A Scandalous Proposal (25 page)

Feverish. Unconscious. 'Twas torture to be confined to this room when all she wished was to fly to Evan's bedside. Emily forced herself to calm. “Several things you should do at once, beginning with—”

“Visitors?” The angry voice from the entry interrupted her reply. “How dare anyone intrude now? And what possessed you to admit them?”

The words echoed in the marble hallway as Miss Marlowe, her blue eyes flashing fire, limped into the room. “I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you must leave—”

She spied Emily and stopped short. “Lady Auriana?” With an astounded look she turned to Lady Cheverley.

Once more twisting the tortured handkerchief, Lady Cheverley glanced uneasily from Miss Marlowe to Emily and back. “Lady Auriana learned about Evan from Mr. Blakesly, and having nursed her husband through similar injuries, thought to…to offer us the benefit of her experience.”

Miss Marlowe's wondering gaze came to settle on Emily. “How…kind of you, Lady Auriana.”

“I…I was a frequent visitor to her shop, often in Evan's company, and she knew how…distraught I must be,” Lady Cheverley continued. “Was that not so?” She looked back at Emily, appeal in her eyes.

Miss Marlowe's clear gaze fastened on Emily. What the girl must be thinking, Emily couldn't imagine, but at this moment 'twas unimportant. “Indeed, ma'am. And you as well, Miss Marlowe. I was about to advise Lady Cheverley on a procedure of treatment that worked well for both my husband and my brother-in-law.”

The blue eyes never flickered. “Please proceed.”

For the next several moments Emily rattled off recommendations for poultices to draw out fever and recipes for healing infusions and willow-bark tea. Both women listened attentively.

At last she paused for breath. Lady Cheverley came and took her hand. “Thank you, my dear. I'll jot down the recipes immediately. You'll remind me if I forget anything, won't you, Andrea?”

“Of course. But how rag-mannered we are in our distress. Will you not sit and take some refreshment, Lady Auriana?” Miss Marlowe asked.

Emily could not help pacing, her hands plucking at her
skirts, her eyes continually darting to the door. She could almost crawl out of her skin, so anxious was she to go to him, see for herself the extent of his injuries and begin to administer the medicines that had healed Rob and Andrew and several others.

Not Andrew that last time.

She shut her mind to the thought, trying instead to come up with some acceptable excuse for demanding to be shown to the sickroom of a man to whom she had not a single link of blood or connection that would render such a request reasonable. And dredging up none.

She realized Miss Marlowe still awaited an answer. “Excuse me! No—no, I mustn't stay. You'll be wishing to get back to Ev—Lord Cheverley.”

Lady Cheverley smiled wanly. “As soon as I have some willow-bark tea to spoon into him. I shall go to the kitchen straightaway. Thank you again, Lady Auriana. I shall never forget your kindness.”

It was a clear dismissal. Emily could manufacture neither a reason to prolong her visit nor a plausible pretext to get near Evan. “You're welcome,” she said, tears suddenly threatening. She turned to leave.

His mother followed her out. “Lady Auriana?”

Emily turned to look over her shoulder. “Ma'am?”

In the pallor of her face, fine lines webbed the corners of Lady Cheverley's eyes. For the first time since Emily had known her, Evan's mama looked her age. “I'm sorry,” the woman whispered.

If she replied at all she would weep. Emily nodded and walked reluctantly to the entry.

To her surprise, Miss Marlowe ushered her out, apparently intending to walk her to her carriage. She halted upon seeing the empty street.

“Did you not bring a conveyance?”

“No. I took a hackney.”

Instead of summoning a footman to find a vehicle, Miss Marlowe turned back to Emily.

“Please, Lady Auriana, I know 'tis most irregular of me to ask, but—would you go to him? Please! I watched Richard die, and I can't—I don't want—” Her voice broke.

For an instant Emily wasn't sure she had heard aright. “I'll come,” she answered.

Choking back a sob, Miss Marlowe caught her hand and kissed it. “Thank you. Wait here—I'll return in a moment.”

