Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) (24 page)

Gazing at her younger cousin, True thought what a combination the girl was of contradictory qualities. She thought she knew what was coming—she had pondered Arabella’s profession of love for Drake, and something about it did not ring true—but she kept her own counsel. If Bella wanted to cleanse her conscience and confess, then True would let her. She wanted so much for her cousin to find happiness, but feared that was never to be as long as she let her mother guide her actions.

“What is it, love?”

Arabella gazed up at her cousin and held out her hand. True took it and squeezed.

“I told you I was in love with Lord Drake, but that was never so. I thought that you might be falling in love with him.” She stopped. Taking a deep breath, though, she started again. “Mother so wanted me to marry him and I had just found out . . .”

“Found out what, dear?”

Arabella colored, but shook her head. “Nothing, True; nothing important. But it’s over. I have no intention of marrying him, no matter what happens. I don’t love him, and never could. We—Mother, Lord Conroy and I—are leaving in the morning.”

“Leaving? Where are you going? Back to Swinley?”

“No . . . uh, Lord Conroy has invited us to visit him at his father’s home.”

True smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Do I smell a romance in the offing? He is a very gallant gentleman.”

Arabella shrugged.

“Your mother is not pushing you on Lord Conroy now, is she? Oh, Bella, do not make a mistake. Do you love him? Truly?”

“He thinks I am a pretty little widgeon,” Arabella said disparagingly. She drew herself up and took a deep breath. “But I
must
marry, and though he does not have pots of money like Lord Drake, his father intends to settle a small estate on him when he marries. Nathan has spoken of it already, so perhaps he does care for me in that way.”

“But do you care for
him
in that way?”

“I don’t know!” the girl said, agitated.

Drake shifted and murmured. True released Bella’s hand and stroked her patient’s cheek. “Hush, Wy, shhh. It’s all right.” She glanced up to find her cousin’s bright green eyes fixed on her. “He gets a little restless with other voices around, but if you talk quietly, it should be all right.”

“You
are
in love with him, aren’t you? I can see it in the way you touch him!”

True felt a blush coming to her cheek, but did not answer.

Arabella leaned forward in her chair. “I know you, True. Tell me it isn’t so.”

“It is a moot point, my dear. I never aspired to his hand, you know. I should make a miserable viscountess, and besides, Wy only ever treated me as a brother would treat a sister.”

Arabella gazed at her incredulously. “A brother? Oh, Lord, True, it’s a wonder God does not strike you dead as a liar! He looked at you as if you were the only woman alive, like you were a delectable, juicy plum, and he was just deciding whether to devour you or save you for later. Every time you two would come back from a walk, smelling of April and May, I would wait. Why else my fake swoon in the parlor? I thought an announcement was imminent, and was trying to stall so I could steal him away from you.”

The girl’s candor was one of the qualities she had had in her childhood, but that had been lost. It was good, if rather embarrassing, to hear her be so blunt, and True readily forgave her for scheming to eliminate the competition. It was obvious that Lady Swinley had been pushing her daughter relentlessly, and who would ever be proof against that woman’s ruthless nature? “I wish you had just asked me, instead of wondering. You could have had him, you know, if you had just been yourself with him. He would have appreciated all your fine qualities and could have come to love you.”

Arabella shuddered. “Ugh. I cannot imagine going through life with a man who had fits! I am not like you, True. I’m selfish, not self-sacrificing.”

“Do you think I’m being self-sacrificing by being here with him? How little you understand, then. This is pure selfishness on my part, staying with him, being with him. I am indulging my every whim.” True stroked his hair, feeling a swell of love overwhelm her. “If it was not for my fear for his health, I would be in a kind of heaven.”

Staring at her in disbelief, Arabella shook her head. “Yes, well, so you say. What a strange duck you are, coz. As for me, I want a man, not an invalid.”

“He’s not an invalid, only fevered right now and troubled. You sell yourself short, my dear. I think you have come to believe yourself the image of your mother, when you aren’t like her at all.”

