The Earl's Honorable Intentions (4 page)

“No more pleased than I am,” Gavin replied. “How soon can I expect to be on my feet again?”

The doctor exchanged a look with Miss Fletcher before he answered. “I shall need to make a more thorough examination before I can hazard an opinion, sir. But I must stress it is important not to hurry the process. The body heals from injury in its own time as the Lord has ordained. Any attempt to speed it may have the opposite result. In your case it might even place your life in danger.”

Gavin scowled as the doctor continued his examination. That was not the response he had wanted to hear. The prospect of a long succession of days like this one appealed to him as much as a plague of boils! Being confined to his bed while Bonaparte slipped through the Allies’ fingers again would be some of the worst torture he could imagine.

He resented the smug look on Miss Fletcher’s face as she stood by the mantel waiting for the doctor to complete his examination. No doubt she had fetched Hodge here to lecture him about not trying to rush his recovery.

Had he given her any choice, his conscience inquired, after making it clear he had no intention of heeding her advice? What puzzled him was why she was not eager to see him up and speeded on his way. All the time he’d been home last year, Miss Fletcher had made little secret of her disapproval of him. She should be happy to see him gone again.

That was it! Gavin flinched and sucked in his breath as Dr. Hodge removed the dressing from his wound. Miss Fletcher did not know that he meant to leave Edgecombe once he was fit to ride again. She must assume he intended to settle down and take over running the estate, perhaps interfere with her management of the children. Nothing could be further from his plans—for the time being at least.

Perhaps if he explained why he could not afford to linger in bed for days on end, Miss Fletcher would seize the opportunity to be rid of him.

The doctor shook his head and clucked his tongue as he examined the wound. “It appears to have opened again just when it was beginning to knit. What happened, sir?”

Gavin’s scowl deepened. He felt as if he were eight years old again and being brought before his father to answer for some mischief he’d gotten up to. “I retched up my breakfast, if you must know. The...heaving was rather violent.”

His words brought a furrow of worry to the doctor’s brow. “What did you have to eat that disagreed with your digestion? I gave instructions for—”

“An invalid diet,” Miss Fletcher piped up. “Water gruel, beef tea, calves’ foot jelly. When his lordship woke this morning he had an appetite for...heartier fare.”

“Ham and eggs,” Gavin growled. “Kippers, hot rolls and coffee.”

The doctor looked aghast. “Not much wonder you cast up your accounts, eating like that after a long fast. I cannot stress strongly enough that you must rest in order to heal. The longer that wound takes to knit, the greater risk you run of an infection. After the quantity of blood you lost, your constitution might be too weak to fight it.”

Gavin was still not convinced his injuries could be that serious. Civilian doctors were such alarmists. Army surgeons would stitch a soldier up and send him straight back into action.

“But I feel quite well. Apart from the odd twinge of pain...and being weaker than I’d like...perhaps a trifle light-headed.” He jammed his mouth shut before he admitted to anything worse. If he added much more, he feared the doctor might declare him a permanent invalid.

Once again Miss Fletcher spoke up. “Dr. Hodge, could you perhaps advise his lordship how long it will be before he may resume his normal activities?”

Gavin shot her a baleful look. Had he truly been pleased to see her a few moments ago? He must have been off his head.

The doctor considered for a moment. “I should say you must not stir out of bed for at least a fortnight, sir, and eat only those foods that will be easy on your digestion. After that you might slowly begin to resume your accustomed activities. Provided you do not cause yourself a setback by trying to hurry the process, I believe you should be quite well recovered in a month’s time.”

“A month?” By then Bonaparte could have slipped out of France on a ship bound for the Caribbean or America to wait for his next opportunity to seize power. How many more would die then? Far more than Gavin cared to contemplate.

“A fortnight?” he cried. “That is ridiculous! I cannot lie about for days on end while my country is at war.”

“The war will soon be over thanks to men like you.” The doctor dismissed Gavin’s protest. “Now I must apply a fresh dressing. Miss Fletcher, would you be so kind as to help his lordship sit upright while I bind his wound?”

