Phillip pulled off his cravat, tossed it on the settee, and sank down wearily into a chair beside Sabrina’s bed. He looked down into the bowl of soup. It didn’t look promising. He couldn’t think of what he’d done wrong, but obviously he’d done something very wrong, so wrong that he wondered if he could even get the stuff down. Yes, he had to. He brought a spoon filled with a clump of stringy vegetables and too salty ham chunks. They didn’t taste better with the brief bit of aging. He ate, didn’t think about what he was eating, just ate until he had finished. He set the empty bowl down, leaned back, and closed his eyes. He wondered how long it would be before Charles became worried at his absence. Would he send men out to search for him? He smiled at his own silent idiot question. It was doubtful, yes, even more than quite doubtful. He imagined that a round of ribald jokes was very likely circulating among the gentlemen of his acquaintance at Moreland, each in turn, he thought, laying wagers on his imagined amorous encounter in the wilds of Yorkshire with some comely wench. What a pity he wasn’t living up to their lecherous fantasies.
He gazed at Sabrina, who was sleeping fitfully, tossing from one side to the other. Her beautiful hair was tangled, but dry. He rose and leaned over her. He smoothed his fingers through the tangles, then braided her hair as best he could. It wasn’t a sterling result, but it would have to do.
He found himself wondering about her family. She’d spoken in a soft cultured voice, with no Yorkshire accent. Although he realized he was rather an ass for doing it, he pictured a cold, domineering stepmother and a weak, absent father. How else, he wondered, shaking his head, could such a thing happen to a young, well-born girl?
“Well, my dear,” he said to the silent Sabrina, “I’ll even find out if you have a birthmark soon enough. I will burrow into that head of yours and discover every detail you have hidden from me.” He laid the palm of his hand against her forehead, and cursed. Her skin was hot and dry to the touch. The fever he had so dreaded was upon her.
Suddenly she opened her eyes, unseeing eyes, and struggled frantically against the blankets. She looked blindly through him and shouted, “No, you cannot, Grandfather. No! My poor Diablo, no.”
Phillip grabbed her shoulders and pressed her back. She struggled against him until she had no more strength. She looked up at him, her eyes still unseeing.
“Sabrina? Can you hear me? It’s all right. You’ve got the fever, but you will be all right, I swear it to you.”
She quieted, closing her eyes. He released her.
Suddenly she pulled her arms free of the blankets and struck him in the chest. “You bastard! Let me go, do you hear? Let me go!”
What was going on here? Was it Trevor she saw again? She began crying, choking on her own tears. He couldn’t bear it. He pulled her up against his chest and began to rock her in his arms. “It will be all right, Sabrina. I wouldn’t lie to you. Trust me. No one will ever hurt you again, I swear it. You must rest now to get well. Once you’re well again you can hit me as many times as you wish.”
She quieted at last. He thought she would sink back into sleep. But she reared back suddenly in his arms, trying to pull away from him. She stared straight at him and said, “It’s so hot in here. Why is it so very hot? I don’t like it at all. Have you no sense? Look, there’s even a fire in the grate. Why?”
He remembered the awful fever that had eaten at Lucius, burning him from the inside out. “I’ll make it cooler. Try not to think about the heat, all right?”
He gave her some water. She was trying to swallow it faster than she could breathe. She choked, coughing even as she tried to drink all the water at once. When at last she was done, the coughing stilled, she lay back and stared up at him. But it wasn’t him she was seeing. “Please, Mary, I have tried not to think about the heat, but it does no good. Please open the window. I’m so hot, so very hot.”
She knew she was dying. She had wondered several times what it would be like. She just hadn’t imagined that she’d be roasted alive from the inside out. It was strange, this heat that was cooking her slowly and thoroughly. Then she heard a man’s voice, vague and far away from her, Phillip’s voice. Who was Phillip? Somewhere deep inside her, she knew who Phillip was, but the knowledge of him escaped her. He said from above her, “Just lie still, Sabrina. The pain will stop in just a moment, and the heat.”
How could that be possible? She was dying from the fire burning her insides. Suddenly she felt a cold wet cloth against her face. She again heard a man’s voice, clearer this time. “No, no, don’t struggle. Just feel this. Don’t you like it?”
She would give him a moment to make good on his words. She suddenly felt cool air on her chest closely followed by the cold wet cloth. She arched her back against it, wanting more, wanting it to cover all of her at once. She felt his hands about her waist, turning her over. She struggled until she felt the damp cloth moving up and down her back, and over her hips, cooling all of her.
Phillip bathed her with a cold wet towel several times an hour throughout the afternoon and into the evening. A weary smile lit his eyes when he touched his hands to her cheeks. For the time being, at least, he had broken the fever. He thought for a moment that he saw an answering smile before she closed her eyes in sleep.