Her mind fraught with fear, Emily waited with barely suppressed impatience for the girl's return. Later, when she was calmer—when she had tended Evan and assured herself he would recover—she would come up with some explanation to plaster over this naked need to see him. Fortunately, Miss Marlowe seemed too upset herself to notice.

Ten minutes later, finger pressed to her lips to warn Emily to silence, Lord Cheverley's intended guided his former mistress through a maze of service rooms up narrow stairs and into a broad, finely appointed hallway.

The stench of fouled bandages assaulted her before they reached the chamber door. Her face paling, Miss Marlowe put a handkerchief to her nose. Her blue eyes over the linen welled with tears.

“God's blessing upon you if you can help him,” she whispered as she knocked on the portal.

His valet, Baines, answered. “You mustn't see him now, miss. He's—he's right feverish.”

“I've brought an experienced battlefield nurse, Baines. You will let her in and follow her directions.”

Emily braced herself for his reaction, prepared to brazen her way through whatever he might reveal. No one and nothing would keep her from Evan now.

B
aines turned toward her and stiffened. Then, before either she or Miss Marlowe could speak, he moved aside.

“Whatever you can do, ma'am, I'd be powerful grateful.”

With a nod she swept past him. The sight that greeted her made her want to wail in anguished fury.

Evan lay in his tattered shirt, soiled bandages wound about his right arm and hand, his hair matted with dirt and blood. Even in the dim light she could see the fevered sheen on his face, the dry, parched lips, the twitch as his body fought the contagion raging in it.

“These filthy things must come off—Baines, summon a footman to help you. His head must be bathed, and his arm. Bring me hot water and soap, clean linen for bandages. And send someone to Lord Maxwell for my maid, Francesca. Tell her to bring my medicines. At once!”

A bowl of clear, tepid water stood at the bedside, as if Baines were about to sponge down his master. Emily pulled a chair close, wet a cloth and began gently cleaning blood from the crusted wound over his eye.

She could not tell in the dim light whether the eye was damaged, or just the skin beyond, so swollen and distorted was it. Loosening the matted cloth with water as she worked,
she freed the sticky mass of old bandages there and at his puffy, distended arm.

By the time she finished inspecting his wounds and removing all the soiled linen, tears filled her eyes and dripped silently down her cheeks.

Despite the ravages of the knife and lack of care, she was somewhat heartened. His heartbeat was strong, his breathing steady, and her experienced eye said if she could get the wounds cleansed and bring the fever down, his chances for recovery were good.

As she looked up to rinse out the cloth, she saw Miss Marlowe, whose presence she had totally forgotten, still standing by the door, watching.

What her face revealed she could not imagine, being in that moment unable to think of anything beyond the need to reduce his fever.

“A carriage awaits whenever you are ready,” Miss Marlowe said softly. “How can I ever thank you?”

Engaged in wringing out the cloth, Emily did not immediately reply. When she glanced up, Miss Marlowe was gone.

Francesca entered soon after with a satchel. “Tea I've brought, and a poultice. Come, he must drink.”

Baines helped them raise Evan and dribble liquid into his mouth. Mumbling incoherently, Evan swallowed.

Emily lost track of time as they fell back into a routine they had followed on more than one hellish occasion—Andrew with his side gashed by a saber at Corunna, slashed on the arm by a sword at Talavera; his batman Harrison's leg mangled at Busaco, Rob with his shoulder sliced open almost to the bone after Barrosa.

Soak, wring out, sponge. Put a drawing compress on the puffy hand and arm, a cold one on the injured eye. Soak, wring out, sponge. Lift him to force down more tea or broth. Soak, wring out, sponge. Change the compresses, gently
clean out wounds, purify with brandy that, even unconscious, made Evan hiss through his teeth and cry out. Shake in basilicum powder and bandage again. Soak, wring out, sponge.

Once, as she held the cup to his lips, his eyelid flickered open. No spark of recognition dawned in that fever-bright eye, and after a moment he closed it. But when she set down the cup, the fingers of his good hand groped toward hers, seizing them in a surprisingly strong grip. She squeezed back, rubbing his thumb. After a moment, with a little sigh, his hand relaxed and he dozed again.

