Friends and Foes (11 page)

Sorrel Kendrick was stubborn and razor-tongued, but there was no denying she was beautiful and captivating. And, in that moment, entirely kissable.

His eyes focused on that enormously captivating mouth of hers as he leaned ever closer. Mere inches separated them. Then less. Then—

“Where in heaven’s name has that boy gotten off to?”

Mater. Philip let out a breath of disappointment, the tension of the moment gone as he stepped back from Sorrel.

He cleared his throat a little awkwardly and led the way into dinner, all the while avoiding Sorrel’s eyes and keeping his mouth shut. He’d very nearly made a fool out of himself.

Lampton War Tactic Number Eleven: Kissing the enemy is generally considered a strategic misstep.

Life was entirely unfair.

Sorrel had promised herself as a child that she would never allow an arrogant, self-absorbed man to hurt her. She’d gone to extraordinary lengths to put up impenetrable barriers, to hide all weaknesses. Her father had never been permitted to see anything but the confident, independent side of her. The stable hands knew her as a bruising rider and take-charge lady. She never allowed any vulnerabilities to show.

Yet in the previous week she’d allowed the cockiest of coxcombs to see her fall
twice,
to apparently witness her disintegration into fever, to encroach on her sickbed. Standing there in that moment in the corridor, she’d been too addlepated to extract herself from his arms, too distracted by a sense of comfort she’d never felt in all her life to simply step away. She’d nearly allowed him to kiss her. Indeed, his mother had only barely prevented that disaster.

Standing there, balancing precariously on her walking stick, Sorrel reached the horrible realization that she had grown dangerously defenseless. “Lampton is not Father,” Fennel had said. But he easily could be. He could tear her to pieces with a word.

“Miss Kendrick.” Lady Lampton obviously found Sorrel’s presence as shocking as Sorrel had found Philip’s sudden appearance a few moments earlier. “We were told you would not be joining us this evening.”

“I desperately needed a view other than my own bed.” Sorrel tried to respond cheerily. Her well-laid plans for joining the party for dinner seemed less wise by the minute.

“And a grand entrance it will be,” Philip assured her.

“I hadn’t planned such a dramatic arrival.” Sorrel sighed, wishing she’d stayed in bed. “The stairs were harder than I had anticipated.”

“Sorrel,” Philip softly scolded, “you could have asked for—”

“I do not need help.” She was sick to death of looking like a fool in front of this man!

“I will tell Lady Cavratt you are coming,” Lady Lampton said then disappeared far too quickly for any objections.

Feeling herself scowl, Sorrel began a begrudging trek to the dining room. Philip stopped her after one step.

“Sorrel, I . . . about the, uh . . .” He looked decidedly uncomfortable. She should have been glad to see it but, instead, felt something akin to empathy for the maddening man. “I know I . . . it was . . . ungentlemanly . . .”

“I understood you were raised to be a gentleman above all else.” Sorrel raised a questioning eyebrow. “The very reason you intend to offer me your arm, I am certain.”

She hardly required an escort to supper, nor physical support, but she hoped to interrupt what she feared he was about to say. If she had to listen to an awkward apology for temporarily losing his senses long enough to nearly kiss a lady as undesirable as she, Sorrel would positively whack him with her walking stick. Let him make of the affectation what he would after that!

With a smile that seemed to communicate gratitude, Philip bowed and offered his arm. They walked slowly—her hip ached already—toward the sound of conversation ahead in the dining room.

“We have a new member of our party. I don’t know if you have heard.”

“Another brother?” Sorrel asked.

“Not for a few more days. This is a cousin of Lord Henley’s. A Mr. Garner.”

“Marjie did not mention him. Apparently he does not hold a candle to your Stanley. She does not seem to notice anyone other than him.”

“I have noticed a similar affliction in Stanley,” Philip said with an amused smile.

They continued for a brief moment in silence. Sorrel wondered if anything would come of the budding romance between their siblings. She wondered if Philip were thinking the same thing.

“Mr. Garner seems a likable enough gentleman,” Philip said. “Lizzie assures us he will be a welcome addition.”

“Sorrel!” Marjie’s shock was unmistakable.

