Pleasured (22 page)

Meg jumped to her feet and went to the head of the bed. Lynette’s face was red, and she moved her head restlessly. Her breathing was labored, each breath seeming more difficult.

“Her fever has spiked. She is growing worse.”

21

Q
uick,” Meg went on. “We
must make her a tent for breathing. We need material.”

“Blandings!” The valet popped into the room, and Damon repeated Meg’s command.

“And more water—hot and cold.” Meg gave Lynette another spoonful of tonic to reduce her fever and wiped down her face and chest with the cool water. “Here.” She turned to Damon. “Raise her up and hold her.” She handed him a small towel. “I have to clear her lungs.”

Damon leaned his daughter against his chest, and Meg cupped her hand and laid it on Meg’s back, just above her shoulder blade. Keeping her wrist on Lynette’s back, she began to clap her cupped hand against Lynette’s back. It made a loud popping sound, and Damon winced.

“It doesn’t hurt her. It sounds loud, but it’s only a tap.” Meg continued to move her hand up and down. “Now, Lynette, take a breath. Do you hear me, sweetheart? Take a deep breath.”

Lynette drew in a bubbly breath and began to cough.

“There, that’s good. That’s my girl.” When the spasm ended, Meg moved to the other side of Lynette’s back, following the same routine. After that, she went through the same treatment on either side of the girl’s upper chest, urging her to breathe in deeply after each set of tapping. She followed up with a final set of claps on Lynette’s lower back.

Blandings returned, and Meg instructed the two men to drape a sheet over the head of the bed, forming a tent. She replaced the herbs in the bowl with a fresh mixture, crumbling up a few new leaves and adding them. With the makeshift tent now in place over Lynette’s upper body, she set the bowl down on the small table and poured steaming water over it. Bathing the girl’s face again with the freshly cold water, she closed the tent around Lynette and the steaming bowl and stepped back.

As Blandings slipped out of the room behind them, Meg turned to Damon. He was still as a rock, gazing at the tent as if he could will his daughter to breathe. Without thinking, Meg took his hand, and he closed his fingers tightly around hers.

“Is she better? How can I tell?” His voice was low and raw.

“We must wait.” They stood that way for what seemed forever, but finally Meg straightened. “Listen.” She pulled him a step closer to the tent, bending her head toward Lynette. “There. Can you hear it?”

“Her breathing is easier.”

“Yes, the heat and herbs have opened her airway. She does not have to labor so to breathe.”

Damon looked over at Meg, a glimmer of tears in his
dark eyes. “Thank God! Meg . . .” He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and resting his head against hers. “I thought she was going to smother. I thought I had lost her.”

Meg wound her arms around him, holding him tightly, as if she could pour her comfort into him. She felt Damon press a kiss to her hair and say her name again in a voice choked with emotion. In that instant she felt joined to him as surely as they had been joined that night in her bed. She knew his pain, his dread, the relief and hope that flared inside him now, and it was sweet, so sweet, to hold him. So right.

Then his arms loosened around her, and she looked up at him. He held her for a moment longer, his eyes gazing into hers before he stepped back, releasing her. Clearing his throat, he said, “Thank you.”

“There is no need to continue to thank me, Damon. I am happy I was able to help her. Lynette is dear to me. And even if I did not know her, I would not have refused.”

“Thanking you is a necessity for me, I think.” He let out a long breath. “She is better now, isn’t she?”

“She is better,” Meg said carefully. “There is still a long way to go, but for the moment, she is responding to the remedies. Her fever has dropped and her breathing is clearer. Her lungs are still very congested. There may be another crisis. But I am hopeful. I meant it when I told you that Lynette is stronger than she looks.”

“Good. That’s good.” He repeated his words almost as if to convince himself. “What do we do now?”

“Wait,” she said prosaically, and returned to her chair. “We will probably have to cup her back again in a few hours. You should sleep while you have the chance.”

“I cannot.” Damon went to the window and pushed aside the curtain, looking out. “It’s dawn,” he said as if surprised to find the world still moving. He stood for a moment, gazing out, before he turned and prowled restlessly about the room, finally returning to his daughter’s side.

The upper part of Lynette’s body was hidden beneath the tent, her form barely visible through the material. Damon brushed his fingers across her hand on the sheet.

“She is so small,” he said quietly. “She always was.” A smile of reminiscence touched his lips. “I remember the first time I held her. She was tiny and red, squalling, wrinkled, with an astonishing amount of black hair standing out all over her head like a cat with its back up. I looked at her, screaming and flailing her arms around, and I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She was perfect, such tiny fingers and toes, miniature nails. When I held her, I felt—I cannot even describe it. I had never imagined that I could feel so proud and so fierce. So . . . entranced.”

Meg’s throat closed with tears. She swallowed hard. “Bairns are the most perfect creatures.”

He nodded, tracing his forefinger down a line of bone and tendon on the back of Lynette’s hand. “I was not the father I should have been. Well, nor the husband either, no doubt, but that is neither here nor there. I should have stayed there with her, but as Lynette grew older, I let my feelings for her mother drive me away. Amibel did not like London, and I ran to it to get away from the arguments—no, not even arguments—the complaints, the incessant need to be coddled and cajoled, the endless perusal of symptoms and maladies and evaluations of how anything that happened would affect her. I went there more and more often and found it harder
and harder to come back.” He grimaced. “I was selfish. Stupid. How could I expect a child of four to remember me? To see me a few times each year and yet feel the way a daughter does about her father? I realized too late what I had done. When her mother died, I was a stranger to her.”

“Damon . . .” Meg could no longer sit still. She went around the bed, taking his arm and turning him toward her. “Lynette loves you. You are her father, and she has been delighted to be here with you.” She took his other arm as well and gave him a shake, though it did little to make him move. “Dinna drive yourself mad thinking what you might have done differently. Whether you should have come here, whether you should have lived there more. It is in the past, and all that is important is that you have each other now. Lynette loves you; indeed, she idolizes you.”

