Not Quite Darcy (18 page)

At intermission William offered to purchase lemon ices for them. Dora and Davy were content to stay in the box, but Eliza was quick to agree. Something cold sounded delightful to her aching throat. She and William jostled their way through the lobby, which buzzed with conversation and the press of bodies against her made Eliza feel lightheaded. After threading their way through the crush, William purchased two ices from a vendor in a bright-red costume.

She sighed in happy relief as the frozen treat soothed her throat. As they pressed through the crowd, suddenly Eliza felt a cold splash against her arm. Someone had spilled an entire glass of bright-red liquid onto her. She looked up to see a beautiful brunette woman dressed in a gorgeous lilac gown that had to have cost hundreds of pounds. The woman stared at her with large brown eyes.

“Oh my dear. I'm dreadfully sorry!” The woman spoke with a very cultured American accent.

Could this be her mission? Her mysterious American?

“How horribly clumsy of me!” The woman looked genuinely distressed.

“It's quite all right,” Eliza assured. “In this crowd, it could happen to anyone.”

“You're an American too?” When the woman smiled at Eliza, she was quite beyond stunning. “Forgive my manners, I'm Jennie Jerome.” She said her name as thought Eliza would be perfectly aware of who she was.

“Eliza Pepper.” She took no small amount of pride in remembering to curtsy as she said her name.

“You must allow me to make this up to you, Miss Pepper! At least I should pay for a new gown.” Several well-dressed gentlemen who appeared to be accompanying the American watched their exchange with interest.

“This old thing?” Eliza looked down at her dress, then gave Jennie a self-depreciating smile.

“Well, I must do something to make amends.” Jennie struck a pouting posture that seemed to be well rehearsed, her eyes lifted to the ceiling as though posing for a painting. “I've got just the thing. My ball! You must come to my ball.”

Eliza tried to make her lips form some kind of reply, but they'd been turned to rubber by the strangeness of it all.

“I insist! You must come! It's my first English ball and I'd feel so much better with more Americans about.” She flashed Eliza a winning smile. “What's your address, so I can send you a proper invitation?” She leaned her head down to murmur in Eliza's ear, “You know how these English are so proper with their invitations.”

“Ah, I'm at Seventeen Archimedes Road,” Eliza said. “In Hampstead.” She glanced over her shoulder to see William watching her, wearing a smile.

“The show is set to continue,” a voice called from the theatre door. An usher in a blue uniform stood back and held the door open for the crush.

“Oh, dear. Out of time.” Jennie squeezed Eliza's arm. “Pleasure to meet you, Eliza Pepper. Sorry about the dress, but I will make up for it at the ball. You'll see!” She whirled around and took the arm of one of the well-dressed men who'd been waiting by her side, then disappeared into the crowd.

Eliza shook her head and then looked back to William for reassurance.

“Did that just happen?”

William laughed. “I believe it did, Eliza. You've just managed to make the social catch of the season. My mother would be quite impressed. Jennie Jerome.”

“You know who she is?”

“I do.” William nodded. “She's one of the more famous American heiresses. And you've been invited to a very impressive event. Most of your fellow theatre-goers would be quite jealous of you.”

“I hope it's okay that I said yes?” Eliza bit her lip.

“Of course it is.”

Stage voices carried through the lobby door indicating that the play had resumed.

“We will find a way to manage all the particulars later. For the present, let's return to the play, shall we?” William took her arm and chuckled.

“What?” she asked. “What is so funny?”

“It's simply that you never fail to amaze, Eliza. Never fail to illuminate.” He patted her arm. “Come, I shouldn't wish you to miss the second act.”

They wove their way back to their seats in darkness.

The play's later half was even more exciting, with true love winning out and all the major players getting their happily ever after on by the end. When the lights came up, Eliza was surprised to find that she felt quite exhausted.

“Are you feeling unwell?” William asked.

“I had a terrific time but this cold is wearing me out. Sorry.”

While Davy hustled out to retrieve the carriage, William escorted the women up the long tunnel to the street, the jostling crowd leaving little opportunity for conversation.

In just a few hours, the atmosphere of the Strand had changed entirely. When they'd arrived, the street held an orderly line of carriages and a pleasant, if sooty, afternoon sky. The street now was a din of confusion. Carriages lined up, mixing in with delivery wagons, and throngs of people heading in dozens of different directions. Rain came down in sheets, and the steady wind that whipped down the street made things downright horrible.

They had no choice but to wait for Davy near the theatre door, but the building gave precious little shelter from the sideways rain. Eliza soon found her cold damp skirts plastered to her legs. She felt chilled to the bone and as the minutes dragged by, she willed herself to stop shivering. She tried to think of warm things: hot buttered toast, a caramel macchiato from Starbucks, a day at the beach, William's warm body pressed against her. It did little good.

