B005R3LZ90 EBOK (29 page)

Sally stepped up to the bed, the mirror still in her hand. "I do not wish for George to use his energies for negative thoughts. Only positive, healing ones."

"Of course, you're right," Glee said, taking her brother's hand. "When will you be able to get out of that wretched bed?"

He glanced at Sally.

"When he feels up to it, I expect," Sally said. "Now that the flesh is healing, his movements are less restricted."

"I believe by week's end I'll be out of this demmed bed."

"Watch your language, dearest," Sally said.

Bless her!
Dearest this, dearest that
. At least one good thing had come from this bloody accident. If it was an accident.

When Sally referred to her husband as "dearest," Glee's flashing eyes met Sally's. It was as if there were some secret between the two women. A secret that had something to do with him. Perhaps he needed a
tete-a-tete
with his sister.

Blanks came to stand to the left of his wife. "How long since you've ridden a horse, old fellow?"

"A month."

Blanks winced. "I vow, before I leave Hornsby, you'll be in the saddle again."

George offered a wan smile.

Miss Primble brought the children for their afternoon visit, and Sam came flying to his father's bed.

"I'm ever so sorry, your lordship," Miss Primble said, "I did not know you had visitors."

George imprisoned Sam with his arms and made silly noises upon the lad's neck, making him giggle. "It's all right, Miss P.," George said. "Allow them to visit for a spell with their aunt and uncle."

Glee intently watched the easy camaraderie that had developed between her brother and his son, and her eyes once again filled with tears.

"Aunt Glee!" Georgette said. "Where is Joy?"

"I shall not tell you until you present your aunt with a kiss," Glee said affectionately.

Georgette stood upon her tiptoes and Glee made herself even smaller by stooping low to accept her niece's kiss. "Now let me look at you!" Glee said. "I believe you have grown since the last time I saw you. Country life must agree with you, my precious niece."

Georgette frowned. "We were very happy here—until Papa got burned."

"Your mama won't allow us to speak in your father's chambers about the fire. We can only discuss his recovery—which I understand is coming along nicely."

Georgette nodded.

"I expect the carriage in which Joy and nurse are riding will be here any minute. Would you like to go watch for it?"

"Oh yes, ever so much." Georgette turned and skipped from the room.

Glee turned back toward her brother's bed. "I expect my nephew has forgotten me completely." She poked her nose into Sam's little face. "Hello, Sam."

Sam spun toward to his father, then back to her. "Papa sick!"

"Oh, George, he's talking! I told you not to worry about him."

George dropped a kiss on top the lad's curly hair. "I'm rather pleased that he chose to speak his first sentence to me."

"That's because," Sally interjected, "Sam was very worried about his papa. The two have become quite close."

"You're so fortunate to have a son," Glee said in a thin voice.

It hurt George when his sister hurt. And, whether Blanks knew it or not, he was hurting Glee with his unselfish love of her, his fear of losing her. George had his work cut out for him in helping to bring Glee and Blanks together again in that most important way. In the same way he hoped to be together with Sally. Soon.

Chapter 27

The next morning George decided he would be a cripple no longer. With his valet's help, he dressed. He tried not to think about that blasted cravat pinching against the tender burned skin on his neck. The doctor had said he could not go out in sunlight because the new skin was far too susceptible to more burning. More burning was the last thing in the world he wanted.

So he would have to content himself with walking down the stairs and busying himself in his library. There were many farming journals he had to get caught up on reading, and then there was Blanks. Just having his dearest friend under his roof sent a smile to George's healing face.

He had not counted on that slip of a wife of his having apoplexy when she saw him descending the staircase.

"Oh my goodness, George," she called up to him from the foot of the stairs, "are you sure you're up to it?" Her brows seriously rumpled as she watched him come down each step.

He would have liked for his progress to have been faster, but the fact was that he was far weaker than he had expected. He became unbelievably winded, like an elderly person who could not walk and talk at the same time for lack of breath. Bloody hell, if he didn't feel wretchedly like an elderly person at the moment.

Glee came scurrying into the central hallway, her little face alight. "Bravo! George!" she said excitedly, gazing up at him with smiling eyes. "I'm ever so proud of you!"