“You are a kind woman.”

Looking up into his eyes, she felt a visceral tug, the urge to wrap her arms around him and comfort him. And that, she thought, presented an even greater danger to her heart than any passionate embrace. She dropped her hands and stepped back. “’Tis not kindness, only the truth.” She turned away and busied herself with dipping the cloth in the water and washing Lynette’s face again.

It would be easier, she thought, if all she had to combat was the sensual lure of him. If only she could continue to despise him as she had that day she had flung the necklace back at him. If he had not shown compassion or remorse for the things his steward had done. If she could not feel the pain in him, the fear of losing his daughter, the regret and guilt with which he grappled. And why did she have to remember the exhaustion on his face as he slept in the chair, the artless
smile when he woke up and saw her, before he remembered what lay between them? Or that moment in his arms a few minutes earlier, which had felt like coming home.

The morning wore on, and Lynette continued to sleep. Meg cooled her and kept a close watch on the girl’s breathing. Lynette awakened once or twice, still feverish, and Meg was able to get a few sips of water down her before she fell back asleep. Damon stayed by her side, sometimes pacing the room restlessly, then coming back to sit. Now and then Meg saw that he had dozed off in his chair, but then he would awaken with a jerk and a quick, anxious look toward his daughter’s bed. The butler brought in a tray of food for Damon and Meg, and though Damon waved it away, Blandings managed, with an expert combination of pleas, hurt feelings, and complaints, to bully his employer into agreeing to eat. The day wore on, and though Meg, at Lynette’s bedside, caught a few minutes’ sleep, she grew increasingly weary. It was a wonder, she thought, that Damon could stay upright, since he had lost more nights’ rest than she.

As evening fell, Lynette’s cough worsened, and they increased the number of times they cupped her back. They had done it so many times now that they were able to work together with easy efficiency. By the time the sun rose again, Lynette’s breathing was noticeably easier.

“I’m hot,” a plaintive voice sounded from beneath the tent. Meg and Damon both sprang to their feet. “Papa? What—” Lynette pushed weakly at the material hanging in front of her.

“Lynette!” Damon lifted the material.

Lynette started to speak, which dissolved into a cough. Damon lifted her up, bracing her until at last she quieted. As she lay back down, Lynette smiled weakly at Meg. “Meg! You
are
here. I thought I dreamed it.”

“Yes, I am here. I have been giving you some of the herbs we talked about last week. Perhaps you could sip a little broth, love, to keep up your strength.”

A glance at Damon sent him out into the hall, and moments later Blandings bustled into the room, carrying a cup of warm broth. Damon helped his daughter take a few sips, then she turned her face away, her eyelids drooping. “I’m sorry. I’m so tired.”

“You should sleep. You can drink more when you wake up again.” Damon turned to Meg, smiling, his face hopeful. “She’s better now, isn’t she?”

“Yes, I think she is. I think we could perhaps pull back the tent for a while so she is not so hot.”

As Damon shoved the tent aside, Blandings came forward to take the cup of broth. “This is wonderful news, my lord. And if I may say so . . .”

“Far be it from you to criticize?” Damon guessed, his mouth quirking up on one side.

Blandings sent him a reproachful look. “Now that Miss Lynette is feeling better, it would be a good time for you to rest a bit.”

“I could not sleep,” Damon demurred.

Blandings turned toward Meg, and she saw the entreaty in his eyes, though his face remained as expressionless as ever.

“Damon, you must rest, ” Meg said, going to him. “Now
is the best time to do so. Lynette is more likely to grow worse in the evening and night. If you are exhausted from lack of sleep, you will not be capable of helping me with her.”

“You are right,” Damon said, surprising Meg. “You should sleep. I told Hudgins to prepare a room for you.”

“But you, of course, do not need sleep?” Meg crossed her arms, preparing for a battle. She found herself looking forward to it a little.

“Sir, I will keep watch over Miss Lynette,” Blandings put in. “I could awaken you at a moment’s notice. It is only sensible for you to sleep.”

“You don’t understand, Mr. Blandings,” Meg said sweetly. “The Earl of Mardoun is not a mere mortal. He does not require sleep, just as he did not require food earlier.”

The valet shot her an alarmed glance, but Meg ignored him, facing Damon, her face alight with challenge. Damon’s eyes lit as he took a step forward, and for one tingling moment Meg thought he was about to argue.

Then he stopped and set his jaw. “Very well. I will go to bed,” he snapped. “But only if you do, too.” His words hung in the air, fraught with possibilities, and color flared along his cheekbones. “I . . . that is . . .”

Blandings jumped into the awkward pause. “I will show you to your room, miss.”

Meg pulled her gaze from Damon’s. “Yes, of course. Let me show you what to give Lynette if she awakens.”

Damon stepped aside, carefully not looking at Meg as she went about her tasks. When she was finished, Blandings whisked her out of the room, Damon following.

“Hudgins put you right across the hall, miss,” Blandings
said, going to open the opposite door for her. “So you can see I will be able to fetch you in an instant if needed.”

Meg thanked him and went into the room, turning to close the door behind her. Across the hall, Damon stood in Lynette’s doorway, watching her, a strangely stunned look on his face. She could not imagine why; he had told her himself that Hudgins had made up a room for her. But she was too tired to think about that at the moment. Exhaustion had dropped on her like a hammer. She had an impression of grandeur, of heavy brocade and velvet and looming furniture, but she had no interest in anything but the large, soft bed, its cover invitingly turned down. She paused long enough to take off her shoes, then sank onto the bed with a luxurious sigh and fell deeply and immediately asleep.