My Lord Wicked (Historical Regency Romance) (6 page)

He sat next to her, and neither spoke for a minute. Then he said, "You must be thinking how out of place this summer house is with a medieval abbey." He eyed the columns surrounding them.

She gazed at his craggy face and fought the urge to sweep back the wet, dark hair from his brow. She nodded.

"It was built fifty years ago when my father returned from his tour. I always thought it rather pretentious, but today I find it most welcome."

"As do I," she said, her teeth no longer chattering. She pulled the coat closely about her. "I fear you are cold, my lord."

"I am much more used to this damp climate than you, Miss Lambeth. I fear you will take a fever."

"I assure you I never get sick," she said confidently.

The rain began to come down even harder, thudding so loudly they dared not attempt conversation and so thick they could not see their horses tied up not twenty feet away. Her guardian was no longer dry. The slanting rains began to pelt him.

"Please," she shouted, "share the coat with me."

He gave her a wondrous look, his eyes moving down the length of her body, and he shook his head. "I can tolerate this tedious wetness quite well, thank you." He did not have to raise his deep voice to be heard.

The rains moved quickly northward, allowing them to mount their horses and return to the abbey, Stacks insisting she wear his coat. A footman bearing an umbrella met them on the puddled drive in front of the abbey and helped Freddie down from her horse.

In her room a fire blazed, and Maggie had dry clothes laid out for her. With her maid's assistance, Freddie donned the rust colored dress her guardian had purchased for her the day before. Maggie brushed out her wet hair and put it in curl papers as Freddie sat in front of the fire. She watched Maggie's deft fingers do their work with Freddie's challenging mop of lifeless hair. She was incredibly drowsy, and as soon as Maggie finished, Freddie slipped under her covers and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

When she awoke it was dark, and she still felt chilled. Her hair was now dry, and Maggie arranged it for her. The maid did have a flair. Somehow she managed to make it look like a Grecian goddess. The freckled young abigail stood back and gazed at her mistress. "There, now, don't you look elegant, miss. His lordship will be pleased, I am sure."

At the thought of Lord Stacks' opinion of her, Freddie's stomach jumped. Running her hand across her damp forehead, Freddie said, "I'll go on down to dinner now. It's like an oven in this room."

Maggie gave her a puzzled look as Freddie left the room.

How very odd, Freddie thought. When she woke up minutes ago, she was still chilled. She was so cold, her teeth chattered. Now she was sweating!

Lord Stacks rose from the table when she walked into the dining room. "How lovely you look, Miss Lambeth."

Freddie blushed. "'Tis merely Maggie's artistry. She is quite talented arranging hair." A footman held out her seat, and she sat down. "I have decided to let her cut my hair."

"It pleases me that you have confidence in her."

A footman placed a bowl of turtle soup in front of her. Her throat felt raw, and the soup soothed it. But when the other foods were set before her, she suddenly lost all appetite. A pity there was no fire in this room, she thought wistfully. Now she was chilled again. Very chilled. The candles in ornate silver candelabra in front of her beckoned. She waved her hands in front of them for warmth.

"Are you cold, Miss Lambeth?" Stacks asked.

She nodded.

He turned to the nearest footman. "Go to Lady Stacks' old room and fetch a Kashmir shawl for Miss Lambeth."

She wanted to protest, but the thought of the shawl was much too welcome. She hugged herself to keep warm as she watched her guardian eat hardily.

"I see you are not eating, Miss Lambeth," he said.

"I fear I have a sore throat. A pity it is too early for butterwort, for nothing soothes an inflamed throat better than a concoction of its leaves and roots--gargled with a bit of honey."

He shot her a concerned glance. "Should you like some tea?"

"I should love a cup of tea."

Lord Stacks ordered another footman to instruct Cook to bring a pot of tea for Miss Lambeth.

How odd it felt to have someone solicitous of her comforts, Freddie thought, a warm feeling blanketing her inside and out. By the time the footman returned with the cream-colored shawl, she felt she no longer needed it, but allowed him to wrap it around her for politeness. Now she felt horridly hot again, but the tea felt good on her irritated throat.

She continued to watch her guardian eat as she sipped the warm tea.

"Do you play cribbage, Miss Lambeth?" he asked between bites of pickled beets.

