Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) (25 page)

“Mother?”

She turned back. Horace had come forward, and was ready to help his former commanding officer should he prove to be unsteady on his feet. “What is it?”

“Is Truelove downstairs?”

“She’s still sleeping, son. She went to bed yesterday and has been asleep since.” She gazed at him with calculating eyes. “She wore herself out, and it is best if she sleeps as long as she needs to, to regain her own strength.”

“She’s very special, don’t you think?”

“I truthfully think I love her as a daughter, Drake,” Lady Leathorne said. Her smile was watery, but she sniffed and swallowed, took a deep breath, and spoke again. “I can never repay her adequately for giving me back my only child. Now, get dressed and I’ll see you at the breakfast table.”

• • •

Everything, every dancing mote of dust in the sunlight, every stray scent of floor wax or toast or shoe polish seemed delicious and beautiful and heartbreakingly perfect to Drake. He wandered the household after breakfast—really more of a luncheon by the time he had bathed and dressed, resting between each ordeal while he got his wind back—and gloried in the perfection of everything.

How had he never seen before how truly beautiful something as simple as a single rose in a crystal vase was? He wandered through the house until teatime, and then followed the scent of biscuits into the rose parlor, where tea was being served.

His father was already there, helping himself to the buttered biscuits, spreading one lavishly with strawberry preserves. He stopped dead at the sight of his son, his rheumy eyes fixed on his progeny.

It was not the first time Drake had wondered how two men so close in relation as he and his father could have so little in common as to seem almost strangers. When left alone in the same room they had virtually nothing to talk about. It should not be; this was his father. He had adored him as a child and had followed his strong, young, vigorous “papa” from stable to house and back again every day as a boy.

“Father,” he said, approaching the tea table, “it’s good to see you.” Had his father shrunk, or was it just that he had grown so tall in the years he had been away with the army?

Leathorne looked up at him, putting the biscuit aside, brushing the crumbs from his hand, and thrusting it toward Drake. “Son, good to have you back in the land o’ the living, I must say. Good to see you up and about.” He took Drake’s hand and pumped it vigorously, then clapped his son on the shoulder.

They stood thusly for a few minutes. Drake thought, for one brief moment, that he saw a hint of moisture in his father’s eyes, but he could not be sure. “It
is
good to be up and about. I was very ill, I guess. It all seems one long nightmare to me, until Miss Becket came, at least.”

At the word nightmare, Leathorne dropped his son’s hand and looked hastily away. “Not, er, not having the nightmares again, are ye?”

“It has only been a couple of nights since my fever broke, I understand, but I don’t think I shall, no. I think I have conquered the blackness and come out on the other side. I cannot be sure, of course, but I hope it is so.” It was strange to speak of it openly, for he had tried to conceal them for so long that it amazed him his father was even aware. But then his mother had known, and she would have said something, perhaps. He was not going to hide from his own frailty anymore, though. There was something to be said for an open admittance of weakness, for then one could truly be strong, rather than waste energy hiding things from people.

Leathorne cleared his throat. “Never said this, uh, son, but your mother and me, we’re . . . well, we’re demmed proud of ye,
demmed
proud! I know ye went through some kinda hell out there—Waterloo, dontcha know—and we’re just glad to have ye back safe and sound.”

It was the longest speech his father had ever made regarding Drake’s military career, and it touched the viscount’s heart. “I did what I felt was right, but much of it I am
not
proud of,” he said honestly. He picked up a biscuit and layered butter and jam on it and took a bite. Ambrosia! He rolled his eyes at the utterly exquisite taste of cook’s strawberry preserves; it was like captured summer.

“How can ye not be proud o’ yourself?” the earl said, his eyes squinted in puzzlement. “You’re a hero! Got Wellington’s own word on that, don’t we?”

Drake knew well enough to leave it alone, and thanked his father with a smile. A hero. He had done what he had to do to preserve his own life and the lives of those in his company, and he had not always succeeded. So many good men had paid the ultimate price, and for what? Could victory have been purchased with no other currency than human lives? He didn’t know if he would ever become reconciled to the butchery he had witnessed and taken part in. It was over, thank heaven.

