A Love That Never Tires (34 page)

“You’ll never look at me the same again,” she groaned.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I get sick all the time, especially if I drink too much beer or eat too much treacle. It’s one of those natural parts of life that cannot be helped. And if you don’t believe me, the first thing I’ll do is get ripping drunk off cheap beer and prove it to you.”

Linley laughed a weak little laugh. “I rather like treacle.”

“So do I, and that is the problem. I could eat it by the bowlful.”

They both laughed that time. Linley slipped her hand across the rough blanket and laced her fingers through his.

“Patrick,” she said, growing serious. “You don’t think I…that you got me…that it could be the reason…I might be…”

Pregnant.
A word so dreadful, a possibility so awful, that it could not even be spoken.

Patrick cleared his throat. “It’s too early. The symptoms would show up in weeks, not hours.” He scooted closer to her on the bed and leaned down to her ear. He’d apologized a half dozen times for finishing inside of her that first time. He got quite carried away, which was understandable, but still no excuse. “If you are, we’ll see that it is taken care of.”

Linley nodded. A baby would not do for either of them.

Patrick sat up. “Now, other than taking that off your mind, what else can I do for you? How can I make you feel better?”

She gave him a wink. “You could finish what you started on the mountain top.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “None of that until you are well again.”

“But that could take days. I don’t want to wait for days.”

Patrick patted her hand, which was still very warm from her fever. “You will just have to. As much as it pleases me to know you find me so irresistible, I am not taking any chances with your health.”

Linley sighed. She knew he was right. She was in no condition for lovemaking. “Then I suppose I could settle for a foot rub. All this walking and hiking has them feeling very sore lately.”

“I don’t know how to rub anyone’s feet.”

Refusing to listen to excuses, she wiggled her toes out from underneath the blankets. Patrick shifted on the bed, taking a little foot into his hands. He pressed his thumbs into the calloused underside while he worked the soft top with his fingers. “Like this?” he asked.

She nodded. “You’re doing just fine.”

As he massaged her foot, Patrick thought back to when he first met her, back to the beach in Morocco when she took off her shoes and buried her toes in the warm sand. He thought she had beautiful feet then. He never imagined he would be holding them in his hands only a few months later. And he remembered the night he took her to Claridge’s and she wore those red shoes. Now every woman in London wanted to show off her ankles like the Infanta de Nova.

Patrick smiled. Finchdale would never forgive him for that little trick. Especially not after the man bragged to all of society he’d danced the Castle Walk with a Spanish princess. What was that ridiculous song they danced to? Oh yes,
Steamboat Bill
.

He hummed a few bars as he worked his way up and down her feet. It took Linley a moment to recognize the song, but when she did, she burst out laughing.

“I can’t believe you remembered that song.”

“Why not? I stood there and gritted my teeth the entire time Finchdale had you in his arms.”

She covered her face with her hands, still laughing. “I thought I would die! He has to be the worst dancer I’ve ever seen. And to parade me around like that in front of everyone!”

“You should’ve heard how he reacted once he learned you were not an Infanta. The word around the club was that he cried.”

“He must have been very disappointed to find out I was plain old Linley Talbot-Martin,” she said, grinning. “I still cannot believe you invented such a lie.”

Patrick shrugged.

“Don’t forget to go in between the toes,” Linley said, pointing to her feet. “That is the best part.”

He did as he was told, resuming his humming of
Steamboat Bill
and slipping his fingers between each of her little toes. It was a very intimate gesture, rubbing someone’s feet. No wonder he’d never done it before.

Linley relaxed as he moved from one foot to the other and, before long, she fell asleep. Her breathing was soft and slow. Patrick carefully eased her foot down onto the bed and tucked the blankets around it. He watched to make sure she didn’t wake back up, and when he was certain she was miles away from him, he slipped out of her bedroom.

“Awfully cozy picture,” a voice said through the shadows of the corridor. “You and my daughter. Rubbing her feet. You do have a way with women, Lord Kyre.”