Phillip shucked off his clothes, pulled off one of the blankets from Sabrina’s bed, and stretched out in a large chair near the fireplace. He listened to the night wind howling outside, and the swirling gusts of snow slamming against the windowpanes. It was a comforting sound that relaxed him and soothed his mind. He wasn’t concerned about hearing Sabrina if she awoke during the night, for he was a light sleeper, his years on the Peninsula having taught him that men who released themselves completely into sleep often never awoke in the morning. The French had deployed small bands of soldiers, disguised as peasants, to slip into English camps and dispatch as many of its members as possible. He would never forget the deep gurgling sound that had erupted from the throat of his sergeant, a campaign-hardened soldier from Devonshire. Phillip had caught his assassin and choked the life from the man with his bare hands, but of course, it had been too late for his sergeant. He felt again the wave of nausea and fury that had consumed him as he had stood helplessly watching his man die.
He shook his head. He was tired, tired to his very bones. But she was still alive. He leaned over to pinch out the flame from the one candle that sat at his elbow. He looked for a moment at his large hands, with their elegantly manicured nails. They were the hands of a gentleman, a man whose pleasures and pastimes gave no clue of any preoccupation with the memory of the bloody violence that had occurred on the Peninsula.
He pinched the candle wick, sighed deeply, and settled back into the chair. He thought it curious that this one sick girl had stirred the embers of his past, making him relive scenes he’d believed long buried within him, or forgotten.
8
Miss Teresa Elliott frowned down into her glass of champagne. She eyed her host, saw that he was no longer paying her sufficient attention, and said, “Really, Charles, you must have some idea where his lordship could be. I thought you said that you yourself gave Phillip directions to Moreland. He isn’t here. I want him here. You will do something about this now.”
“I did
give him directions, yes. He should have come by now. I don’t understand.”
“It appears to me that your understanding isn’t what is important here. Come, aren’t you worried about Phillip? After all, this wretched snowstorm has turned the world white. Perhaps Phillip is hurt, lying helpless somewhere. I really expect you to do something of consequence right now, Charles.”
Charles looked at Miss Elliott’s very pretty face and thought for perhaps the dozenth time that wherever Phillip was, he was better off than being here. Perhaps even lying in the snow was better. Miss Elliott had charmed him in London. Here, at Moreland, she was driving him to Bedlam. He admitted he was impressed with her ability to hide this part of her character from prying eyes in town. Or perhaps she hadn’t. After all, Phillip wasn’t here and she wasn’t as concerned about her manners. Damn Phillip.
“You act as if you don’t care if poor Phillip is dying. And he could be, what with all that nonsensical snow. So irritating.” She snapped down her glass of champagne onto a side table. The glass was one of his mother’s favorite set. He hoped it hadn’t cracked. “Didn’t you say that Phillip’s valet is here? What is the servant doing here doubtless all snug in front of a fire when his master is dying in the snow? Surely you have put questions to him, forced him to answer, have you not?”
Enough was enough. Charles had exquisite manners. He had three sisters. He knew how to employ manners, how to gently soothe maidenly sensibilities, but enough was enough. He said in the sweetest voice that any of his good friends would have recognized as dangerous, “I begin to believe, Teresa, that the champagne has taken its toll on your brain. Naturally I have spoken to Dambler. He is growing increasingly concerned. However, since he doesn’t imbibe, he doesn’t keep repeating himself. He has no notion of where Phillip is.”
She was not a devotee of irony. She waved dismissal with a lovely hand that had never seen a day’s labor in its life. “The man is obviously lying. He’s lazy. He knows he doesn’t have any duties to perform as long as his master isn’t here. I don’t for a moment believe that his lordship would send his valet ahead because he wanted to explore the countryside. And alone, of all things. It is absurd. What is there to explore? It is winter. It is not London or even Bath. There is nothing to be explored. You must deal with this, Charles. You must speak to him again, really question him closely this time, realizing what he is.”
It was either leave the room or strangle her. Charles motioned to a footman to refill Miss Elliott’s glass. That was it, he’d get her dead drunk. That should shut her up, maybe even send her to her bed with a headache. Dambler’s story that the viscount wanted to roam Yorkshire didn’t seem at all strange to him. He’d known Phillip since Eton. He’d always gone his own way. But in this instance, he thought it wildly unlikely that he was lying somewhere in the snow, lost and alone and freezing to death. Phillip wasn’t the type of man to lose himself anywhere, unless, of course, he wished it. He felt Teresa’s fingers tug at the sleeve of his exquisite coat that Gautier of Paris had fashioned exclusively for him.