After a quick examination, she set that aside, too, and picked up the flask.

Typical. She could easily imagine Jack taking a last swig of brandy as he rode into battle. It was a beautiful thing, a flat square of chased silver, but it was nothing that should have explained his anxiety. She turned it over and unscrewed the top to sniff at it, but smelled nothing but brandy.

She was just about to put it down when her thumbnail caught on the long edge. Her heart picked up. She turned the flask over to examine it more closely, sliding her thumb over its edges.

There. An almost imperceptible seam. Slipping her nail into the minute crack, she worked at it until with a little
snap
the casing hinged open.

And she had her answer.

Blond. With breasts like pomegranates, perfectly visible through the scandalous lawn of her chemisette. Beautifully painted on an oval ivory inset, the miniature was of an exquisite, doe-eyed beauty wearing little more than a smile. It reminded Olivia of Romney’s paintings of Emma Hamilton, a face of sunlight and whimsy, a body to inspire poetry, hair the color of sunlight.