“Bedford, I—”

Linley’s father waved his hand. “No, no. There is nothing you can say to explain what I just saw. You’ve become very close to my daughter these last few weeks. I hear you are even giving her special talks. Answering whatever questions she might have…”

Patrick jammed his fists into his pockets, ready for a stern lecture from the old man.

“She knows absolutely nothing about men.”

“I don’t want her to know about men,” he said. “I want her to know about me.”

Sir Bedford took a step back, stunned. “What’s your game, Kyre?”

“I should think it obvious by now.”

“You have feelings for her.”

Patrick shifted from one foot to another, looked down at his boots, and then back up at Linley’s father. “Yes, I do.”

“How long will they last, eh?” Sir Bedford asked. “What will happen when this is over and you go back to wherever it is you go? Do you think she will follow you? I don’t. Nothing—not even love—could tear Linley away from me.
This
is her passion. Not you. You are a fleeting infatuation. A girlish romance.”

“Bedford, I’ve never tried to come between you and Linley. I would never dream of it,” he said. “Even in London, when she was torn between staying with me or leaving with you, I never pushed her. Never.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Linley and myself. She wanted to remain in London with me, but she couldn’t bear to abandon you and your work.” Patrick leaned back against the wall, studying the old man’s face. “I let her go. I did what I felt, at that time, was best for her.”

“And now?”

“Now I realize how foolish I was,” he said.

Linley’s father raked his hands through his white hair. “So you’ll take her? You will take my only child from me?”

“Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? I do not want to come between you. I merely want to come along.” Patrick pushed off from the cool wall, straightening himself for the importance of what he planned to propose. “What would it take? How much for me to come along?” He waited for an answer, but Bedford only stared. “I am willing to invest a considerable sum of money in your endeavors. All I ask in return is a chance to join your team once or twice per year, wherever you may be, with as little fuss as possible.” Though Bedford still said nothing, Patrick could see the old man’s resistance breaking down—Bedford loved his daughter, but money was an unfortunate necessity. And in these troubled times, such offers of funding were rather hard to come by. No one would blame him for considering such a proposition, and deep down they both knew Patrick wouldn’t be leaving Linley’s side no matter how much money changed hands.

Best to seal the deal now, so everyone could walk away a winner.

He looked Bedford square in the eye, took a deep breath, and said, “How does thirty thousand pounds sound?”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Patrick hoped his plan did not come back to bite him. He had no doubt Linley would be thrilled at the possibility of spending more time with him, but did he really just toss away thirty thousand on the off chance she wouldn’t give him the chuck sooner or later? Christ, he sold his family’s house in Park Lane! It was worth a fortune even when he wasn’t in dire straights. He needed the money. He did not need to spend it on some silly expeditions. Patrick could think of a thousand better uses for that money, and none of them involved following Linley Talbot-Martin around the world.

There went his fallback plan for never getting married. Now he would have to, once this fling with Linley ran its course.

Patrick rubbed his eyes hard, pushing the idea of selling himself for a wife’s dowry out of his mind. But try as he might, Gaynor Robeson’s twenty-five thousand looked pretty good at that moment. Better than the workhouse, where he would end up if he wasn’t careful.

If he had to, he could strip Wolford Abbey of its valuable works of art, perhaps sell of some of the family’s jewels. The emeralds would fetch a nice price. He would save the diamonds until the very last.

How was he, the last living son of one of the most respected peers of England, reduced to selling off trinkets and prostituting himself in marriage? Everyone assumed he was broke, now this proved it.

Poverty was Patrick’s worst fear. That’s why he spent so much to improve the lives of his tenants in Kyre. That’s why he donated what he could to charities that actually mattered—the ones for the poor, the sick, and the orphaned. For the people who weren’t blessed with the things he’d been blessed with.

All in all, Patrick was fortunate. Although he had little ready money, the estate earned enough for him to live comfortably—a few hunts a year, new suits from his tailor every spring. He drove a Rolls-Royce, even though he sold off all his family’s old motorcars to get it. He did not know what it meant to go hungry.