She nodded. Now she felt chilled again. She pulled the soft shawl around her, imagining how lovely it must have looked with Lady Stack's blond hair. Freddie wrapped her hands around the porcelain teacup for warmth.

He instructed a footman to set up a game table in front of the fire in the library. "You'll be warm there, Miss Lambeth," Lord Stacks said.

She was warm there. Hot actually. Terribly hot. Sweat began to run from her forehead as she peered at the hazy cards in her hand.

Lord Stacks watched her with concern. "Are you feeling well, Miss Lambeth?"

She gazed at him with sad eyes. "Not altogether. I do not understand it at all. I am
never
sick."

He sprang to his feet, moved to her side, and stroked her forehead. "You're burning with fever!"

She suddenly went limp.

He scooped her into his arms and strode with her across the broad room, calling for a servant to open the door. The footman just outside the door complied, and a bevy of servants followed in his wake as he carried his ward to her room where Maggie awaited her mistress.

Worry flashed across Maggie's face when she saw Freddie limp in Lord Stacks' arms. "Oh, my dear, whatever is the matter?"

"I fear Miss Lambeth has taken a fever."

Scurrying to the bed and pulling back the heavy counterpane, Maggie said, "I daresay it's them wet clothes she was a wearin' today."

Stacks folded his lips into a grim line. "I daresay you're correct."

"She'll be better in the morn," Maggie said reassuringly.

"You will stay beside her tonight?"

Maggie nodded. "Oh, yes, milord." She moved to the clothes press to fetch Freddie's night lawn.

A forlorn feeling washed over Stacks as he closed Freddie's door behind him, leaving her to Maggie's care. The girl was very sick. And it was all his fault. Allowing her to go galloping across the countryside in that flimsy, threadbare garb, knowing the clouds were blackening.

Surely Maggie was right. The girl would be good as new in the morning.

But when morning came, she was no better. Her fever still raged, and Maggie imparted tales of Freddie's delirious, uncomfortable night.

He walked to Freddie's bedside. She looked so very pale and wan lying there, her nettled tresses fanned out on the rumpled pillow. She reminded him of a helpless child. "Good morning, Miss Lambeth."

She mumbled something incoherent.

He turned frightened eyes on Maggie. "I'll send for Dr. Edgekirth."

"But I thought---"

"Never mind that!" He turned on his heel and hurried from the oppressive room.

Never mind that he had vowed never to have Edgekirth set foot inside Marshbanks Abbey again. Would Edgekirth even come?

There was nothing to do but go to Edgekirth himself. Forget his own pride.

For the girl. She was very sick, and it was terribly important to him that she get well.

Chapter 5

Dr. Edgekirth, stirring up a cloud of dust from the other direction, was approaching his stone cottage at the same time as Stacks. He eyed the baron suspiciously. "Good day, Stacks," the physician said curtly, dismounting.

Blast the man's infernal insolence, Stacks thought. Edgekirth was the only man in these parts who refused to address him as
my lord
. Of course, there had been a time when Edgekirth had spoken to him with more courtesy.

Before Elizabeth's death.

Edgekirth refused to meet Stacks' eyes. "What brings you here?"

The man did get right to the point, Stacks thought. "I--that is, my ward--has urgent need of your services." Stacks paused, his brow furrowed. "Your professional ethics will no doubt force you to deliver aid, even though it be at Marshbanks Abbey."

Edgekirth eyed Stacks warily. He was a few years younger than Stacks, with a muscular frame and healthy, blond good looks. Too proud and too frank, of course.

The young doctor untied the roan gelding he had just tethered. "What is the lad's ailment?"

Stacks coughed. "My ward is a girl. She runs a dangerously high fever."

The physician, his eyes flashing with anger, muttered an oath under his breath, then asked, "Had your ward any complaints before?"

Stacks thought for a moment, remembering Freddie lapping up last night's soup. "Her throat."

Edgekirth nodded, throwing a leg over his horse.

***

Impervious to the chilling winds, Stacks paced the cloister outside Freddie's chamber as Edgekirth examined her. Stacks had wanted to be present during the examination, but then remembering that Freddie was a young lady, knew his presence would be totally improper.