By the time Davy pulled the carriage around, she was shaking severely. She could hear her teeth chattering as well, tapping out a staccato beat.

She climbed into the carriage in a haze. William flipped open a seat to retrieve a thick woolen blanket, which he tucked around her, then arranged for her to sit between Dora and himself for the ride home.

The crush of carriages combined with the weather to produce an ugly Victorian traffic jam, and the miserable carriage ride lasted over two hours. William tried to make conversation with her, but her throat hurt too much to talk. She spent the journey turning to rest her hot cheeks against the cool leather of the seat back.

As soon as they arrived at the Brown home, William insisted she go straight to bed, and she wasn't one to argue. Her legs felt weak and foreign as they carried her up the stairs. She couldn't help but feel disappointed with herself. He'd gone to so much trouble to have the perfect day out, and she had to go and catch some kind of Uber Cold from Hell.

She wobbled into her room and closed the door firmly behind her. She leaned her trembling frame against the wall for support. William's voice echoed to her from out in the hallway—but sounded so strange and distant—instructing Davy to take the rest of the staff to their homes. Their hallway conversation was increasingly difficult to follow and it turned into a cacophony of meaningless sounds. Their voices were fading in and out as though she were listening to them through the blades of an electric fan, a steady 
wah-wah-wah
 that used to be words, but made no kind of sense to her.

Eliza pulled off her damp hat and stripped her gloves from her fingers. After a few moments of ineffectual fumbling with her dress buttons, she gave up. The little shivers she'd experienced earlier had turned into fully fledged violent shaking. Her damp dress was plastered to her and she felt strangely detached, watching her legs quake and twitch as they tried to support her weight.

Her head was filled with such bright pain. She wondered if she should go to all of that effort to reach the bed. It seemed so far away. Why trouble herself when the floor was right here and handy? She sank down to it gratefully. It greeted her with a cool comfort and she fell into a fevered kind of unsleep.

Chapter Nineteen

“Eliza!” William knocked on her door for the third time. This time his voice was a little louder, a little more panicked.

For the past hour, his mind had remained firmly trained on her while he'd been forced to take care of his ever present obligations: arranging for Davy to drive the servants home, settling Mother in for the evening. Duties which took him away from her, each minute that they were apart fed the panic-beast inside him. She'd looked so unnaturally bright at the end of the evening, disoriented, her cheeks flushed crimson.

“Eliza, please!” He knocked yet again, fighting a losing battle against the tide of fear rising in his chest.

There was no decision to be made. William was forced to do that which no true gentleman would consider doing: forcibly entering the bedchamber of a young woman. He lifted the latch and pushed the door open. It only moved an inch, then stopped as if someone was on the other side, resisting him.

“Eliza?”

He pressed both palms against the door, and he could feel the weight shift a little. It wasn't much, but it was enough to allow a view through the crack. The small beast of fear that had been scampering around in the back of his mind roared to life with a vengeance. He saw Eliza's delicate hand, motionless on the floor.

He shoved firmly against the door with his shoulder and entered the room. The sight of her inert hand sliding lifelessly across the floorboards made his stomach churn. She was still in her dress, soaked to the bone. A shallow pool of water had gathered beneath her still form.

He fell to his knees and grabbed her shoulders. “Eliza?”

Her eyelids fluttered, and she moved her head to the side. “Lancaster?” she mumbled in a tone unlike her, weary and flat.

“Please, Eliza, you must get out of these sodden clothes. You're terribly ill.”

“No, not now. Too tired. Hurts. Hurts to breathe.”

He gathered her up with trembling hands. She didn't resist, but neither did she reach up to hold onto him. She lay in his arms, a limp and damp bit of flotsam. He sat her upon the bed, and she immediately collapsed onto it with a sigh.

“We must get you out of these wet things. Cannot you help me, Eliza? Please.”

She looked at him, green eyes bright with fever. “It's because I fucked up my mission, isn't it, Lancaster? You're doing this somehow as punishment. As one of your damned reminders.”

He knew it was the delirium talking, but her strange utterances made something twist cruelly within his chest. With only a passing thought as to the scandalous nature of what he was about to do, he began to undo the buttons of her icy gown.

“We must get you out of these things, love. Forgive me, but I don't know how else to assist you in this.” His shaking hands worked as quickly as he could force them to obey.

“William?” Her voice was slurred by fever.

“Yes. Darling, I'm William. I'm here to care for you. It will be all right.”

“Who am I then? Eliza? Bessie?”