Her expression softening, Arabella said, “I wish I really were the girl you see when you look at me, True, but I’m not.” There were tears in her voice, but none in her eyes. She took a deep breath and stiffened her spine, holding her head up at a proud angle. “You see me that way because you love me, and I don’t deserve it. I have been horrible to you; scheming to take Lord Drake away when any fool could see he was falling in love with you, and you with him. I would hope to see that same look in a man’s eyes someday, but I fear that love is not for such as I. Perhaps when I’m thirty and have borne my husband three sons, I will take a dashing lover who will adore me!” Her voice was gay, but hard, like flint. She stood and said, “I have to go to bed. It’s late, and we leave early.”

“Bella,” True said, reaching out for her cousin’s hand. “If you really believe that about yourself, that I only see good in you because I love you—that’s not true, but evidently you think it is—then you must see how powerful love is. Find it for yourself, and don’t settle for anything less, my dear. You do deserve it, no matter what you think.”

Finally the tears started in Arabella’s eyes, sparkling in the lamplight. “I wish I c-could, True. I wish I could wait for love, but I cannot. Pray for me!”

Fear clutched at True’s heart. There was something her cousin was not telling her. “Is there anything wrong, Bella? Anything—”

“I have to go,” the girl said, gathering her skirts and turning.

“Bella, write to me,” True said urgently. “And remember, if you ever need me, you’re welcome at the vicarage, or wherever I may be. You are
always
welcome. I love you, Bella.”

Without a backward glance, Arabella fled the room, closing the door softly behind her. True thought about her cousin for long hours after she left, and then fell into a drifting sleep, to dream of the meadow and the river, and Wy sleeping on her lap in the summer sun.

When she awoke in the morning, as Horace came in followed by Lady Leathorne, it was to find that sometime in the night, Drake’s fever had broken. His forehead was cooler than it had yet been, and he slept a more natural sleep. His mother wept openly, and Horace could not contain his satisfaction.

“That’ll be one fer the doctors, miss! Those old humbuggers’ll be in some taking when they find out a slip of a girl knows medicatin’ better’n them!”

But True cautioned them, “This is good, but he’s lost strength, so don’t expect him to be up and about too rapidly.”

“But he is better? Truly?” Lady Leathorne gazed down at her son, who rested still in True’s arms.

“I believe so. The fever has abated. He’ll make a full recovery.”

“God bless you, Miss Becket,” Lady Leathorne said with a trembling smile, tears still shining on her cheeks. “If there is anything in this world you want, anything I can ever do for you . . .” She left it unsaid, for words did not begin to express the emotions that filled her eyes.

• • •

Over the next two days Drake continued to recover, spending most of his time sleeping, and groggy at best when he was awake. At first, though, True insisted on staying by his side and feeding him still the herbal tea, as well as nourishing gruels and meat broths. She was taking no chance that the fever would return.

Lady Leathorne noted with concern that as her son recovered, so did the rumor and innuendo surrounding Drake and Miss Becket intensify. She blamed herself and the shortsightedness that had led to her sending in that chatterbox, Bess, with food for True. And she could not address it head-on, for that would only justify it in the minds of her staff. She knew as well as anybody that gossip had a life of its own, and ignoring it was one’s only option. As long as Miss Becket stayed closeted with her son she was shielded from it, but soon, very soon, she would be faced with the knowledge that she was hopelessly compromised.

And they would handle that when Drake was better. She had wanted more for her son, wanted a woman of status and culture, social position and elegance, but Miss Becket, with no pretensions to elegance or status, had something much more important in the end, a good heart. She was the soul of kindness, and her son could do much worse. Now was not the time to make that decision, but soon. Very soon.

• • •

Drake watched True bustle around his room, fussing with some bottles, folding cloths. He had awoken just minutes before from what seemed like a long dream of burning desert sands or fiercely hot tropics, he couldn’t decide which. And True was there, telling him all the while that they would get through it together. He had been sick, he supposed, and it seemed that Truelove had come back sometime during his illness. Why? he wondered. Had her cousins asked her to come back? And why was she in his room, alone? Surely his mother would not allow that.

“Truelove,” he whispered, shocked at how weak his voice sounded.

She had just been opening the curtains to let the sun in, and she whirled at the sound of his voice. “You’re awake!” she cried. “Really awake!”