His wife, on the other hand, had gone white with fear. "George Pembroke! Why did you not ask Blanks—or your man—to accompany you down the stairs? I declare, in my mind's eye I saw your weak legs giving out, making me a widow." She stomped her slippered foot. "And I assure you, I have no desire to be a widow."

When he came to the last step, he brushed his lips across Sally's smooth cheek. "Would you be a merry widow, my dear?"

She thrust hands to hips and narrowed her eyes. "I most certainly would not!"

He rather liked it when Sally was mad like this. It was a good mad.

Adams opened the front door, and Willingham came striding into the central hall.

"My lord! It's good to see you up and about." Willingham's eyes scanned those assembled around George.

"You remember my sister?" George asked Willingham.

The steward's eyes flashed. "How could I forget one as lovely as Mrs. Blankenship?" He bowed before Glee, and she offered him her hand.

George did not at all approve of the way Willingham positively drooled over married women. Including
his
Sally. The man needed to get his own wife and stop hungering after the wives of other men.

Willingham peeled his eyes from Glee and faced his employer. "Are you up to riding the estate yet, my lord?"

Sally answered. "He most certainly is not! Dr. Moore said George's skin will be extremely sensitive to the sun."

George gave a martyred expression. "I shall have to console myself by reading the new agriculture book by Hodson today." "I did not know you had it. I was going to order it myself," Willingham said.

"Allow me to offer you mine—once I've read it."

Blanks came up and nodded at the steward. "Your servant, Willingham." Then he directed his attention to George. "I didn't know you were able to get up yet, old fellow."

"This is my first time. Come, let's go to the library." George raised a brow to his steward. "Willingham?"

"No, my lord, I've work to do. I only came to see if I could be of any use to you, and I see that I'm not needed."

Glee slipped her arm through Sally's. "I perceive this is your first day free of sick-room duty. Should you like to take a walk?"

"I would love to," Sally said. "Allow me to fetch a bonnet."

With unfurling pride, George watched Sally glide gracefully up the stairs. Only this moment did he become aware that she had ceased to curl her hair. A few months earlier he would have thought that straight hair of hers hideously unfashionable. Now he could scarcely remember what she looked like with curls. He had come to love the silvery blond wispiness of her hair. Even if it was as straight as a straw—her description, not his. He chuckled to himself.

In the oak-paneled library, George closed the door behind Blanks, drew open the olive velvet draperies, and went to sit on a sofa across from his friend.

"Has it occurred to you," Blanks began, "that someone is trying to ruin you?"

George gave an insincere laugh. "Is the sky blue?"

"Do you have any idea who it could be?"

George shrugged. "I have an idea, but it doesn't make sense."

Blanks leaned forward. "What doesn't make sense?"

"Nothing ever happened until a big, strapping fellow named Ebinezer showed up at Hornsby in May. He said he had experience working with horses, needed a job, asked only for room and board—no wages."

Blanks's brows shot up. "No wages whatsoever?"

"None. I suppose a bell should have gone off in my head, but it didn't."

"Why should it? You don't have any enemies."

"I've combed my brain to think of anyone who has animosity toward me, but I can think of no one."

"I can't, either, old fellow, but it sounds as if someone does hate you and most likely hired old Ebinezer to destroy you. Why don't you just give him the boot?"

"I've thought of that, but I'm afraid it wouldn't solve anything. He could still get at me. Besides, I'd rather set a trap for him. That way I could learn who my enemy is, who hired him. The problem is---"

"It would be bloody difficult for you to stay awake four and twenty hours a day to watch the bloke," Blanks said.

George's eyes flashed. "I know! A Bow Street runner!"

"An excellent idea. In fact, I believe you should ask for two. That way you could be assured one of them is always awake to keep a watch on the wretched groom." Blanks cleared his throat. "I understand money's rather thin this quarter. Allow me to hire the runners. You can pay me back next quarter."

"You're a good friend," George said.

"A brother, too."

George settled back into the sofa, but it hurt his tender back, forcing him to sit up ramrod straight again. "So Felicity's increasing again?" George said.

