A Christmas Affair (6 page)

“Come in, Miss Lawrence,” Dr. McNeil greeted her as she walked quietly toward the tester bed. There was a fire burning low in the grate, casting a reddish glow about the room. A brace of candles stood by the bed, and their flickering flames revealed the doctor’s drawn features as she approached him.

“How is he?” she asked, her eyes going automatically to the colonel’s face. He seemed much paler than he had before and his chest rose and fell with each labored breath.

“Not well.” Dr. McNeil’s voice was soft with regret as he studied Amanda’s face. “He is running a dangerously high fever, and if it doesn’t break soon, I fear for the worst.”

“Do you mean he may die?” Amanda’s voice shook despite her determination that it not do so.

“Unless we can break the fever,” the physician answered, keeping nothing from her. “His man tells me he has some sort of Spanish potion he feels may be of help, and has
gone to fetch it. But I must warn you that I don’t put much stock in it.”

Amanda considered the doctor’s oblique warning. He was telling her not to hope, she realized with growing annoyance. He was telling her Colonel Stockton was already as good as dead. Well, they would just see about that, she decided, her dark eyes beginning to dance with a martial light. She had already lost her brother and her home; she’d be damned if she would lose anything else. Even if she had to wrestle old Nick himself, she would not allow him to die. She would not.

The long hours of the night passed with painful monotony, broken only by the arrival and departure of footmen bearing fresh basins of water. Amanda had grown accustomed to Williams’ silences, and the two shared their watch like old friends. Toward morning Justin, as she now privately thought of him, began to grow restive, his head thrashing about on the pillow.

“This could be it, miss,” Williams said, dipping the cloth in the cooling water and applying it to his employer’s feverish skin. “I seen him like this in that hospital in Spain; he’s fightin’ the fever now.”

Amanda knelt over the bed, her hand closing on Justin’s twitching arm. “That’s it,” she urged softly. “Fight for your life. Don’t surrender now.”

Justin’s eyes flew open suddenly, the pupils glazed with fever as he glared at her. “No surrender, damn your eyes,” he muttered, his dazed mind grasping on to the one word he had understood. “No surrender. Fight on.”

Amanda blinked down at him and then realized what was happening. He was hallucinating, his mind back on that battlefield. She tightened her fingers around his arm. “It’s all right, Colonel,” she soothed, seeking to reassure
him. “You’re safe now. You were wounded and you must rest now. We’ll take care of you.”

Justin’s eyes grew cloudy. He saw not Miss Lawrence’s lovely features, but the sweat-stained, blood-spattered countenance of the field doctor as he bent over his pallet, his voice lacking all emotion as he called for the tourniquet and saw.

“No, you black-hearted bastard, you’ll not take my arm,” he snarled, his good hand flashing up like a snake to close about the doctor’s throat. “I’ll kill you before I’ll let you do that to me.”

Amanda gasped painfully as the colonel’s fingers dug into the soft flesh of her throat. She pulled at his hand, attempting to pry it away before he succeeded in throttling her. Williams rushed to her assistance, grabbing his employer by the shoulder and pressing him back against the pillows.

“Take it easy now, Colonel,” he implored. “You’re at home now, sir, and —”

Justin threw him off with a strength born of desperation and delerium. “No amputation!” he shouted, his fingers tightening about the doctor’s throat with deadly intent. “Do you hear me, you damned leech? Call off your orderly, or I’ll snap your neck in half.”

Amanda knew then that he was beyond all reason, lost in the terror of his memories. “No . . . no amputation,” she gasped, praying he wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t understand. “My word to you, sir. I won’t hurt you.”

Justin continued glaring up at the face above his. It was growing fuzzy and indistinct, fading in and out with his consciousness. Even the voice was different; it sounded softer somehow, the rough tones giving way to gentle inflections. He loosened his grip slightly, too weary to go on fighting. In his mind he could still hear the screams of the wounded around him, and his stomach rolled at the
stench of blood and sweat that filled his nostrils.

“No amputation,” he repeated, his voice slurring as his arm dropped uselessly to his side. “If I die, I die a whole man. No . . .” his voice trailed off as he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

“Are you all right, miss?” Williams had picked himself up from the floor and was hovering behind her anxiously. “The colonel didn’t hurt you, did he? He didn’t mean it, you know, he—”

“I know,” Amanda interrupted, her voice somewhat hoarse as she rubbed her aching throat. The imprints left by Justin’s fingers stood out like a brand on her pale skin, and she knew they would doubtlessly bruise.