“You're Eliza. Please, dear, can you stand with me? We'll get this gown off you.”

She stood, swaying slightly, so he placed an arm about her waist to steady her. Her head fell against his neck. Her hot breath came in shallow pants and warmed his throat.

He slid the gown from her shoulders, and it plopped in a puddle at her feet, leaving her in damp underthings. Covering her trembling body with the quilt, he gently set her back down on the bed.

Willing himself not to panic, he scooped some coals onto the small grate in the corner of her room. He struck a match with shaking fingers. As soon as the fire was lit, the chill began to leave the room, and he turned his attention back to her, shivering on her mattress.

“Eliza, we've made a good start, but we need to get you into some dry things. Can you help me, please?”

She nodded and watched him solemnly.

So it was that William Brown, twenty-nine-year-old virgin and former gentleman, began to strip this pliant and quite helpless young woman. He gently removed the quilt from around her shaking frame.

“Here, darling. Arms up.” She complied, and he slid her chemise up and off her body, quickly tucking the thick quilt back around her torso. “Stand with me, love. Come now, you can do this.”

He guided her into a standing position, his right arm gripping her tightly as his left slid the rest of her undergarments down to join the soaked blue gown on the floor. Naked and shivering, she clung to him as he eased her back down upon the bed and adjusted the quilt around her body.

“I'm going to get your nightgown now, Eliza. Is it in your wardrobe?”

She nodded weakly in response. He found the garment easily enough, though it was far too thin to protect her from the iciness of the room.

“You're William.” She continued to speak in that strange detached voice. “You're William and this is England.” She looked up at him, dazed.

“Yes, love. Please, I need to put your nightgown on now.”

He tried to avert his eyes from her body. For weeks, each night as he'd drifted off to sleep, he'd fantasized about her. Imagining her unclothed before him, but not like this. Never like this—weak and holding onto him for hope. It was as if some mystical being had seen his most secret desires, twisted them into cruel shapes and thrown them back into his face.

“Why is the wallpaper melting?” She raised her shaking arms for him. “It's all falling in puddles around the baseboards, and my head is on fire.”

“Darling, you've a fever. You're delirious. I've got you, but you need to let me help you.” He settled the nightgown around her shaking body and lowered her back to the bed, where she fell upon it with a relieved sigh.

“I had this before,” she said.

“You had this before?”

“I've been sick like this before. I saw the wallpaper falling to the floor then too. And I saw the strangest things on my bedroom wall. Elephants, bright pink, and dancing. I was so small then. Must have been seven or eight. Ran to my mom and dad's room. Dad picked me up in his arms, freaking out. He put me in a tub of icy water to bring down my fever.”

“Shhh, my love. No need to talk.”

“I have pneumonia, don't I? Like I did before when my dad put me in the ice tub?”

“I think that you might, Eliza.”

“Is this before or after penicillin?”

He could only look at her blankly.

“Antibiotics?” She asked, almost sounding angry in her fevered state.

“I don't understand the words you're using, love.”

“Great, so I guess my best chance is to lick moldy bread and hope that penicillin forms and kicks this thing's ass?”

“Darling, please?” She made no kind of sense to him. His hands trembled until they settled on her shoulders. He pulled her swaddled form toward him. Even through the quilt and her thin gown, he could feel the deep chill of her skin. She rested one hot cheek against his hand, and a shiver of fear snaked through him.

He went to the wardrobe to get another blanket out, but she protested. Her voice high and whining, like that of a child. “Sometimes I'm so cold but then I feel like I'm burning. Why is that? No blankets. Too hot now.”

“Eliza, you're supposed to sweat out a fever. According to medical authorities on the matter, it's the best thing for you now.”

“You just like to torment me, Lancaster,” she said.

He told himself that these words were a product of delirium, and yet he felt frozen fingers creeping up his spine that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room. She threw the blanket off and fell back onto her bed with eyes closed.

“I'm trying to help, love, but you must listen to me. We've got to keep you warm.” He stretched out beside her, pulling her into his arms as he tugged the blanket around them.

Lying with her. It was the fulfillment of his most secret desires, and yet cruelly granted in another twisted version of his dreams. She immediately tucked her overly warm head up under his chin, her cheek resting against his chest, which was cool compared to her fever-ridden body.

Her small hands were clenched into fists, lying on his chest and tucked under her chin; slowly, they began to relax.

He held her like that throughout the night. He kissed the top of her hair. He called her darling. He called her the spark of his life. He said a great number of things a gentleman would never say to a woman to whom he was not engaged. Most of the time she was lucid—she was aware of her surroundings and knew enough to question him about her illness and his treatment of it. But there were other times, awful moments, in which she was another creature altogether. These intervals accompanied her fevers, and she would talk nonsensically and address him as Lancaster.