Why was the blasted man taking such a wretchedly long time, Stack wondered, thrusting his frigid hands into his coat's pockets. The longer the physician was with her, Stacks feared, the more grave her prognosis.

His sickening worry chiseled into a rockbed of painful emotions buried deep and undisturbed since Elizabeth’s death ten years earlier. Undisturbed until the previous night. As soon as he’d realized fever ravaged poor Freddie, a scorching fear gripped him. He would lose her, too, just as he’d lost Elizabeth.

He remembered how she had looked as she seemed to float into the dining room the night before, her posture regal, her light brown hair curled, gleaming golden highlights. She looked very fine indeed in that rust colored dress they had selected in York. Mrs. Baron had been quite correct. The girl did wear clothes well. Very well indeed.

And now she lay lifeless, a raging fever sapping the life from her.

After what seemed to Stacks to be an interminable length of time, Edgekirth emerged from the room, a grim expression on his golden face. He met Stacks' anxious gaze icily. "Why did you not tell me the patient is a young woman, not a girl?"

"She
is
merely a child."

"I think not," Edgekirth said, his voice harsh. "What I want to know is how can a man such as you be allowed to have a young maiden under his roof?"

"That is no concern of yours," Stacks snapped. "What
is
your concern is the girl's prospects of recovery." Stacks' eyes softened. "How serious is it, Edgekirth?"

The doctor shrugged. "It could go either way. I've bled her. What do you know of her constitution?"

"She has always enjoyed good health. In fact, she was used to being around sick people as she assisted her father with his surgery since she was nine years old. Even the fever that took his life spared her."

Edgekirth nodded and spoke more to himself than to the man he abhorred. "That is in her favor." He moved away. "Have someone with her at all times. Try to keep her hydrated." He handed a Stacks a bottle of elixir. "See that she takes this twice a day. I fear her lungs may be inflamed. Expect me again in the morning."

Freddie's delirium and fever raged all through the day. Her fine dresses and bonnets arrived from York. This was the day he had planned to tell her she was going back down south, he thought morosely. Stacks' eyes moistened when he remembered of how sweet she would have looked in the fine dresses. Swallowing hard, he hoped she would recover to wear them.

Having sat all night with her mistress, Maggie's step was weary, her voice haggard. When evening came, Stacks told the young servant he would stay the night with Freddie.

He pulled up a chair beside her bed and watched her sleep fitfully. How very thin she looked now. He longed to see the green flash in her eyes, not the dark, sunken circles beneath her pallid lids. At times she lay as still as the dead, her labored breathing the only sign of life. After a few hours of troubled sleep, she began to flail about violently, her hair and bedclothes damp and hot, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. She rambled incoherently, her eyes not seeing, her words unintelligible.

Remembering Edgekirth's orders about keeping her hydrated, Stacks would place a gentle arm around her to lift her as he forced cool water through her parched lips. Several times during the night, he thought of calling for Edgekirth, her condition seemed so dangerous. But he knew there was nothing more Edgekirth could do. He would wait until morning. Throughout the long night, Stacks found himself saying a silent prayer for Freddie's recovery.

Not long past dawn, Edgekirth arrived to check on his patient. Casting an angry glance at Stacks, the doctor ordered the baron out of the room while he performed an examination. When he was finished, he met the worried Stacks in the windy corridor outside her room and reported no change. "I will return late in the afternoon. Let us hope the girl shows improvement by then."

But there was no improvement.

Days passed, and her fever persisted. In his heart, Stacks feared Freddie was going to die. But he fought it. He doggedly went about his affairs as if Freddie were going to get well. Since the poor girl would not be able to travel, he had determined to keep her at Marshbanks Abbey. Therefore, he would have to hire a companion for the maiden. He wrote to his solicitor in London and asked him to procure the services of a woman of good birth.

A heavy lump in his throat, Stacks sealed the letter. He desperately hoped the woman's presence would be needed.

By day, he found himself furiously tending his garden, by night he sat at Freddie's bedside, a single taper allowing him to watch her now-peaceful face. How young and utterly helpless she looked. So very childlike. Then in a fit of labored breathing, she would throw off the covers to reveal her drenched shift, and he could see her nipples clinging to the wet linen. Then he would jarringly be reminded Freddie was not a girl but a young woman.