Regina Scott (14 page)

“No,” Meredee agreed. “It’s far worse, I fear.”

The footmen climbed out of the coach and looked expectantly at Lady Phoebe. The girl shrank back, clinging to Algernon. Meredee shouldered the blanket and hurried to their sides.

“Take him home,” she said. She held out the objects. “Here, you may need these.”

Lady Phoebe merely stared at her. “Oh, Meredee, I can’t do this. I don’t know how to do this.”

“You must be brave, my sweet,” Algernon murmured.

“You must be useful,” Meredee corrected. “This is no time to posture! Your brother needs you.”

Lady Phoebe shook her head so vigorously she struck Algernon with her bonnet. “I’m not posturing! I don’t know what to do! Please, Meredee, you must come with me!”

M
eredee could feel Lady Phoebe’s panic, just as she’d felt it the day the girl had almost drowned. Was Chase’s sister such an accomplished actress that she could look so afraid, so helpless? If she told the truth, she was incapable of functioning in the emergency. If she lied, she was unwilling to function. Either way, Chase needed someone he could count on to nurse him, and Phoebe wasn’t that person.

Oh, how Meredee wanted to be that someone. Though she felt the same fear, she refused to give in to it. She wasn’t sure whether she’d be the woman to stand by his side in life, but she could be the woman to sit at his sickbed. Even if God took him home, she would not run from the feelings Chase roused in her.

She turned to the footman, hesitating beside them. “Go to the next street over and fetch Dr. Newcomb.” She thought he might refuse—after all, she was
hardly his employer. But he nodded and hurried from the yard.

“Inside,” she ordered Lady Phoebe, and the other footman helped the girl into the coach.

“Home, Miss?” the coachman asked, touching his tall cap in deference.

“Yes, please,” Meredee said before following Phoebe.

Inside, the sight of Chase leaning against the wall of the coach, eyes closed, struck her with the force of a blow.

“What’s wrong with him?” Lady Phoebe begged, huddled in a puddle of pink on her side of the carriage.

Meredee draped the blanket over Chase, fingers brushing his pale cheek. “I don’t know. But we must do what we can to make him comfortable.”

He was sick once on the way to the house. Meredee held the bowl for him and wiped his face afterward. His gaze met hers fleetingly, and she thought he murmured, “Find Trevor,” before falling back into a stupor.

“You will not faint,” she told Lady Phoebe when the girl started making gasping noises. “I can’t take care of you both.”

She had a little relief when they reached the house. Lady Phoebe wrung her hands as the footman and coachman carried Chase inside, but Meredee explained the situation, and Beagan, the butler, took
charge. Chase was soon resting, covers tucked, in his own bed and gowned in a clean nightshirt with a footman and Valcom, his valet, on hand should he need anything.

“Fair burning up he is,” Meredee heard the footman marvel to the valet as he arranged the scroll-backed chairs for Meredee and Lady Phoebe next to the walnut box bed. Unlike the dainty pink room where Meredee had stayed the other night, this room was dark, heavy and masculine, the upholstery, draperies and bed hangings of deep burgundy with gilded iron holding the silk against the walls and edging the walnut furniture. Chase lay before them, his face whiter than the creamy linens. The intensity she found so exhilarating had leaked away, leaving a stillness that shook her.
Lord, please help him!

Lady Phoebe was chewing on the lace that edged the handkerchief she’d been using to daub her eyes. She hadn’t stopped crying since they’d left the inn. “I don’t know what’s wrong! He’s never been sick before.”

But when the tall, ascetic Dr. Newcomb arrived and examined Chase, he quickly disabused them of that notion. “Your brother has been to see me twice since you arrived in Scarborough,” he told Lady Phoebe when he met with her and Meredee outside the bedchamber. He peered at them both over the tops of his gold-rimmed spectacles. “Apparently, this affliction comes upon him from time to time. I suggested
leeches, but he refused the bleeding.” He eyed Lady Phoebe. “I do hope you’ll be more sensible.”

She turned to Meredee, face shadowed in the dim corridor. “I don’t know! What do you think?”

Meredee swallowed. How could she make such a decision? Much as she might have wished it otherwise, she had no claim on the man. Yet she’d seen how her father reacted to being bled, growing weaker and weaker until he wasted away. Had Chase feared the same end? Was that why he refused?

“If Lord Allyndale did not think it advisable,” she said, “I don’t see how we can go against his wishes.”

Lady Phoebe nodded, sucking in a breath.