“Poor lad.” Williams’ voice was also decidedly husky as he began bathing his employer’s face a gain. “Must have thought he was back in that hellish hospital after Vitoria. Those damned sawbones would as soon cut off a man’s arm as try to heal it, beggin’ your pardon, miss.” He flushed for using such strong talk in a lady’s presence.

“No, I understand,” she said, forgetting her own discomfort as she gazed down at Justin. His features were more relaxed, and he looked as if he was merely sleeping. “I weep when I think of how he must have suffered,” she added, reaching out to brush back a lock of dark hair that had fallen across his broad forehead.

“Aye, that he did,” Williams confirmed, his face growing grim as he remembered his frantic search for the colonel through the carnage of the battlefield. “By the time I found him in that filthy hospital tent, they had him half tied down, and he was holding them off with a knife. He threatened to . . . er . . . do the doctor an injury if the drunken fool didn’t back away. I got him out of there quick as I could, I can promise you.”

“The physician was drunk?” Amanda was appalled.

“No more than usual.” Williams shrugged his shoulders.
“Happens sometimes. Army’s glad to take what they can get, even if it’s a broken-down old sot.”

Amanda muttered a few choice words beneath her breath. Oh, to be a man, she thought with mounting indignation. If she were a man, she’d stand for Parliament, and once there she’d make quite sure her country’s soldiers received the care they deserved. How could a nation treat its heroes so? It was a disgrace.

The candles beside the bed burned low in their holders, the flames fluttering and waving in the long hours that followed. Amanda changed positions with Williams, wiping Justin’s face, throat and hands with the damp cloth. She was dipping the cloth in the water when she noted the sweat beading his upper lip and forehead.

Her hand shook with trepidation as she reached out to touch his face. The flesh beneath her fingertips was faintly damp with perspiration, and it was noticeably cooler than it had been only minutes before. Tears filled her eyes, and she allowed them to fall, so weak with relief that she was almost giddy. She must have made some sort of noise, for Williams gave a low cry of distress and bent closer.

“The colonel!” he moaned in horror. “He’s not —”

“No, no.” Amanda shook her head at him, her smile widening with sheer happiness. “But the fever has broken. We did it, Williams; we did it!”

“I would like a word with you, Amanda.”

Amanda glanced up from her account books, her heart sinking at the sight of her aunt standing in the doorway. She’d come to the study directly from Justin’s room and was hoping to review the books before confronting her aunt. She’d even been nursing the faint possibility the other woman would have the decency to wait until after Daniel’s funeral before making her demands known. Ap
parently she’d given the disagreeable creature more credit than she deserved.

“Of course, Aunt Elizabeth,” she said, carefully masking her emotions as she closed the book and pushed it away from her. “Pray, will you not be seated?”

Mrs. Herrick gave a loud sniff before stepping forward to take the chair Amanda had indicated. “I hear the colonel’s condition is much improved,” she said folding her thin hands in her lap . “And I must say I am relieved. It would have been most awkward if the fellow had died while our guest.”

“Awkward for the colonel, certainly,” Amanda retorted, then bit her tongue. She’d promised herself only that morning that she would mind her manners in regards to her aunt. “But you are right; he is doing much better this morning,” she rushed on, anxious to avoid an unnecessary exchange of unpleasantries. “The fever broke late last night, and his valet expects that he should awaken sometime this afternoon.”

“Excellent.” Mrs. Herrick nodded, as if giving her approval. “As I said, it would have been most awkward had he not recovered. His brother would be certain to take offense, and it never does to annoy a duke.”

There seemed to be no polite response to this, and so Amanda remained silent. Instinct warned her she would soon have need of all her wits, a premonition that was borne out by her aunt’s next words.

“I have decided to return to London after Daniel’s services,” she began without preamble. “I need to speak with my solicitor, and naturally I’ll need time to make all the proper arrangements. With luck, I should return by the end of January. Will that give you enough time, do you think?”

“Enough time for what?”