It was well before sunrise when her coughing began. A deeply rattling hacking that left Eliza gasping for air. She took only the shallowest breaths, claiming that her chest hurt too much to breathe any other way.

Between the terrible spells when she struggled for breath, he slipped downstairs to prepare tea for her and to collect some Dover's Powder. It would ease the coughing and, he hoped, fend off the delusions. At the very least, it might buy her a bit of rest.

She was hesitant to take the powder he'd prepared, however, and he had to go back downstairs to get the bottle so that she could read the list of contents. She had an objection to opium as an ingredient. He assured her by telling her that he was giving her the same dose that his mother took during her coughing spells, and she reluctantly agreed. At last, she fell into an exhausted sleep.

He stayed by her side, perched in an uncomfortable wooden chair as he watched the early morning sunlight creep across the floorboards. When she stirred he would lean down to murmur soothing words, stroke her hair. It seemed to help ease her slightly and there was precious little else he could do.

At six o'clock, Dora arrived at long last. She hummed a tune as she trod up the back stairs. When she reached Eliza's door, Dora stopped in her tracks at the sight of him seated there—her face wore an expression of utter shock.

“Dora, it's a relief you're here. Eliza is gravely ill. I suspect pneumonia and must be off to fetch Dr. Hill. Please tend to both Mother and Eliza while I'm away.”

Dora's scandalized expression was replaced with one of concern, and she bobbed a curtsey before scurrying off to his mother's room. William dashed down the stairs and out to the carriage house to saddle a mount for his ride to the doctor's.

The trip proved to be unfruitful, however, as Dr. Hill was away to a country wedding for the day. William left a message for the doctor to come to their home as soon as he arrived back in town, but William felt scant comfort in it. He returned to the house, feeling more helpless than when he'd left it.

He'd made quick business of his absence, at any rate, and Eliza remained asleep, though by the looks of her bright cheeks the fever was beginning to rise again. He checked in with his mother briefly, filling her in on the situation. Assuring himself that Mother was in Dora's capable hands, he quickly returned to Eliza's side.

By the time he'd settled in, she was stirring again. The coughing spells seemed to worsen along with her fever, and it was far too early to administer more Dover's Powder. He felt utterly useless.

When he offered her a sip of water, it only made her choke and cough.

“Stop it, Lancaster,” she protested.

“I'm William.”

She looked at him with fevered eyes, breathing in little pants. “William, not Lancaster. Good thing. Lancaster would just hound me about my mission.”

“Your…mission?”

“The reason Lancaster sent me here.”

Her ramblings were nearly too much to bear. “Please, love. Try to rest. No talking now.” He grasped her hand, and she stilled at his touch, just as she had calmed last night after he'd lain down beside her.

Her short gasping breaths smelled faintly of copper—the scent of sickness and bloody lungs, he knew all too well. He could scarcely bear the pain of the metallic scent of her illness, so he tucked his face nearer to her ear, watching, hoping. He touched her hair lightly and continued to murmur soothing words. She slowly relaxed, and her shallow breathing fell into a steadier rhythm.

When he bent down to kiss her brow, the heat of her skin reached in to etch thin cracks on his heart. Too frightened to do anything else, he sat on the floor, still holding her hand as he waited for the doctor to arrive.

When evening neared, he dared another trip out to Dr. Hill's, but the good doctor was not yet in. William had left instructions with Dora to apply a mustard plaster to Eliza's chest—a treatment that would be inappropriate for him to administer. Upon his return, he was disappointed to find the patient had not cooperated, but had torn the plaster off as soon as Dora had applied it.

It was nearly eight o'clock when Dr. Hill finally arrived. William ushered the doctor into Eliza's room, and it was quickly confirmed that Eliza was indeed suffering from an acute case of pneumonia. Upon hearing the diagnosis, William reached behind to hold onto the wall for support. He'd begun to sway on his feet. It was no wonder, as it was now late Sunday and William hadn't slept since Friday night. Dr. Hill insisted that William rest while he tended to Eliza.

William had just fallen into bed when he was disturbed by crashing sounds and shouting coming from the direction of Eliza's room. Weariness be damned, he stumbled out of bed and rushed toward her room.

“Oh, thank god you're here, sir.” Dora greeted him at the door. “Eliza's just bounced a teacup off Dr. Hill's head.”

“That monster just tried to take blood from my neck.” Eliza's voice was weak but determined.

Dr. Hill gestured toward the mahogany case on the end table. “I've the most modern mechanical bleeding device. I assured her that she would feel very little discomfort during the process.”