Finally his skin seemed cooler, his sleep less restless. “You see what to do?” she asked Baines. “Sponge him to bring the fever down and keep offering liquid. When the physician comes, should he call for leeches or gunpowder or such, fetch me at once.”

“Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am.”

Suddenly bone weary, she turned to Francesca. Without a word the maid helped her up. “God's eye, mistress. He's strong. God's eye is upon him now.”

Emily was startled to see pearly pink lighting the eastern sky as a flambeau-carrying footman escorted them to their carriage. Before the footman helped her in, she looked back one last time at the town house.

Whatever speculation her nocturnal visit might arouse, she was fiercely glad she had come. Evan's recovery was by no means assured, but the terrible fear that had haunted her since she learned of his injury had eased. As Francesca said, 'twas in God's hands now. Though, she thought with a gallows grin, when had God ever refused a demand by Evan Mansfield?

 

Evan opened his unbandaged eye. Thin gray light filtered through the shuttered window and a candle burned low on a table beside the bed.

He was in his chamber in the town house at Portman Square, he realized. He had a hazy idea he'd been here for some time, but most of what had occurred since he left his lodgings to follow the cloak-draped whisperer was an indistinct blur.

Only patches of memory were clear. Watching a knife descend out of the night sky and wondering in that instant if, as his superior had warned, he was about to get his throat cut. A blow to head and shoulder that knocked him to his knees, and then wrestling with the attacker, something warm and sticky blurring his vision and making his hands slick. A grunt when his own blade struck bone. Running feet, numb coldness in his face and shoulder suddenly firing to agony, like a scream in one's ear after silence.

Out of the burning haze of fever, one image hovered: the black-haired, green-eyed soldier of the miniature standing on a sun-splashed balcony beside his brother the Earl, silhouetted against a brilliant peninsular sky, both looking down at him and laughing.
“Fool. You thought to be a hero like me, a man she could love,” the soldier mocked. “Just what did you accomplish?”

What indeed. Who had attacked him—the man he'd followed? One of their suspects—or someone else entirely? Had Lord Blackwell's operative arrived in time to capture the perpetrators?

Evan had no idea.

The right side of his face burned, his shoulder throbbed at a level just below agony, and he couldn't feel his right hand at all. He tried flexing it.

Pain exploded at his thumb, ricocheted up his bones and reverberated into his skull.

When he reached consciousness again, pale sun shone in the windows. Making note to ignore his bandaged hand, with his good fingers he gingerly surveyed his swaddled side.

His eye—would he be able to see from it? The thought
that he might have lost his sight terrified him. Until he thought of Geoff and Richard. Partial blindness would be a light price to pay for a successful mission.

But had it succeeded? All he knew for certain was he'd gained an apparently blind eye, a maimed shoulder and one useless hand, plus a burning fever in and out of which he drifted, suspended between bitter dreams and awakening.

Bitter but for one. Filthy, sweating with fever, he'd opened his eyes to see Emily, coolly beautiful Emily beside him. Her fine soft hands had mopped his brow with cold water, her velvet voice murmuring, “I love you, Evan. I love you.” He'd clutched at her fingers, not wanting her to slip away, and she squeezed his hand back.

He smiled now, recalling it.
“I love you, Evan.”

“Fool,”
the soldier sneered.

Angrily, Evan opened his eye. His head ached abominably and desperate thirst coated his tongue. Reaching for a glass, he knocked it over, his one-eyed aim off, and cursed.

“Let me, my lord.” From his blind side Baines's hand appeared, holding out the glass. His head throbbing, Evan gulped down the water.

“There's a gentleman come to check on you—a Lord Blackwell. Should I let him in?”

Blackwell! Perhaps the agents who'd found him had learned something. “Yes! Help me sit, then send him in.”

A moment later his superior entered. “Cheverley! No, don't give me your hand. I'm mightily relieved to see you're recovering. I must admit, you gave us a fright.”

“Sorry, sir. I hope that's not all I've given you.”

Lord Blackwell laughed, a sharp barking sound. “Indeed not, thank God! You accomplished more than you know.”

“Considering I saw little and remember less, I sincerely hope so.”

