Borrowed Dreams (Scottish Dream Trilogy) (23 page)

“The dawn was already upon us when
I left.” A deep blush was coloring her cheeks. “And with your valets sure to
come in to check on you, I just didn’t know how appropriate—”

“We are husband and wife,
Millicent. Though I do not recall the ceremony all that clearly, I have seen
the documents.” He hoped to see her smile a little, but her face retained its
seriousness. “Therefore, not that I give a damn what my servants think, I do
not believe they would think it odd finding you in my bed. Certainly it would
be no stranger than finding you asleep in a chair, as they have seen you often
enough this past month.”

She was avoiding looking up at him.
Something else was bothering her.

“Unless you find lying next to a
cripple so demeaning that—”

“On the contrary…I find sharing
your bed to be quite pleasing.”

Her words fluttered shyly in the
air between them, like butterflies testing their wings for the first time. Lyon was willing to wager she had never in her life spoken of such things openly.

“Then why did you slip away like
some thief in the night?”

“I am not accustomed to it,” she
continued, blushing fiercely. “How am I to know what is appropriate behavior? I
thought I was expected to leave at some point during the night.”

“Is that how things were between
your husband and you? You made love, and then each of you retired to your respective
bedrooms?” 

“Made love?” The color washed out
of her face. “I don’t care to talk of my first marriage.”

Turning slightly to hide her face
from him, Millicent spread the newspaper on her lap and turned her attention
fully to it. “What can I read to you this morning, m’lord? News of the colonies
or the continent?” 

“Whatever suits you.” That was a
lie. He wanted to hear about her life. He wanted to know that she had been as
eager this morning to see him as he was to see her.

As he listened to her clear voice,
he realized what he would like to know was the story of the woman herself.
Nothing would interest him more than to hear the reasons for her insistence on
keeping the doors of her personal past so tightly shut. But Lyon knew he
desired the same privacy regarding his own past life. There were limits as to
just how far he would push her for answers.

They were two strange birds, he
thought. Both of them were still drawn to the same brightly colored berry that
they had each found so bitter in the past. And yet they were unable to pass it
by completely.

“I do not wish to hear any news of
the outside world,” he barked, cutting her off when a news article she read
referred to the regiment of his youngest brother, David. How many times during
his months of being confined to a chair or a bed had he thought of him? Lyon supposed David thought him guilty of pushing Emma over the cliffs. He would naturally
think the worst. Lyon had ruined David’s dreams by marrying Emma. But it was another thing entirely to murder her.

Lyon pushed the disturbing thoughts
away and tried to focus on the moment. He
softened his tone. “Put that
aside, if you will. Tell me instead about your interview with the stonemason.
Or tell me about the village, or the mess that deuced Gibbs is creating while
he decides if he can lower himself to take on the position of bloody steward.”

She glanced worriedly from his face
to the paper and back to his face again. Annoyed, Lyon wondered if she had
guessed the connection. She folded the newspaper and put it with the others
beside her on the bench.

“Very well.” She thought a moment.
“I received another letter from your mother, the dowager, with the packet of
newspapers this morning. She is considering my invitation of coming to Melbury
Hall for a visit.”

“Since when have you been
corresponding with that crafty old woman? And why would you do such a
mean-spirited thing as to invite her here?”

“Twice a week from the first week
of our marriage, and because I love tormenting you. Are these answers
satisfactory?”

Lyon snorted.

“Very well, then we are ready to
move on.” Millicent clasped her hands in her lap. “Perhaps you would like to
tell me what you have found in those ledger books regarding the Melbury Hall
farms. Then I can interrupt you and tear you to pieces for no reason.”

The ridiculousness of her challenge
was comical, and her words caught him off guard.

Lyon Pennington had always been
serious to the point of surliness from the day he was born. He had maintained
the reputation throughout his school years, during his years of service in India, and later among his peers. And then, after marrying Emma, he had added the fine
quality of being vile-tempered on top of it. As a result, most people avoided
confrontation with him at any cost. And those who didn’t soon felt—quite
painfully—the error of their ways. Indeed, from early on in his marriage, his
enemies’ only means of attacking him had been by way of rumor and innuendo.
There were some who had gone to great lengths to connect scandal with his name.

“Are you ready for the inquisition,
m’lord?”

“I will tell you what I perceived,
and then you may do your worst, Madame Torquemada.”

Lyon looked at Millicent’s straight
back and couldn’t help but smile. She had courage and spirit, and he wondered
how his mother and the family lawyer could possibly have possessed such
foresight.

Ohenewaa’s examination of Lyon had not been limited to the time she spent with him after his arm had been burned. The
next day, Millicent learned that the old woman had spoken with Gibbs
extensively about his master. And when she was finished with him, she had
tracked down John and Will and the other servants who had helped with the
earl’s care after his accident.

Finding Ohenewaa in the kitchen—in
a quiet corner that had become one of her usual haunts—Millicent sat down
beside her.  She wanted to know what the old woman had learned and what she
still needed to know.

The couple of hours she and Lyon
had spent outside this morning had done a world of good for him. His coloring
had improved; his appetite had grown. Of course, his temperament could still be
as foul as ever, but she now found it flecked with silvery touches of humor. 
After they had come in—while Millicent had been busy working with Mrs.
Page—Ohenewaa and Lyon had spent some time together. And now, with him lost in
the books again in the library—this time with Gibbs—Millicent was impatient to learn what she could of his condition.

“The only information I lack comes
from not having seen the surgeon set the bones.” Ohenewaa paused thoughtfully.
“You know that any English doctor would either laugh at you or commit you to Bedlam for putting your husband’s care into an old slave’s hands.”   

“That matters very little to me.”
Millicent smiled gently. “Will you share with me what you have discovered thus
far?”