The look on Hannah Fletcher’s face told Gavin how little she cared to approach that close to him. Had he only dreamed of the devoted care she’d given him while he had lain unconscious? She did not permit her aversion to interfere with doing what she considered her duty, however. Gavin could respect that. The governess gave a curt nod of agreement, squared her shoulders and strode toward the bed.

“I am perfectly capable of sitting up on my own,” Gavin insisted. But when he tried, a hot stab of pain made him inhale sharply.

“Very capable, indeed,” Miss Fletcher muttered.

Before he could stop her, she swooped down, wedged her shoulder beneath his right arm and eased him to a sitting position. Once there, she continued to support him. Gavin wanted to dismiss her gruffly, but the room was beginning to tilt this way and that, making him fear he might humiliate himself further by falling over if she let go. So he gritted his teeth and prepared to endure what he could not avoid.

As Dr. Hodge wound a length of loose-woven cotton around his midriff, Gavin found himself grateful for Miss Fletcher’s capable strength. Her hair grazed his cheek, and the clean, tangy scent of lemon filled his nostrils.

“I commend your devotion to king and country,” the doctor continued as he went about his work. “But you must not forget the duty you owe to your children, especially since they have lost their poor mother.”

Something in the man’s tone suggested he was only parroting the opinion of another person. Gavin had no trouble guessing who that meddlesome someone might be.

“What have my children got to do with any of this?” he demanded, addressing Hannah Fletcher as much as her puppet, the doctor.

True, he had not originally intended to become a father, and he had very little experience with children. That did not mean he would ever neglect his duty to his offspring. He resented having anyone question that.

The doctor tucked in the end of the bandaging that held the dressing in place. “Your children have a great deal to do with it and a great deal to lose if you jeopardize your health by not taking proper care of yourself.”

Hodge might have spoken those words, yet they sounded as if they had come straight from Miss Fletcher. No doubt she had lectured the poor man half-deaf on the subject all the way here. Much as it exasperated Gavin, he could not deny her devotion to his eldest son, which now clearly extended to the little ones, as well.

“I have no intention of neglecting my duty to my children,” he repeated, sensing Miss Fletcher might not believe him. “If you say I must rest for a fortnight in order for my wound to heal properly then...I suppose...I must.”

That final admission came out almost painfully, like a rotten tooth being extracted. He did not know how he would withstand the tedium and uncertainty for that length of time. Somehow he must, for the sake of his young family and the mission he had sworn to carry out. Neither would benefit from his death.

“I was certain your lordship would see reason,” the doctor replied.

If Miss Fletcher had not been so near, Gavin might have missed her faint sniff of doubt.

The doctor nodded to her. “I am finished. You may lower the earl now.”

Her muscles tensed, preparing to bear his weight. “Just relax and let me do the work, sir.”

Gavin tried, but it was not easy to surrender control to another person. His sinews instinctively tightened to keep from falling back too quickly. A sharp pain in his side warned him that he had likely torn a bit of flesh that was trying to knit itself back together. By a great effort of will, he managed to relax as Miss Fletcher had bidden him and let her ease him down the rest of the way.

As she slid her arm out from beneath his shoulder, her face hovered near his. Gavin found himself suddenly intrigued by the shape of her lips, which suggested both fierce determination and profound generosity.

His conscience denounced him fiercely for entertaining such a thought. He had no business noticing any woman’s lips when the mother of his children was barely in her grave. Poor Clarissa! He had married her for all the wrong reasons, believing she would be content as the wife of a soldier seldom home from war. He had let her down in so many ways, but at least he had never looked at another woman.

And he was not about to start. He would have quite enough to occupy him with his mission. Once it was accomplished, he would be busy raising his three motherless children. Any connection with a woman would be a needless complication in his life.

If he
had
been inclined to think of a woman in that way, his son’s strong-willed governess was the last one he would ever consider. The two of them were like oil and water. Though he had discovered more admirable qualities in her of late, it was clear Hannah Fletcher still found him as odious as ever. The speed with which she backed away once she’d carried out the doctor’s orders left no doubt of that.