“The man who attacked you wasn't one from your list, but an accomplice. After we nabbed him, we eventually
traced him back to the ringleader—the ‘quiet civilian,' I believe you called him in your notes. We're still rounding up the rest of the ring—I suspect we may never trace them all, though we shall certainly give it a go.”

With bitterness Evan recalled the slim, silent man with whom he'd supped, been billeted, played cards. Remembered Geoffrey choked in his own blood, Richard dying in front of his eyes, his own ruined eye and ominously bandaged hand. But for that man, his friends would be living still. Evan would be whole—and free.

“How could a man turn his back on his country, knowingly cause the death of his own soldiers?”

Lord Blackwell shrugged. “Debts. Greed. Simple venality. But with your help, we've stopped the drain of ammunition—there's not been a single irregular or lost shipment since the attack. Wellington himself sent a message of thanks. I'll bring it to you later, when you're more recovered. Well, I must not tire you.”

Lord Blackwell rose. “I'll stop by later to see how you get on. Heal quickly now, eh? We need you back at Horse Guards.”

“I will. Thank you, my lord.”

With a nod Lord Blackwell walked out.

Evan leaned back against the pillows, as drained after carrying on a simple conversation as if he'd gone ten rounds with Jackson. At least he'd accomplished what he'd set out to do. A welcome change from recent events, that.

Sometime later, after he'd dozed and breakfasted and dozed, after his mother had paid him a tearful visit, Andrea a soothing one, and the physician with his instruments of torture—clean bandages, cleansing powders, the lance—had gone, Baines announced another visitor. Brent.

His friend—his former friend?—walked in quietly and took the chair by his bed. For a moment neither spoke.

“'od's blood, Evan, you look like hell.”

He laughed shortly, grimacing at the now-familiar discomfort. “Feel like I lingered in its fires, too.”

“The sawbones says you're better. You do look better than when we first brought you. I thought…” Brent's voice wavered “…thought for a while we were going to lose you.”

“You weren't so lucky.”

Brent grinned. “No. Unfortunately, the physician says you're out of danger now, so I guess we're stuck with you.”

Out of danger. Physically, perhaps. But his life was still in as great a shambles as when he'd run off to play hero. “I suppose one must be grateful for that.” Recalling the news his mother had relayed, he added, “Speaking of grateful, I must thank you for helping Mama drag my carcass back to London. It can't have been easy for her. And for coming so faithfully to check on me. Andrea says you've been by once or twice every day since I arrived.”

Brent shrugged. “'Twas nothing. Evan, I wanted to apologize—”

Evan waved his good hand. “No need for that.”

“Even so, I said…I said some unforgivable things, and I'm sorry. I know you would never knowingly hurt Emily. I, more than anyone, understand how irresistible she is.”

Odd how, despite the fire of his wounds, the mention of her name still sent a bittersweet ache clear to the bone.

He should leave it at that. But he couldn't help asking, “How is she?”

“Good. Worried about you.” Brent smiled again, a bit wryly this time. “I suspect she'd have come here to check on you herself if I hadn't promised her daily reports. But otherwise, she's well. The shop prospers, and despite that, she's becoming more and more accepted. Indeed, I'm afraid she'll soon be up to her pretty earlobes in suitors. I'd better get that ring on her finger quickly.”

“Ring?” The word struck Evan like a blow to the chest. “You've proposed and she's accepted?”

“Not…quite. Oh, I've made my intentions clear. She's not given me a definite answer—yet. You know, if it were possible for the two of you—”

“It's not.” Sorrowful finality colored his words. He'd canceled part of his debt to Richard, but the other was still to be paid.

Brent smiled faintly. “I think I fell in love with her that day in her shop. Though I want her to taste the pleasures of being a beautiful woman in her first Season, I must admit I'm selfish enough to claim her as soon as she'll let me.” His gaze left Evan's face and wandered away. “I couldn't bear to lose her now.”

A sentiment Evan could well appreciate. Although it caused a physical ache almost as painful as his wounds to think of her wed to another, she deserved a good man like Brent to love and protect her. “I wish you happy, then.” He drew in a slow breath. “Take care of her.”

Brent studied his face in silence. Finally he gave Evan a brief nod. “I will. Thank you.”