Sorrel silently sighed. They’d barely entered the dining room and her sister was nearly hysterical already.

“You should not be up and about,” Marjie said.

“I feel fine other than a little ache.” Sorrel kept her voice low in the hope that Marjie would follow her lead.

“You are in pain?”

“You know perfectly well I am always in pain.”

Philip’s grip on Sorrel’s arm seemed to momentarily tighten. Certainly Sorrel had merely imagined it.

“I still cannot like that you came all the way down here on your own.”

“As you can see, Miss Marjie, she is not alone,” Philip said with a look of immense satisfaction. “You certainly cannot object to my attentions. I believe I am capable of seeing that a young lady comes to no harm on her way to dinner.”

Marjie’s lips moved silently as if searching for an answer. She finally settled on “Of course” before returning to her seat.

“How did you do that?” Sorrel whispered to her unexpected rescuer as he slid her chair under her. “I can never seem to bring an end to Marjie’s distress over my health.”

“It is the cravat, Sorrel,” Philip replied perfectly seriously. “I tried to explain to you yesterday in your room. The knot, an original, you will remember, communicates my authority in ways mere words never could.”

“I noticed the knot.” Sorrel cocked her head. “The only thing it communicated to me was its own ridiculousness.”

A smile seemed to twitch at the corner of Philip’s mouth. She fought down an answering smile of her own.

“You really should try something more fitting,” she said.

“What would you suggest, my dear? I am certain my valet would eagerly accept your advice.”

My dear?
Sorrel knew some gentlemen used the term rather generally. So why did Philip’s use of it seem to render her temporarily speechless? She tried to cover her affected state by looking ponderous.

“I have the very one,” Sorrel said once she’d regained her voice. “The Horse Collar.”

His mouth dropped open just as she’d expected it to. “My valet would literally fall down dead if I even suggested such a thing. Perhaps you do not realize it is so unrefined even the costermongers are forswearing it.”

“I had no idea.” Her sarcasm dripped like rain.

A grin split Philip’s face. He took hold of her hand and squeezed it in a decidedly friendly gesture. “I have missed you these last two days, Sorrel. No one else would have dared suggest such a thing to me, dandified as I am. I believe you shall keep me humble yet.”

“I am no miracle worker, Philip.”

With a low chuckle, Philip tucked into his fish. Sorrel hadn’t quite recovered her appetite, so she merely picked and nibbled. Her attention kept returning to Philip. He’d missed her? Why? And why did she enjoy hearing him say so? She did not easily trust people. Perhaps Philip was more trustworthy than he appeared.

“That is our newest arrival.” Philip nodded toward the head of the table where Lizzie spoke animatedly with a man whose slightly balding head Sorrel could barely see.

“Mr. Garner, I think you said,” Sorrel remembered.

“That sounds right.”

A moment later the newcomer turned to speak with Lord Henley. His face came fully into view, and Sorrel’s stomach leaped into her throat. She had always had an astounding ability to remember faces, and she knew that man. He had been at the inn back in Kent where Philip and she had first come across each other. This Mr. Garner and Philip had been in the same private dining parlor in an obscure, out-of-the-way inn several days’ journey from where they were both now residing.

Sorrel glanced across at Philip, now listening to his brother Jason talk about something or other. Suspicions began creeping into Sorrel’s thoughts. Philip had said, or at least very heavily had implied, that he did not know Mr. Garner. Indeed, he had acted as though he wasn’t even sure of the man’s name. Yet Sorrel knew they’d spent at least one evening closeted in an all-but-empty inn. Even if that meeting had been a coincidence, they couldn’t help but have become acquainted under such circumstances.

Something was decidedly havey-cavey. Why would Philip pretend to not know a man with whom he was obviously at least minimally acquainted? Surely the two men would recall having met. So why the secrecy? Why the act?

“Certainly that dissatisfied expression is not still for my osten-tatious cravat.” Philip’s laughing voice interrupted her thoughts. “It is not so overdone as all that.”

Sorrel could only manage a silent nod of her head. She seriously suspected Philip was hiding something. She’d learned long ago not to trust gentlemen with an exaggerated opinion of themselves. So why did learning Philip might not be entirely trustworthy sting so acutely?