Ohenewaa nodded. “Aye. And you should know that whatever I tell you your husband already knows. I even asked him if I
might relay it all to you.”

“Was his response, ‘Do as you
bloody please’?”

“Not quite so polite as that, but
he said something similar.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

Ohenewaa’s eyes opened more than
usual, and one gray eyebrow arched expressively. “Despite his bad temperament,
he does not suffer from madness.”

“I never thought so.”

“I believe he suffers from what old
Dombey would have called partial palsy.”

This confirmed what Gibbs had said
of the first surgeon’s opinion. Millicent kept her silence, though, waiting for
Ohenewaa to offer more. 

“The earl had a great injury
inflicted upon his head when he fell from those cliffs last summer. I have
talked to those in his service. At the time the greatest worries were the
breaks in his legs and arms. No one wanted to amputate his limbs. While they
worked on him, his lordship spent two full days lying unconscious. Of course,
that was good, too, for it saved him much pain.”

Pain of all types, Millicent
thought. She already knew that these same cliffs, on the same day, had claimed
the life of his wife. And how ruthless the gossips were to proclaim that Lyon had been the cause of that fall, when he had nearly died himself. 

“His manservant tells me that once
your husband regained consciousness, it took another fortnight before he was
able to control his muscles or feel anything from his shoulders down. He even
had difficulty breathing. His condition remained so severe that the family
considered what arrangements needed to be made for a funeral.”

His brothers were content to bury
him rather than nurture him to health, Millicent thought cynically. When his
siblings would do nothing, the dowager had taken responsibility for him, in
spite of her own infirmity and advanced age.

“But the feeling and movement
gradually began to return. A month after the accident, the earl could sit up.
In another month, when the splints were off both arms, he had gained the full
use of his left hand and arm. But then another fall—this time from a chair—and
he broke the right arm again. I am told the splints from this second break were
not removed until a few days before your marriage.”

Millicent rose to her feet and walked
to the window. From here she could see just the corner of the garden where she
and Lyon had spent the morning. She had heard him laugh once this morning. The
vibrant sound of it, like music, continued to play in her mind. No matter where
she would go and what else might be on her mind, Lyon was now a part of her
daily existence.

“You are saying they were gradual
improvements for the first couple of months, but nothing after that?” She
turned around to face Ohenewaa.

“So it appears. I think his impatience with the confinement, added to a constant melancholy that plagued him, inhibited the
progress. He is a man whose spirit cannot be fettered or shut in. Instead of
improving, Gibbs told me, he became worse, and the various medicines from the
physicians did nothing to make him better.” Ohenewaa could not hide her
disgust. “There was no effort made to exercise and strengthen the limbs, but
only to keep him confined in a bed or a chair. There was no one to clear and
challenge his mind. Instead, he was kept subdued and out of the way. If you tie
the legs of the great lion and keep him in a dark hole, he will soon refuse to
eat. And then he will die. Kill the spirit, and the noblest of creatures will
die.”

Having lived with Lyon for over a
month, Millicent understood more than ever how a situation like that would have
killed him. The dowager’s plea to her that first day to marry him made so much
sense to her now. The old woman knew what was happening to her son. 

“True, they managed to save his
limbs, but in the process they were cutting off the sustenance he needed to
live.” 

“What can be done for him now?”
Millicent asked.

“He does not want to believe it,
but there is no saying that he shan’t be able to regain more movement in his
limbs. Considering the extent of his injuries, the length of time he has been
healing is short.”

“One thing my husband lacks is patience. Is there anything that might help his body and not dull his mind?”

“I already have given him an
ointment I call Matthiolus salve. ‘Tis good for all pains in the joints.
Something better than that would be an ointment of leopard’s bane, but I do not
have all that I need to mix that here. Jonah tells me, though, that the
apothecary shop in St. Albans might have what is required.” 

“Leopard’s bane. Even the name
sounds fitting,” Millicent said wryly. “I shall send someone for it today. And if you need anything else, that can be purchased as well.”

“Another way of helping him is to
force him to move those joints.”

“Do you mean having someone else
move them for him?”

She shrugged. “I already know no
one could force him to sit through any exercise like that unless he himself is
willing. But if he can be persuaded, he may heal more quickly.”

“What do you mean?”

“All the ointments will do is help
to warm and stimulate the joints. For him to walk again, though, he needs to
ignore the voice in his head that says he cannot. Your husband’s body is
healing, but he does not believe it.”

Millicent’s head reeled with all
this information. This was not at all what she had been expecting a month ago.
Everything was changing so quickly, but this was not the time to confuse
herself with the thoughts of that.

“Do you really believe that he has
a chance to recover fully?”

Ohenewaa nodded her head. “You are
the only one who can persuade him to do things that he resists doing. ‘Tis in
your hands to nurture his spirit to health, too.”

*****

The afternoon’s sun was still
bright and warm through the single window of the steward’s office, and Lyon stretched with pleasure at the feel of it. The farms’ books lay open in front of him.
He looked up as Gibbs and the bailiff, Jonah, entered the room.

Lyon looked at the young bailiff.
He was not a big man, but he looked strong and his eyes were clear and
intelligent. From what Lyon had heard from Millicent, Jonah had been outspoken
and somewhat rebellious during his servitude to Wentworth, and he had suffered
greatly for it. Still, he had managed to establish himself as a leader among
the workers at Melbury Hall, and Millicent had apparently trusted him. Since
being made bailiff, though, he had not yet shown the confidence that the
position required. It must be difficult, Lyon thought, to go from the depths of
slavery to a position of authority. Who could blame the man if he took a while
to feel comfortable in his new role?

Lyon noticed the amity that already
existed between Gibbs and Jonah.
A good thing
, he thought.