Blanks frowned. "Don't understand that Moreland. Would have sworn he worshipped the very ground Felicity trod. How can he risk . . . ?"

"They do love each other. Profoundly, I would say." George thought of how much he had come to love Sally. She was every bit as vital to him as Diana had once been. The very thought of losing her was like a dagger to his heart. "When two people love each other, it's only a natural extension of that love to . . . "

He swallowed hard. To make love to each other. He vowed that by week's end Sally would truly be his wife. His breath began to come rapidly.

"I know," Blanks said morosely. "I don't even want another woman. I want only my wife." His voice broke. "But I'm so bloody scared of losing her. I would not wish to live if I lost Glee."

As I would not wish to live without Sally
. "You know, Blanks, a month ago I was almost killed. No one would have ever expected that—least of all me. Death can strike anyone at any time. You could be trampled by a stallion tomorrow. And what kind of memories would Glee have of you?" George grew solemn. When they were still in Bath, Sally had spoken of Glee and Blanks in a way that had rather shocked him at the time. It was so passionate a thing for a maiden to say. Or even to think. But now he had come to realize there was great emotional depth to this wisp of a woman he had married. "Sally once said something about you and Glee which I feel compelled to repeat. You do know that Glee confides in my wife?" Calling Sally his wife filled George with a heady sense of possession.

Blanks nodded. "What did Sally say?"

"She said Glee would rather die in your arms than live to old age without your love."

Tears sprang to Blanks's eyes. He stood up and walked to the window and watched his beautiful wife stroll the grounds of her girlhood home with Sally. "I need to dash off a letter to my own steward this morning," Blanks said in a raspy voice, then he turned on his booted foot and left the library.

* * *

It had been a month since Sally had set foot outdoors. The sun shone, and the weather was fair, with only a mild breeze. It was much like that horrid day that also had begun so beautifully—that day she could never recall without tears gathering in her eyes.

"Blanks has brought a few of his workers here to rebuild the stables for George," Glee said.

Sally sent her lovely sister a grateful smile. "You two are so kind to us."

"Was the stable completely destroyed?"

"I don't know." Sally refused to even look in the direction of the stable. "I shall never go there until the last remnants of it are gone. It's far too painful. I won't even ask about it. There's an aura of evil there."

"It does seem as if there's a black cloud over my brother's head."

"I cannot tell you how frightening it's been . . . First the slaughter of all those sheep, then almost losing George. And I fear for the children excessively."

"I shouldn't have brought up the subject. You need to remove all those fears. After all, you can't do anything about it." Glee brightened and put an extra jaunt in her step. "I was delighted to see the transformation that's come over George when he's with Sam. I suppose you're responsible for it?"

Sally shook her head. "I don't think so. I admit I planned things that I thought might put them in close proximity with one another. Then George's own generous heart did the rest. He loves both the children terribly, and he's a wonderful father."

"I wish Blanks had a son," Glee said in a forlorn voice.

Sally cast a sideways glance at Glee. The breeze rustled in the other woman's curly auburn tresses. A pity she looked as if she had just remembered she was bereft of her greatest friend. In a way, she was. "You just might have to seduce the man," Sally said, turning back to the house, since the lawn was about to butt up against the wood.

Glee's mouth dropped open. "Sally! I cannot believe that word is even in your vocabulary. You must no longer be an innocent maiden."

For some reason, Sally felt compelled to withhold the truth from her best friend for the first time ever. "I declare, Glee, you shall put me to the blush!"

Glee came to a dead stop and stared at Sally. "You goose, you don't have to tell me. I can tell by looking at you that you are a well loved-woman."

Glee did, indeed, put Sally to the blush.

* * *

That night the four of them played whist in the drawing room. Despite that George had been eager for a good game of whist, his mind obsessed over his life's partner who sat across the card table from him. The brush of her knee against his sent his heart racing. He watched her as she arranged the cards in her hand, and he remembered her gentle touch as she had bathed his fevered body. He imagined her hands gliding over his bare flesh, and he longed to stroke her bare flesh, to feel the gentle swell of her breast, to kiss a trail of butterfly kisses down to her navel. And below.