Carola Dunn (22 page)

“It was accidental, truly. I did not think. I was so pleased with my notion, and so pleased she would be able to help, the words just popped out.”

He ran an exasperated hand through his hair. “What words, Daphne? Cut line, do!”

“I thought we might have a Christmas house party with lots of children invited, to amuse Colin. And Miss Findlay’s brothers, of course. But Mama put her foot down and said it would be too much for her. I know she is not well, but she need not have had much to do. I could have organized everything, with Cousin Jane and Miss Findlay and Mrs. Cardew to help.”

“It’s not a bad notion,” Ashe mused, momentarily sidetracked, “if you would really abandon Town early to do your part. However, I cannot see how that harmed Miss Findlay, unless you somehow led Mama to believe it was her proposal. Mama would think that shockingly encroaching.”

“Oh no! Miss Findlay told me she had no objection as long as Mama approved. And the boys were
aux anges
.”

“I daresay Mama did not like your having discussed it with them before mentioning it to her, but I hardly suppose she would blame Miss Findlay.”

Daphne had stopped crying, and now her face of misery changed to one of guilt. “No, but perhaps I set up her back when I argued. You know how she always used to tell me a lady never argues. So she was already displeased and ready to cut up rough when I spoke of Miss Findlay being an actress.”

Appalled, Ashe sank his head in his hands. “Daphne, you didn’t!” he groaned.

“And then Lord Quentin made it worse by saying she was not an actress but an opera dancer. I do think you might have told me so, Rob,” she said in an injured tone, but when he glared, she went on hastily, “but Lord Quentin did not think before he spoke any more than I did, I promise you. He is almost as mopish as I am, for we both thought we had found someone at last to whom I might entrust Colin, so that we could marry.”

“You did?” Ashe said thoughtfully. “Well, don’t despair yet.”

“But you do not understand, Rob. Mama absolutely refuses to have an actress in the house! Not even for a week or two to help stage an amateur production.”

“To what?”

“Did I not explain? I thought, since we could not have children to stay at Ashmead, we might enliven Christmas with putting on a play. Everybody does it.”

“Ah, so that’s how the subject of Miss Findlay’s having been on the stage came up. I wondered.”

“Yes, and Cousin Jane said it was disgraceful, and Mama immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was your chère amie.”

“As you did,” he reminded her.

“I did not know her then,” Daphne excused herself. “Anyone can tell she is a lady. And Colin has been so happy with her, and now he is dying, and Mama says she must go! Oh, I am the most wretched creature in the world!” She dissolved in tears again.

Swallowing his irritation, Ashe put his arms around her. “Miss Findlay will save Colin if anyone can, my dear,” he said, patting her back. “As for Mama, you may leave her to me.”

Despite these bold words, not without qualms did Ashe, having turned his sister over to the joint ministrations of her abigail and Teague, approach his mother’s sitting room. Unlike a number of people he knew who ruled their families with threats of imminent collapse, Lady Ashe’s disability was genuine.

Frosty air, sudden exertion, climbing stairs, all brought blue lips, breathlessness and a tumultuous pulse as evidence of the acute pains in her chest. So did emotional distress. Ashe knew he must tread carefully if he was not to have his mother’s death forever upon his conscience.

Yet his instinct was to fling open the door and rush in to berate her for causing so much unhappiness with her stiff-rumped, finicking notions of propriety.

Restraining himself, he tapped softly and, bidden to enter, did so at a moderate pace. From vases of white, yellow, pink, and rust-red blooms rose the tangy scent of chrysanthemums, reminding him of the harsher odour of camphor. Amid the flowers she loved, real and embroidered, his mother reclined on her sofa. She looked unwell, and older than a mere week ago.

She set down her needlework and held out her hand to him. “Robert, thank heaven you have come. How could you introduce a loose woman into your own home? You must get rid of her at once. The dreadful creature is pretending Colin is desperately ill and has actually persuaded Daphne the child is in danger of his life!”

“He is, Mama.” Ashe took her hand and stooped to kiss her cheek. “I have seen him, and spoken to the doctor. Surely you cannot disbelieve your own physician?”

“Then she has made him ill. Her unkindness drove him to run away.”