Did Linley? From what Patrick saw, she survived off tinned sardines and hard bread. She wore cheap clothes from a cheap dressmaker, or even bought them ready-made. She would probably never own a motor in her entire life. And what would become of her when her precious father died?

She certainly couldn’t marry, thanks to him.
 

Maybe Archie, or Reginald, or if she was lucky, Schoville might take her. Whichever one of them could stomach used goods. And Linley would have to endure it all because Patrick couldn’t keep his trousers up.

She would benefit from his thirty thousand pounds more than he could.

If Patrick had to resign himself to marrying Gaynor Robeson, then so be it. There were worse sacrifices in life—especially those Linley would have to make to survive without an honorable man’s protection.

***

Days passed and Linley felt no better. In truth, she was getting worse. Everyone knew it, but no one had the heart to mention it. At least not to her face. The headache and fatigue she experienced for the past few weeks could no longer be blamed on the heat, or the dampness, or even the endless walking. The nausea and stomach pain weren’t due to her monthly, which came and went as usual.

To put it bluntly, Linley was sick. Very sick.

By the end of that week, her fever had not subsided. She was violently ill most of the time, and although she could not get out of bed to be certain, she felt like she’d lost a considerable amount of weight. Her rash spread down her torso. Sometimes her nose bled, and she didn’t know why.

What if there was something wrong with her brain? That would explain the bleeding and the headaches. Maybe even the fever, too.

Brain sickness.

By God, she’d end up in an insane asylum. They’d cut off all her hair and make her run around naked, and turn the hose on her!

“Patrick, don’t let them turn the hose on me.” Linley reached out and clutched his arm with an amazing amount of force.

He looked around the room, and then back down at her hand, white-knuckled around his wrist. “What?”

“My brain sickness! Don’t tell anyone about my brain or they will go in and scratch it out.”

Patrick stared at her.

“It will be our secret,” she said. “We like secrets, remember? Like the one we keep from my father, only this one is the most important one. Because if they find out my secret, they’ll take me away.”

“What is your secret, Linley?”

She blinked up at him. “Well, if you don’t know, then I can’t tell you. It is a secret.”

Patrick wrenched his arm free and bolted out of the room. “Bedford!” He didn’t care if the monks were praying, he screamed as loud as he could down the corridor. “Bedford!”

Linley’s father appeared in the stairwell, breathless. “What is it?”

“It’s Linley,” he said. “She’s talking nonsense.”

Sir Bedford followed Patrick into Linley’s room, where she sat rigid-backed in bed. Sweat drenched brown hair stuck to her face. A slow drip of blood ran down her left nostril.

“I told you not to tell!” she screamed, mopping at the bright red blood with the palm of her hand, and then smearing it across the front of her nightgown. “Look what they’ve done!” The more blood she saw, the more frantic she became. “They pulled out my brain like the Egyptians! Papa, what have they done with my brain?”

“The fever,” her father whispered to Patrick as they watched Linley dig through the bedclothes for her missing brain. “I’m afraid it’s worse than I thought.”

“Is there anything you can do? Anything I can do?”

Sir Bedford shook his head. “We will just have to keep her calm. Hopefully, it will run its course in another day or two.”

The gentlemen stepped out into the hall where Archie, Reginald, and Schoville stood. They had heard the screaming and ran upstairs as fast as they could. Now they looked at Linley’s father for answers.

“It is a nervous fever,” he told them. “Delirium.”

Archie rubbed the muscles on the back of his neck, wincing every time he heard Linley call out. “She needs a doctor.”

“Where will we find a doctor?” Sir Bedford asked. “We are a hundred miles from civilization, at least. And she needs an English doctor. I’ll wager there isn’t one of those within a week’s walk from here.”

They all hung their heads. A proper English physician was an impossibility.

“Maybe the monks can help her,” Patrick said. “Will you let me ask them?”

Sir Bedford nodded. “If she does not improve in two days time, you can ask.”

“Two days?”

“We will wait to see if the fever runs its course. Most do, you understand.”

Patrick did not understand. He did not understand at all! Linley was sick. She needed help, and if it were up to him, he would take whatever help he could from whoever was willing to give it.