“Why, for removing yourself and your family from La
wrence Hall, of course,” Mrs. Herrick responded, her eyes glittering with malicious delight at the stunned look on Amanda’s face. “Surely you didn’t expect to stay on indefinitely?”

Amanda could not answer. She had expected this, knew it was only a matter of time, but the pain of it quite took her breath away. For a moment the panic she had been keeping successfully at bay threatened to overwhelm her, and she feared bursting into tears. Only the knowledge that such actions would give her aunt pleasure kept her from doing just that, and she sternly suppressed her emotions.

“Not indefinitely, ma’am, but I had hoped you would show us some Christian charity,” she said, her chin coming up with pride as she faced her aunt. “I should have known better.”

Her aunt’s sallow cheeks reddened at Amanda’s cutting words. “I should mind my tongue if I were you,” she snapped, pulling her shawl closer about her. “You are my dependent now, and—”

“I am no one’s dependent, ma’am,” Amanda interrupted, her voice glacial with fury. “And I pray God I never shall be. You needn’t worry that either my family or I will impose upon your kind generosity. We will be gone before your return; that much I can promise you.”

Mrs. Herrick shifted uneasily beneath her niece’s cold stare. She’d been planning to keep the defiant little minx firmly under her thumb, and she could not like the thought of her escaping. “You needn’t be as hasty as all that,” she said, pinning a smile to her thin lips. “I am sure we shall be able to come to some kind of understanding.”

“What kind of understanding?” Amanda asked suspiciously. Much as she would have liked to throw her aunt’s offer back in her face, she knew she didn’t have the lux
ury of such an action. For her family’s sake, she would hear the old tartar out before making any decision.

“Well, naturally I shouldn’t be so lacking in familial responsibilities as to deny my nieces the only home they have known,” Mrs. Herrick rushed on. “Indeed, I should never be half so cruel! And I suppose some provision might be made for the others. The military for the boys, perhaps, and a nice charitable school for the girl. Mrs. McAbernathy’s establishment in Kent has a very good reputation, and the child would receive training as a governess so we needn’t fear she would become a burden to us.”

“Belinda would never be a burden to me,” Amanda retorted, her eyes almost black with fury. “And as for Stephen and the twins, they remain with me. We are a family, ma’am. A family.”

“Brave words, my dear,” Mrs. Herrick scoffed, still refusing to believe she had lost. “But how do you propose to support this
family
of yours? That handsome wastrel your mother so foolishly married — quite against my advice, I might add — left you without a feather to fly with! You’ve been scraping along until now, but without your brother’s inheritance I think you will find things far more difficult. With me, at least, you will have a home.”

“With you, Aunt, I would have a prison,” Amanda replied, rising proudly to her feet. “And I would as lief starve as be beholden to you for so much as a bread crust! Leave my study.”

“Why, you insolent little hoyden! Who do you think you are talking to?” Mrs. Herrick stumbled to her feet, her chest rising and falling in her agitation. “This is my house now, and—”

“No.” Amanda’s proud words cut into her aunt’s tirade. “It is
my
house, and for the moment at least, I have final say as to whom I choose to shelter here. I do not choose
to shelter you.”

Mrs. Herrick was almost apoplectic she was so furious. “You . . . you baggage!” she shrieked pointing a shaking finger at Amanda. “I won’t be spoken to like this! I am your aunt, missy, and you will regret this! You will regret this!”

The door to the study flew open at the sound of raised voices, and the butler and one of the footmen stood in the doorway, gaping at the two combatants with undisguised interest. Amanda drew an uneven breath for control and then turned to the elderly butler.

“Aunt Elizabeth will be leaving, Linsley,” she said, her soft voice firm despite the fact her legs were trembling with reaction. “Kindly see that her bags are packed and that she is driven into the village.”

“Y-yes, Miss Lawrence,” he stammered, watery eyes flickering toward Mrs. Herrick. “Ma’am?”

For a moment Amanda thought her aunt would succumb to the vapors, but in the end, breeding won out. “Very well,
Miss Lawrence”—
she spat out the name as if it were an epithet — “you win . . . for now. But when I return, you may be quite sure I shall make you pay for such insolence. All of you.” Her eyes flashed meaningfully in Linsley’s direction before she brushed past them, her nose held high in the air as she stalked up the stairs.