“There! I see it!” Fennel’s enthusiasm flowed unrestrained. “The outer edge of Ipswich.”

Sorrel had found the perfect opportunity to make the trip she’d been anticipating ever since Lizzie’s invitation had arrived so many weeks earlier. She’d been trying to think of a way to get to Ipswich for nearly a year.

Stanley and Philip had suggested a trip to Ipswich to obtain a few remaining items on their Christmas gift list. With Christmas a mere week and a half away and the arrival of the remaining Jonquil brothers expected in a matter of days, this would be the last opportunity for such a distant excursion until after the first of the winter holidays.

Fennel and Charlie had wrangled their way into the traveling group, followed by Lord and Lady Cavratt and Mr. Garner. Sorrel had talked Fennel into securing her a seat in one of the carriages with the stipulation that he not mention a word of it to Marjie. Instead she’d left a note. Marjie would lecture her unrelentingly when they returned. It would be worth every word.

“How fortunate the weather held,” Catherine said after their group alighted in Ipswich.

Sorrel nodded her agreement.

“You seem particularly grateful to arrive,” Catherine whispered. “Yet somehow I do not think you are obtaining a gift.”

Sorrel turned to her. Catherine was nearly silent in most instances, but Sorrel had come to recognize the sharp intellect at work behind the timid countenance.

“I have a rather important errand here in Ipswich,” Sorrel admitted sotto voce. “I am hoping to convince Fennel to accompany me. With there being no room for my lady’s maid—”

“Charlie and Fennel will be off on a lark before you have a chance to ask, I daresay.” Catherine eyed her regretfully. A smile of unmistakable genuineness crossed her face. “Could Crispin and I accompany you?”

“The errand is of a rather . . . um, personal nature.” Sorrel shifted uncomfortably.

“You cannot walk the streets of Ipswich entirely unaccompanied,” Catherine warned. “It is certainly not so unforgivable as it would be in London, but Crispin does not believe it entirely safe.”

Sorrel mulled the dilemma over in her head. She would never have another opportunity to pursue a possibility that had been little more than a distant hope until a month earlier. “Would you promise not to tell my sister?”

Catherine’s suspicions were obviously raised.

“I am doing nothing objectionable, I promise you.”

Catherine smiled kindly. “Crispin and I will prove the very souls of discretion.”

“Thank you.”

Less than one-quarter hour later, Catherine and Crispin walked Sorrel to an unassuming door not far from the shops of Ipswich without any questions other than when they should return for her and to mention they would be nearby. Sorrel took a reassuring breath and watched as Crispin walked up the steps, her card in hand, and knocked. He’d laughed, saying he would enjoy “playing footman.”

“This young lady is expected, I believe,” Crispin informed the imposing butler who opened the door. The man took the card and disappeared inside.

A manservant, Sorrel noted. That was a promising sign. A moment later the butler returned. “Dr. Darrow says to come in directly.”

Sorrel took the steps with what little dignity a woman dependent on a cane could muster. Crispin and Catherine looked curious but honored their word to not press for information. The door closed behind Sorrel, and she suddenly felt a whisper of misgiving.

Sorrel followed the butler’s retreating steps past the door to what appeared to be an informal sitting room. The tastefully decorated corridor boasted freshly cut flowers sprinkled about in cut-glass vases. Dr. Darrow must have been relatively wealthy to afford hothouse flowers in the dead of winter. Ahead, the butler opened a heavy oak door and held it, waiting for her.

“Miss Kendrick,” he announced.

Sorrel stepped across the threshold into a cozy library, lit and warmed by a welcoming fire. She felt more at ease immediately. The books lining every wall appeared to be organized by color—odd, she thought, but thorough.

“Your letter intrigued me, Miss Kendrick,” Dr. Darrow admitted after the butler stepped out. The physician’s voice made his Scottish heritage clear. “Please have a seat.” He motioned to a nearby chair. “I have many questions for you.”

Sorrel nodded and limped her way to a very sturdy-looking armchair and sat rather anxiously.

“This is Mrs. Darrow.” He indicated a stout, bright-faced woman of indistinguishable years seated near the fireplace.