It galled him that she had managed to compel his agreement to a fortnight’s tedious convalescence through the underhanded use of Dr. Hodge. A soldier never liked to accept the necessity of surrender. He must show Miss Fletcher there could be unpleasant consequences to meddling in his life. Otherwise she might continue to call the tune around Edgecombe until his children were grown.

The doctor packed his satchel and promised to call again in two days’ time unless he was summoned sooner.

When the governess offered to see him out, Gavin spoke up. “I would like a word with you after that, please, Miss Fletcher.”

Dr. Hodge waved her back. “In that case I can see myself out. No need for you to go all the way down to the entry only to return. Good evening, Lord Hawkehurst. I wish you a pleasant rest.”

Pleasant rest. Gavin barely suppressed a sniff of derision. There was no such thing as far as he was concerned. He was a man of action and had been for as long as he could recall. He had already exhausted his tolerance for lying about doing nothing. The coming fortnight stretched ahead of him like an endless wasteland. If he must endure such tedium he had no intention of enduring it alone.

The doctor closed the door behind him.

Miss Fletcher turned toward Gavin, but she made no move to approach him. “What did you wish to say to me, sir?”

“Pleased with yourself, are you?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon, sir? Pleased on what account?”

Gavin shook his head. “Come now, Miss Fletcher. It will not do. We both know you put the doctor up to that, so let us not insult one another by pretending otherwise.”

For a moment the lady looked as if she intended to continue protesting her innocence, but then her chin tilted upward and she met his challenging gaze with one of her own. “Very well. I did speak to the doctor. But only because you refused to heed a word
I
said. I thought you might take more notice if the advice came from a man and someone outside your household.”

Well, well. It appeared Miss Fletcher was capable of giving as good as she got. Her frankness put Gavin in mind of the Duke of Wellington, the commander he revered. Her words hit home, for he knew all too well the frustrations of having his sound advice ignored by his superiors.

“Neither of those changed my mind,” he insisted.

Miss Fletcher’s brows rose. “Then pray what accounted for the alteration?”

He was enjoying this. The unlikely feeling crept up on Gavin just as it had the previous morning when he and Miss Fletcher had sparred verbally. Somehow the sluggish minutes passed more swiftly when he was diverted in this manner. He asked himself why and decided perhaps it was the nearest thing to combat he could experience while confined to his sickbed.

Yes, of course, that must be the reason.

“What changed my mind?” He readied his next salvo. “Why, experience, of course. You tried to warn me that a hearty breakfast might not be the best idea, but I thought otherwise and learned a hard lesson.”

Miss Fletcher blinked rapidly and took a step closer to him. “You did?”

A faint glow of satisfaction provided some relief for Gavin’s chagrin. He never liked admitting he’d been wrong. But it might be worth the minor humiliation to keep his adversary off balance.

He nodded. “Hard but valuable—as most worthwhile lessons are. I realized that any attempt to hurry the natural rate of my recovery would only delay it. Therefore, the quickest way to get on my feet again would be to remain on my back for as long as I must.”

Miss Fletcher seemed to sense something amiss. “Then why did you argue with the doctor if you already knew what he was trying to tell you?”

“I was not entirely prepared to admit defeat. I would rather fight a division of the French Imperial Guard than spend a fortnight doing absolutely nothing.”

“I can understand that,” Miss Fletcher replied in a tone of sincere sympathy.

“You can?” Who had been caught off balance this time?

Miss Fletcher gave a rueful nod. “I might not prefer to face down the Imperial Guard, but I do like to keep busy and feel useful. The prospect of a fortnight with nothing to do would hold no appeal for me.”

Who would have thought they might have something in common? Certainly not Gavin. “Then you
can
see why I would not want to agree to it except as a last resort.”

“But you did agree for the sake of the children.” She sounded as surprised as he felt. “That was well done.”

Would wonders never cease? There was something about him of which Miss Fletcher approved. “May I assume you would not object to helping make my ordeal more bearable?”