Gritting his teeth, Ashe pulled up a chair. His mother was usually perfectly reasonable, but once she took a notion into her head, her tenacity was extreme. It dawned on him that she was trying to evade the responsibility for Colin’s flight.

“Now think, Mama,” he said with what patience he could muster. “Has Colin seemed in the least mopish these past few months? I believe you must acknowledge he has never been happier, nor in better health. I am quite convinced, as is Daphne, that Miss Findlay is responsible.”

“But an actress, Robert! Worse, an opera dancer!”

“Only for a few months.”

“What difference does that make? She cannot possibly be a good influence upon the boy.”

“Come now, admit you saw nothing amiss before you discovered she had been on the stage.”

“Too young and too pretty,” Lady Ashe reminded him.

“Dreadful faults, to be sure, but for which she can scarcely be blamed. You saw nothing amiss in her manner.”

“N-no.”

Encouraged, Ashe said, “Circumstances forced her to seek employment to keep herself and her brothers, and she took the best she could find. Surely she is to be admired, not condemned?”

“She should have found a respectable position.”

“That’s easy to say, Mama. You, I thank the Lord, have never been in such straits and cannot imagine what it’s like. It went sorely against the grain with her. She is a lady by birth, instincts, and upbringing, I am certain.”

“She cannot have remained virtuous,” his mother said uncertainly.

“She has.” Ashe put all the sincere conviction of which he was capable into his voice. “When I met her, she and the boys were slowly starving to death, yet she refused even to consider accepting my protection.”

“Oh, Robert, you did not...!”

“I did.”

“They were starving?”

“Michael was so hungry he had pains in his stomach, yet when he found a penny in the street and bought a bun, he shared it with his brother and sister.”

“That delightful little boy?” Tears rose in her eyes. Ashe quailed but she blinked them away, reaching for her smelling salts. Alarmed, Ashe rang for her dresser. “I wish you had told me. Now Colin is desperately ill, all because I misunderstood. I shall never forgive myself if he dies.”

“We must trust to Providence, Mama, and to Miss Findlay. I had rather trust to her to nurse him through than to anyone else in the world.”

* * * *

Ashe trusted Lissa, but she could not accomplish miracles on her own and he trusted himself more than any other. Armed with her detailed instructions, he spelled her twelve hours on and twelve hours off. He saw her briefly, twice a day.

When he left Colin at noon, before he went riding to rid his lungs of the sickroom atmosphere, he always looked in on Peter and Michael. He knew Lissa spent most of each morning with them. They were always eager for the latest news of Colin.

“Much the same,” he told them every day.

“Not even a little bit better?” Michael asked one day, hugging Curly, who had the freedom of the schooroom now, after saving Colin. “After all this time?”

“At least he isn’t worse,” his brother consoled him. “So he isn’t going to die, is he, sir?”

Ashe did not wish to depress them, nor to give false hope. “He is fighting bravely, and he was in good health to start with, but he is sadly pulled down. The outcome is still in doubt, I fear, but since he has not yet succumbed there is a good chance of recovery. You must not expect him to be well all at once, though. He will need a long convalescence.”

“What’s con...that?” Michael wanted to know.

“Getting stronger,” Peter explained. “Colin won’t be able to run or ride or do lessons for ages. I suppose we shan’t have a tutor till he is quite well, sir?” he asked wistfully.

“I’d quite forgotten! I told my secretary to keep looking out for a suitable fellow. If he finds the ideal man, I certainly shan’t put him off and risk losing him. You feel in need of a teacher, I collect, Peter?”

“Yes, sir. There’s not much else to do but read and I get awfully stuck with the Greek. I’m really keen to start Latin, too.”

Remembering his own reluctant acquaintance with the Classics, Ashe wondered at the boy’s enthusiasm. At the same time, his curiosity reawoke as to the oddity of Lissa’s knowledge of Greek--and lack of Latin. As soon as Colin was out of danger he meant to pursue the matter.

In the meantime, “As soon as Voss finds someone, you shall have help,” he promised, noting that though in comparison with Colin they were fit as fiddles, their cheeks had grown wan. “Do you not ride in the afternoons, or at least go out to play?”

“If we build forts or climb trees, our clothes get dirty and torn,” said Michael, “and Nanny fusses so! And Peter says it wouldn’t be right to ride, ‘cause the ponies aren’t ours and the grooms aren’t ours, and Colin’s not there to need us to go with him.”