At that moment the parlor door opened, and True came in, a ready smile on her face. He was staggered by the emotions that raced through him pell-mell, and by the choking sensation in his throat. She was so very beautiful. Did she have any idea of how truly lovely she was, with that deep blue gown matching her eyes, and the baby softness of her hair dressed in a simple style so that it caressed her neck in long soft curls?

She said something but he could not respond, he just stared. Fevered nights came back to him, and the feel of a cool hand on his brow, pushing back his curls, always doing just what he needed as he existed through a long nightmare of burning heat and an ache through his body that felt like someone was squeezing his very bones.

How much of his memory of that time was real, and how much was his fevered imagination? He would have sworn he felt kisses on his brow and his lips, and heard murmured words of love, unutterably sweet, keeping him sane, pulling him back from the nightmares every time they would threaten to invade his mind again.

She was chatting to his father and throwing brief, anxious glances toward him, but he could not speak, could not even swallow.

She turned to him. “I’m so glad to see you are better, Wy,” she said, her voice a low murmur.

His mother had come in, too, and was speaking to Lord Leathorne.

There were dark circles under Truelove’s gorgeous eyes, and he prayed she had taken no lasting harm from what must have been days and nights of nursing. He must ask her, must speak before she thought he had been made an idiot by the fever. “I . . . I can never thank you, never repay you—”

“Hush,” she said, and he could see her hand move as if she was about to reach out to him, but she restrained the urge and picked up a cup instead. “I did very little, really. It was your own strength that brought you through.”

“You will minimize it, but I know. I was there, and I do remember. It was only your voice that chased the demons away.” He looked down at the biscuit in his hand. “I was being dragged to hell, I felt, but you—your voice, your words, your touch—sent them flying away. And every time they threatened to come back, you would just speak, and you would break through; all would calm in my mind.”

He didn’t realize he had remembered so much, but it was true. The nightmares had been the worst torment of the fever because unlike when he was well, he could never get away from them. When he was well he could get out of bed and ride until they had fled his troubled mind, but as sick as he was they had taken permanent root in his fevered brain, and until True arrived, threatened to drive him mad. He laid the biscuit down, his appetite gone for the moment.

This time she did reach out to him. Her small hand rested on his sleeve, and he imagined he could feel the warmth through the double layer of cloth. “Wy, you’re better. Don’t torture yourself with memories and remembered pain. I’m so grateful you’re better!”

He gazed down at her small tanned hand on his sleeve and covered it with his own hand. It disappeared entirely. Strange that such small hands should come with so much competent skill, and so much loving tenderness. He glanced up and smiled into her eyes. “I remember, too, some foul-tasting decoction that you insisted on dripping down my throat.”

She giggled. “That, sir, was my willow bark tea, and a brew of feverfew. It played no small part in your recovery! So a little respect for my ‘foul-tasting decoction,’ if you please.”

“I would gladly drink a yard of it to hear you laugh like that again,” he said, and then shut his mouth, alarmed at the fervency in his tone and the way his voice had broken. She would think him a great looby if he started spouting such drivel. He had never been one to woo the ladies with fine words or tender sentiments. Poetry escaped him. Lovemaking was a foreign skill. And yet he found himself wishing he could compose sonatas on her eyes, like Shakespeare.
Shall I compare thee to a summer day?
That was Truelove Becket, all the warmth and beauty of a summer day.

She had quieted, and stood gazing up at him. She must have read his panicked expression, because a quirky smile lifted her lips. “Wy, don’t worry, a little over-emotionalism is the price one pays for recovery. I have long noticed that for a few hours or days the patient, after recovering from a serious illness, finds everything and everyone beautiful and wonderful and unbearably perfect. It’s almost overwhelming. You will regain your normal senses soon, I promise you, and all will fade into humdrum reality.”

He laughed out loud at that. How like her to see right through him, and yet minimize her own attractions, the music of her laughter, in this case. “I don’t think I will ever see you as anything but absolute perfection, True, for
that
is reality.”