“You sound as though that were a miracle,” he said. He tried to raise himself but found he had not the strength of a kitten. He slumped back on his pillows. “I’ve been ill.”

She crossed the room and stood by his bed, gazing down at him. “You have,” she said, reaching out and brushing back his hair. He felt a shiver go through him at her light touch, a touch so familiar it was as if he had felt it hundreds of times.

“How long?”

“Altogether? Six days.”

“Six days? I have been sick for that long?”

“You had a fever, influenza. We think you caught a chill and were susceptible.”

Memory flooded back to him. It had been after a particularly bad night of torturing nightmares. Somehow, knowing True was to be married to her vicar, he had not given a damn about anything and so when the nightmares came back even worse than before, he had gone out riding and gotten soaked by a drenching rain. He had ended up at a hedge tavern with some very disreputable customers, had drunk for several hours with them, and then had made his inebriated way back to Lea Park. He had done nothing so very irresponsible in a long, long time, since he was a boy, in fact. And the result, he supposed, was that he had been taken ill.

And nightmares! He remembered sweltering through some horribly vivid dreams of devils clawing at his innards, and hands dragging him down to the fires of hell, all manner of frightful apparitions. But then a voice had come to him, to tell him it would be all right. Could that have been Truelove?

“I was careless.” He gazed up at her, her drawn, tired face, pretty blue eyes gazing down at him with some indefinable emotion. She was caressing his cheek, scuffing her fingers against his bristly beard, and he turned his head slightly to kiss her palm. “Did you come back from your home just to nurse me?”

“I did,” she said gently.

“You look exhausted! True, you must take care of yourself.”

“I will, now,” she said, a serene smile on her face. “For now I really believe that you will be all right. I think I’ll go to my room.”

Chapter Eighteen

She slept around the clock. Life went on in the household. In that time Drake gained strength hourly, his former good health helping, as well as a ravenous appetite that proved how well he was, and how rapid his recovery would be. Horace could hardly keep up with his demands. That night, Drake slept uninterrupted, deeply, a whole ten hours, and awoke the next morning again with an insatiable appetite.

At Horace’s suggestion that he be brought weak tea and toast, he snorted. “Not bloody likely, old man. I have a feeling there are kippers and eggs and ham downstairs, and I mean to make my way through my fair share.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and grimaced. “I am as weak as a drunken ensign! This will never do. I must regain my strength, for we’ll move to Thorne House in two weeks. We shall contrive to cheerily live among the renovations.”

Lady Leathorne entered the room. “Drake, you get back in that bed! You have no business getting up yet. You’re still far from well.” She bustled across the room and jerked the covers up over his legs, but he put one hand out to stop her.

“Mother,” he said gently. He knew how his illness had scared her, but he was not about to let her coddle him forever because of that fear. “I’m going to be fine. I’m a little weak, but I am not going to regain my strength lying abed. I shall come down and rejoin the company and apologize for my prolonged absence.”

“Lady Swinley and Miss Swinley have gone. Conroy escorted them to . . . well, to his home.”

“What?” Drake frowned. “Conroy took them to his home?” It was against his friend’s nature to take any young lady to his family home, Drake knew, for that implied a relationship that could only lead to wedding vows. Conroy, a younger son, would marry someday, but was looking for a great heiress. The Swinleys must be comfortable, but he did not think them wealthy. Perhaps his friend had fallen in love. There had certainly been a partiality there, from what he could remember, but he could not swear that Miss Swinley had been equally interested. “I wish them well.”

“You’re not disappointed? That Miss Swinley did not stay?”

“No, Mama,” he said, gazing at her with an affectionate grin. “I’m not disappointed or heartbroken, or anything else other than relieved. And now, I’m going to undress, and since you have not been present for that event since I was a very young boy, I think we shall both be more comfortable if you leave the room.”

With a gleam in her eye, Lady Leathorne reached up and ruffled her son’s hair. “You will always be my ‘young boy,’ and do not forget that. I reserve the right to order you back to your bed if I see any sign that you are becoming overtired. I will not have you becoming sick again.” She moved toward the door as Drake slipped off the bed.