“Such scrupulosity does you credit, Peter. However, I wish you to exercise the ponies, or they will grow fat and lazy. Take turns with Colin’s Galahad. In fact, I’m going riding now. Will you accompany me?”

The boys were only too delighted.

The woods were all bronze and gold now, splashed with the red of bird-cherry. Leaves drifted singly or in flurries from the trees. Michael simply had to dismount and try to catch some, which meant Peter had to join him to show him how--with no greater success. Ashe nearly gave in to temptation, would have had he not brought a groom along. He left them scrunching through piles of crisp leaves, throwing armfuls at each other and an ecstatic terrier, and went on to gallop the fidgets out of his mount and his own bones. They met again at the new bridge, pronounced construction to be progressing nicely, and rode home together.

Happy to see the bloom restored to the lads’ cheeks, Ashe realized it was not only for Colin’s welfare he wanted them at Ashmead, nor even because Lissa would not stay without them. He had grown remarkably fond of her brothers.

A note awaited Ashe at the stables. He unfolded and read it: Miss Findlay begged Lord Ashe to repair to the sickroom at his earliest convenience.

His heart pounding with fear, Ashe raced up the stairs.

Chapter 18

Ashe paused outside Colin’s chamber and braced himself. A note rather than a message suggested Lissa wanted the servants kept in ignorance, unnecessary if Colin were dead, he tried to persuade himself. Yet she wouldn’t want Daphne or Lady Ashe to hear about it except through him.

Had Colin given up the fight and slipped away? Had he simply taken a turn for the worse? Or was he fallen into a delirium, struggling too violently for Lissa to hold him?

No delirious cries came to Ashe’s ears--but Colin had no breath to spare for outcries.

He opened the door. The child lay still, propped against his pillows, eyes shut. Lissa sat beside him holding his hand. She glanced up, and came to meet Ashe, a strange look on her face.

“Lord Ashe, feel his forehead.”

Three strides took him to the bed. Colin’s skin was cool and dry. The chill of death?

No! The boy’s stertorous breathing, a constant background for days, now came as a relief. So....

He hardly dared say it aloud. “The fever has broken?”

Lissa nodded, speechless, and burst into tears.

With none of the irritation he felt for his lachrymose sister, Ashe gathered her into his arms. Her forehead buried against his shoulder, she wept while he stroked her hair and murmured soothing nothings.

Her body was soft and pliable in his arms, belying the strength of spirit and will he knew to be hers. A surge of desire shook him. He fought it down. This was not the time for kisses, welcome or unwelcome.

She sniffed. “I have no handkerchief.”

“Take mine.” He remembered the badly monogrammed square of cotton left in his drawer in London. MF--Melissa Findlay. Or FM?

“Lissa,” said a tiny, breathless voice, “I’m...hungry.”

A joyful smile broke through the last tears. Half expecting a rainbow, Ashe smiled back as they turned to the bed.

“Why...are you...crying?” Colin asked. “Am I...going...to die?”

“No, love, you are going to get well. Just let me see what the doctor said you are to eat at first. Where did I put that list?”

“Li...Miss Findlay, I’ll tell Peter and Michael of the change. Shall I inform Daphne and my mother?”

“Pray do! Lady Orton may visit, briefly, if she promises not to cry.”

“You...did,” Colin reminded her.

“That was different,” Lissa said tartly.

Laughing, Ashe left them.

After cheering the boys with his news, he found his mother, his sister, and Teague in the drawing room. Teague’s continued presence surprised Ashe. He would have expected the fellow to be long gone, with sickness in the house and Daphne constantly on the edge of tears. Instead he had stayed on, uncomplaining, to keep her company, occupied if not precisely amused, and out of Ashe’s and Lissa’s way.

Perhaps he would not be such a bad bargain for Daphne after all.

Ashe paused on the threshold. Daphne and Teague had their heads bent over the Society pages of the Morning Post. Lady Ashe was setting tiny stitches in her latest embroidery. She looked almost as worn out as Lissa, Ashe noted with a pang.

“Good news!” he said.

They all looked up. Daphne ran to him.   “Rob, Colin is better?”

“His fever is down, and he’s hungry. Miss Findlay says you may go up for a few minutes, if you promise to be calm and not disturb him.”