“Then there’s not much else I can do,” Dr. Newcomb said, irritation evident in his voice. “You might try to force some of the spa water down him. I’ve seen it help in worse cases than this. Send for me if there’s any change.”

Meredee thanked him, and the footman saw him out.

Lady Phoebe gasped back a sob. “Oh, what am I to do? I can’t lose him! What would I do without him?”

Oh, she knew those feelings. She’d felt that lost. But she was stronger now. She could share that strength with Lady Phoebe.

Meredee met her gaze. “We have to help him. Send
a footman to Mr. Barriston, the governor of the spa. I’m sure he’ll send us some of the water.”

The girl nodded. “Yes, of course. But you will stay with me, won’t you, Meredee? I can’t do this alone.”

Meredee wrapped her arms around the girl, and Lady Phoebe lay her head on her shoulder. “You aren’t alone,” Meredee murmured. And neither was she, she realized. She could almost feel the gentle hand on her back, offering comfort, whispering hope.

Thank You, Lord.

She clung to the feeling and urged Phoebe back into the bedchamber.

Someone was trying to drown him. There could be no other explanation for the water clogging his mouth. Chase spat it out, gasped in a breath and swatted at the glass hovering near his mouth.

“Please, my lord, you must drink it!”

Meredee’s voice was weary, frightened, and he longed to comfort her. But just opening his eyes was a struggle. Besides, she couldn’t be here, in his bedchamber. And why did the footman insist on stoking up the fire? Wasn’t it warm enough in here already?

He blinked and focused on the person bending over him. “Meredee?”

His voice came out a dry croak with surprising little volume, but she brightened as if he’d sung an aria. “Oh, Chase! You frightened us so.”

The heat was wiped away by a chill that shook him. He’d been ill again.

And she knew.

He struggled to sit up where they’d propped him on pillows.

“No, no,” she begged. “Lie still.”

He could not let her think he was so weak. He sat, the room swaying around him. He noted Valcom standing against the far wall, his thin face tight and deeply troubled. He at least knew what was happening and liked it no more than Chase did.

“Thank you for your concern,” Chase told Meredee, “but I’m fine.”

She raised her brows. Her hair had been styled in a braid, but pieces were coming loose and flying about her face like stray sunbeams. Shadows lay like smudges under her gray eyes. How long had she been here? How long had he been ill?

“You most certainly are not fine, sir,” she scolded, reaching out as if to put a hand to his forehead. He flinched.

She dropped her hand. “I see. It’s my presence you find disturbing. I’m afraid you’ll have to make do.” Refusing to meet his gaze, she busied herself wringing out a washcloth in the basin beside the bed.

“Where’s Phoebe?” Chase asked.

She lay the cloth over the edge of the basin, each move calm and precise. “Your sister is here in the
house. She’s visited frequently, but she feels unable to act as nurse.”

The chill deepened. “And so she forced you to shoulder the burden.”

“I was happy to help. It wasn’t such a burden.” She eyed him and even in his frustration Chase felt the implication. Phoebe hadn’t made it a burden; by his attitude, he was making it one now.

He took a deep breath. “We have imposed on your kindness long enough, Miss Price. I’m sure my staff can handle things from here.”

She glanced toward Valcom. Chase expected the man to leap forward and resume his duties, but his smile to Meredee showed respect and a reticence to replace her. “Miss Price has been a Godsend, if I may say so, my lord,” his valet offered. “A gentleman has to sleep sometime.”

“And that’s why we have footmen,” Chase countered.

Meredee rose and shook out her pale muslin skirts. “Very well, my lord. I will leave you in peace.” She paused a moment, lips tight together as if she fought hard words. Then she sat back on the chair and leaned toward him.

“Have I offended you in some way?” she whispered. “Or did I mistake our friendship?”

Chase blinked. “Friendship?”

“Yes, friendship. You escort me to the North Bay, nearly offer a reward for the
incarnata
just because
finding it might make me happy, ask to use my given name and say how much you admire my character. I refused to be your sister’s chaperone, yet still you persist. What else am I to think but that you wish a friendship?”

Put that way, it was a miracle the woman didn’t think he was about to propose marriage. “It is precisely because of that friendship that I cannot have you nursing me like this. It isn’t right.”

The tension in her face eased. “Friends help one another, my lord.”

For one moment, he was tempted. Why not lie back, let someone else deal with his illness, with Phoebe? He certainly could not deny that Meredee was capable. Yet he also could not deny that it was his responsibility, and she had entirely enough on her hands.