“Pleased to meet you,” Sorrel offered.

“Your letter indicated multiple breaks to the right leg.” Dr. Darrow immediately took up the topic at hand. “How many, precisely? And where?”

“I will tell you what I know,” Sorrel prefaced—she possessed no medical expertise. “In the incident my ankle was broken, both bones below the knee, and a break in the hip of the right leg.”

“The incident?” Dr. Darrow pressed. “Explain that.”

“I was—” Sorrel swallowed back a lump. She hated talking about that day.

“Knowing how it happened is generally vital.”

“I was trampled by a horse,” Sorrel blurted, hoping to get the words out before they registered.

“The bones, then, may have been crushed and not merely broken.” The doctor’s quill scratched as he wrote something on a piece of parchment. “Is there residual pain?”

“Constant.”

“Where?”

“Mostly in my hip. Also in the lower leg if I walk for long or put weight on it repeatedly.”

“Your letter indicated the leg was not straight. Was this true before the trampling? A club foot perhaps?”

Sorrel shook her head. “I do not believe the bones healed in proper alignment.”

“May I see the leg?”

A well-bred young lady did not, generally, show her leg to an unknown male. The man in question, however, was a doctor, and Sorrel desperately needed his expert opinion. She’d read in
The Times
months earlier that he had saved the leg of a child struck by a carriage. How she hoped he could help her!

Skirt hiked to her knee with her leg stretched out on the brown velvet sofa, her stockings and boots removed, Sorrel kept her eyes fixed on the doctor. She had absolutely no desire to see her gnarled, twisted leg again. He didn’t seem to enjoy the sight any more than she did. Sorrel appreciated the professional curiosity in his bespectacled eyes.

“The doctor that set this ought to be drawn and quartered,” he finally pronounced, taking a seat beside the sofa. “A stable hand could have achieved better alignment.”

“It was never set.” Both Darrows looked at her with astonishment. Sorrel took a deep breath and explained. “My father took a rather severe view of life. He felt accidents and illnesses were judgments from God and that suffering would purge one of sin. He wouldn’t allow the breaks to be set.”

Dr. Darrow snorted his derision. “A zealot, was he?”

Sorrel didn’t reply. She preferred not to think of her father.

“Does he disapprove of your being here?”

“My father has since passed away.”

“Can you walk unassisted?” The doctor returned to the interrogation.

“A few steps. I need my walking stick for anything more than that.”

“Lack of balance or pain?”

“Both. Balance presents the first difficulty. The pain always follows.”

Dr. Darrow sat silently for a moment. “The bones healed so misaligned,” he finally said, “you have been left, essentially, clubfooted. The leg bows as well.”

The catalog of deformities was not pleasant to hear. It was no wonder Philip had so quickly decided she could never be beautiful. Sorrel dismissed the thought, determined to focus on the interview at hand.

“That, along with what is probably a shattered hip, accounts for the pain and balancing difficulties,” the doctor said.

“Can anything be done?” Sorrel hoped she didn’t sound too desperate. The thought of living out her life in constant, unrelieved pain was almost too much to bear.

Dr. Darrow pushed his spectacles back up his prominent nose. “It is possible, if the bones were rebroken and then set properly, that the alignment could be improved.”

The bones rebroken.
She remembered all too vividly the pain of the initial break to think on such a thing with any degree of equanimity. It would be agonizing. Yet if it worked, she’d endure it. Her entire body tensed at the drastic procedure, but she could not deny that it was the first ray of hope she’d had in months, years.

“That, of course, would not entirely cure the limp,” Dr. Darrow said.

Her heart instantly dropped. A piece of that momentary hope dissipated with his words.

“The hip is part of the overall problem,” the doctor explained, “and rebreaking will not address that injury.”

“You said ‘not entirely.’” Sorrel needed to know what benefit she could reap from his suggestion.

“A straight leg would alleviate some of your struggles and might reduce your dependence on the cane.”

“I see.” Every promise came with a clause. It
might
work. It
could
help. Sorrel wasn’t sure what she wanted: a painful operation that might do nothing at all for her or living the rest of her life utterly broken.

“I know of a surgeon, a skilled and respected surgeon, who could offer you a more definite answer,” Dr. Darrow said. “He has performed several similar procedures.”