• • •

It could not be put off any longer, Lady Leathorne thought. She must broach the subject now. It was morning. Drake had gotten up after another sound and dreamless night’s sleep and had ridden off with his father to visit some of the tenants. His strength was returning, and his mother knew who she had to thank for that.

But that was not why she could not put off this conversation any longer. She had caught the maid, Bess, gossiping about Miss Becket’s “nights alone with the young master,” as she put it, and had threatened her with dismissal if she ever heard the girl saying such things again, but she feared it was far too late. In truth, she had known all along what would happen, for it was impossible to control rumor. It seemed to take on a life of its own. If it could have been confined to Lea Place it would not have signified, but that girl was sure to have a sister in service at some other house, and she would pass on such a juicy piece of tittle-tattle. It would spread from there in the mysterious fashion of downstairs gossip. She would protect Miss Becket from that. She would have no matter who the girl was, but Truelove Becket was infinitely precious to her, and this was the least she could do.

She found her in the small parlor, putting the final touches on a monogrammed handkerchief. “What exquisite work,” Lady Leathorne said as she sat down beside her guest. “I never had patience for such elegant stitchery.”

True held it up to the light from the window. “This, for me, is relaxation. I have always had a pile of mending to do, so to be here with no sister poking holes through her gloves and no father wearing out his stockings, leaving me free to do embroidery, is pure luxury.”

“Would you like to become accustomed to having that amount of time? To being wealthy enough that you would not need to worry about holes in gloves?”

True frowned and bit through the thread with her even white teeth. “I never thought of it as a matter of wealth, my lady. Having a family entails a certain amount of work, and mending is just one of the things one does.”

Lady Leathorne smiled. “Oh, my dear, not always. I have never mended a glove in my entire life. Why should I? When we wear through them we give them away and we buy more.”

Wondering where the countess was going with the conversation, True remained silent.

“You care about my son a great deal, I think. No woman could look after a man the way you cared for Drake without feeling some tender emotion.”

“I have nursed many, my lady: men, women and children. I have cared for every one of them.” True felt her chest growing tight. She must not reveal her true feelings, especially not to this woman in front of her. It just would not do.

“Do not try to gull me, young woman. But that is neither here nor there. My son must marry sometime. I want to have grandchildren. I think he’s ready, now that he has retired from the army. Do you care for him enough to be a good wife to him?”

“My lady!” True exclaimed. She set aside her sewing and rose, pacing to the window. She turned, trying to conceal her shock. “Lord Drake does not feel like that toward me. His affection is the brotherly kind, and—”

“If that is true, it could soon be turned to the not-so-brotherly kind, if you put your mind to it. Men only require a little encouragement to go from affection to . . . well, to passion.”

True felt the blood rush to her face and knew she was likely an unbecoming shade of crimson. She covered her cheeks with her hands. “What are you suggesting, my lady?”

“I am suggesting that you would be a suitable wife for my son.”

True was staggered. The countess’s voice was so calm, so even. Was she offering her son as some kind of reward, out of gratitude? It was unheard of, and True was rather appalled, but she must conceal that, she knew. Perhaps the woman meant well, but she could not offer her son as some sort of prize for a job well done. “I would say, Lady Leathorne, that Drake is perfectly capable of choosing for himself a wife, if and when he wants one.”

The countess rose, too, and stood in front of True. She took her hands in her own and squeezed them. “My dear, I see I will have to be blunt, for you have a natural delicacy that will not allow you to understand me, else. You spent nights alone with my son, in his room, on his bed. You were seen there by numerous staff members. I have tried my best to stem the tide of gossip, but have been unable to stop it. It will spread, as it invariably does, and you will be . . . you
have
been compromised.”

“And you think I would accept your son, that I would marry him when he is forced to offer for me?” True pulled her hands away from the countess and clutched them to her bosom, horrified at the implications. She loved Drake dearly; loved him far too much to foist on him a marriage he did not choose, to become a millstone around his neck. His future countess should be everything he needed in life, including a hostess and his social equal. As for herself, how could gossip among the
ton
harm her? She lived a retired life, and none in her circle would listen to scandal concerning her anyway. That was the reward, she hoped, of a blameless life.