“You are too kind,” he said. “But I cannot…”

She lay a finger against his lips to stop him. The touch sent a shock through his body, freezing him in place.

“Please?” she murmured, obviously unaware of the effect she was having on him. “Let me do this, if not for your sake, then for Phoebe’s.”

Her face was soft, her look pleading. He had no trouble refusing Phoebe when she gazed at him that way. Yet he found he couldn’t fight, didn’t want to fight. He leaned back against the pillows and
managed a smile. “I had no idea you could be so determined.”

She smiled, as well. “Oh, it is a terrible character flaw, I’m certain.” She soaked the cloth in water, wrung it out and placed it gently on his head. The scent of lavender fluttered in her wake.

“Rest easy, my lord,” she murmured, and for the first time in a long time, he thought he just might.

Meredee could not feel that determination was such a bad thing over the next few days. From sunup to sun down, she stayed by Chase’s side. Either Valcom or Peters the footman stayed with her. The staff knew to call her at any time of the night if she was needed.

She bathed Chase’s forehead with cool water laced with lavender, helped him sip of the spa water Mr. Barriston had sent with his compliments and spooned in some of the chicken or beef broth the talented Mrs. Downthistle kept simmering. She read to him from Shakespeare or the Bible. She shared Sir Humphrey Davy’s discovery with him. She told him stories of her childhood, half of which she was certain put him into his deep sleeps. She kept Phoebe from smothering him with hugs or drowning him in tears when the girl visited.

She did not think beyond the moment, could not hope for tomorrow. Each second, every breath, was a blessing. Still, she could feel him fighting off the
fever, rallying, until on the fourth day she found him cool to the touch and smiling wearily.

Relief was as welcome as warm rain. “I must tell Phoebe,” she said, straightening. “And we’ll send for Dr. Newcomb, as well.” She started away from the bed, but he caught her hand and pressed it to his lips, sending a tingle up her arm.

“Thank you,” he said.

Meredee returned his smile. Rubbing the spot where his lips had touched, she went to find Phoebe.

The girl was bent over the desk in the library downstairs, tongue poking from one corner of her mouth as she concentrated on whatever she was writing. She’d visited Chase every morning and afternoon for the last four days but had told Meredee she’d keep herself busy with the household and Chase’s estate management. Meredee thought Chase might leap off his bed if he knew, but she was certain the girl was capable of it. Now Lady Phoebe finished her correspondence with a flourish of the quill and glanced up to smile at Meredee.

“The tenants will have new roofs before fall. And how can I help you?”

“He’s awake,” Meredee said from the door. “And lucid at last. I know he wants to see you.”

Phoebe jumped to her feet in a flurry of blue muslin and hurried after her.

Meredee let Phoebe into the room and stopped on
the threshold. Chase’s craggy face broke into a grin as his sister launched herself at him. Weak as he was, he still held her gently, murmuring encouragement as her tears began to flow once more. The darkness of the curtained room receded, the candlelight anointing Chase and Phoebe’s hair.

That was what family was about—this togetherness, this joy in each other’s company. Algernon hadn’t so much as showed his face the last few days, and Mrs. Price had sent daily notes demanding to know when Meredee would be free to return to her.

Forgive me, Lord. I don’t want to complain. I want to praise You. Thank You for returning Chase to those who love him.

Chase looked up then and motioned Meredee closer. Phoebe patted the chair seat next to hers. They were making room for her, as if she belonged with them, as if she was part of the family.

Emotions tightened her throat, but she hurried to join them.

“So what have you been doing while Meredee spooned gruel in my mouth?” Chase asked his sister with a wink to Meredee that made her cheeks feel warm.

Here was a chance for the girl to confess the good she’d been doing. Meredee couldn’t help the disappointment when Phoebe pouted. “It wasn’t gruel! It was perfectly fine soup. Mrs. Downthistle added vegetables to it for me.”

“Then you haven’t been starving,” Chase teased.

“Only for company!” She leaned closer and toyed with the satin binding on his blanket. “Now that you’re on the mend and my heart can be easy, Chase, you wouldn’t mind if I go out a bit, to the spa or the shore?”

He cocked his head. “What about Meredee?”

Phoebe waved a hand. “Oh, she won’t mind staying here with you, will you, Meredee?”

And what was she to say to that? On the one hand, Phoebe was once again putting her obligation onto Meredee’s shoulders. It had made some sense when Chase was deathly ill and Phoebe was out of her element. It was far less important now that the nursing tasks would be more manageable.