That sounded at least a little promising. “I would appreciate his direction,” Sorrel said, “and your permission to name you as my reference.”

Dr. Darrow nodded. “I will write to him myself, as well.”

Sorrel reached the Darrows’ front door just as Catherine and Crispin ascended the outer steps. They dutifully asked no questions about her appointment.

Crispin broke the silence some five minutes later. “It is nearly time to meet for luncheon. Perhaps we should begin walking toward the Dove and Crow? The rest of our group should arrive within moments.”

Sorrel glanced at the slip of paper in her hand on which Dr. Darrow had scrawled a name and direction. A Dr. MacAslon in Edinburgh. Edinburgh! How in heaven’s name was she supposed to get to Scotland?

The question lingered in the back of her thoughts as she unseeingly ate the thick fish stew served at the Dove and Crow. A trip to Scotland in her condition could take weeks. She’d discovered during the journey from Kent that, though thirty miles a day was possible the first day or so, her stamina dropped off rather quickly after that. By the last day of their travels, she’d been completely undone within two hours.

Edinburgh was nearly four times as far from home as Kinnley. If she somehow managed to convince her sometimes-suffocating family to allow her to make the journey and undergo the treatment, would she be able to endure two weeks of carriage travel? Could she complete the trip to Scotland healthy enough to go forward with a surgery? Where would she stay once she arrived? Who would stay with her? Who would care for her while she recovered? Who would watch over her family while she was gone?

Her hopes dimmed as the difficulties of the undertaking sunk in. Still, she couldn’t completely shrug off the possibility of being freed from even some of her burden. She might emerge with less of a limp, perhaps even less pain. She might depend less on her walking stick. How she longed to regain
some
of her independence, some of her self-respect.

If only she had someone with whom she might discuss the situation. Her thoughts immediately turned to Philip. Despite her initial doubts, his mother had been quite correct about him. Philip was intelligent, sharp-witted. If anyone could help sort out the logistics of such a thing, he could.

Catherine’s voice broke into Sorrel’s reflections.“Just as soon as the rest of our party arrives, Crispin will call up the coaches.”

“Have you any idea what is keeping Lord Lampton and Mr. Garner?”

“Likely the same thing that has delayed your brother and young Charlie—Ipswich offers too many diversions.”

“I am going to take a couple of turns in the corridor while we wait,” Sorrel said. “I need to stretch my legs before confining them to the coach for two hours.”

“Certainly.” Catherine smiled kindly at her. “Travel must be uncomfortable for you.”

“Far more than I like to admit.” Sorrel, walking stick in hand, limped from the room.

The first turn down the empty corridor proved slow and awkward—the cold combined with her stretch of immobility at lunch had stiffened her joints considerably. She began her second turn but came up short at a door near the back end. A serving girl stepped from the taproom into the corridor, and Sorrel was obliged to wait while she passed.

As she stood there, leaning precariously against the wall, her eyes and ears turned toward the public room and the gathering of humanity stretched out before her. Boisterous conversations mingled with laughter. Men of obvious means drank beside the lowliest of stable hands. Nearest the door, leaning over tankards of ale, two men were engaged in an intense conversation.

The man who sat in her line of sight, his face turned toward her enough to be seen, seemed particularly consumed by their tête-à-tête. His rugged, sun-darkened face bore heavy creases, as though he spent an inordinate amount of time in the sun. Perhaps he was a farm worker or a sailor.

“North of Brownlow,” the tanned man said to his companion.

The second man’s head shook back and forth in obvious disagreement. “No place to make port,” he said.

“Then make port up shore and row down.” The first man sounded agitated. “You
will
be there.”

“Of course,” came the reply. “Twenty-ninth. Double twelves.”

A grunted confirmation escaped the first man’s throat before he downed the remainder of his tankard.

“What do I tell Bélanger?”

“Pêchez de le fontaine.”
The tanned man’s French accent was perfect. Too perfect, in fact.

Sorrel stared for a moment. His English was infallible, yet he spoke French like an émigré. Something about his statement struck her as strange. What, precisely, bothered her about it, she couldn’t immediately say.