“My lord,” Kate said.“You look a bit pale.Should you be up and about?”
Grayson watched her move toward him, as if in a dream, her face gentle with concern, her fingers reaching for him.Perhaps she would stroke his brow again, he thought dazedly.She came to a stop before him, her dark curls shining gloriously in the candlelight.He wanted to touch them.
“Are you all right?”she asked.
Grayson tried to execute a bow, but dizziness overcame him.“No,” he managed to answer before everything went black.
For the second time in two days, Kate watched in horror as the Marquess of Wroth collapsed onto the floor.She knelt beside him and put her hand to his forehead, her worst fears confirmed.
“He’s burning up.Tom, carry him upstairs again!”
“Really, Kate!”Lucy exclaimed, obviously disgusted.“You should never have brought him here.Now look at him.”
Kate did, and her heart ached to see him brought low again, his handsome face pale and wan, his eyes closed, his tall body felled by fever.She swallowed painfully.“I’ll see to him,” she whispered.
“Oh, very well.I’ll keep dinner for you,” Lucy said.“But I might as well eat his portion.No sense letting it go to waste, after all.”
“No, of course not,” Kate said in response to her sister’s cold-blooded behavior.It was a defect of Lucy’s character that she rarely considered anything more important than her own wishes.But she had endured much in recent years and could be forgiven for selfishly wanting an extra helping for herself and her child.
“I would have left him upstairs, if I’d known I’d have to drag him back up again,” the coachman grumbled as he hefted Wroth’s prone body.
“Then you should not have let him come down,” Kate said, without sympathy.“I should have checked on him, as I planned, rather than let you talk me out of it.”
“I tell you, it ain’t proper for you to be tending a gentleman!”
Kate gave an inelegant snort as she followed the coachman through the gallery and up the stairs.“That hardly matters now.”Was she the only one with any sense in this household?The Marquess of Wroth was injured and sick, suffering by her hand, and no one seemed the slightest bit concerned.Indeed, the others appeared put out.
“How inconvenient of the man to fall ill from the bullet I sent through him,” she said, tossing the sarcasm at Tom’s head.
He ducked and hurried forward, dumping the marquess unceremoniously on the bed that had once been her father’s.“Guess I’ll have to get his boots off of him again.”
“Yes, and the shirt, as well.”Kate spoke calmly enough, but she felt panic beating at the back of her mind and pushed it away.She had to think clearly if she was going to save him.And there could be no “if” about it.
Although they had been buried here in the country for a long time, she had heard Wroth mentioned before.Rich, powerful, dangerous.Those were words that were used to describe him, and although Kate had not heeded them when she was bent upon revenge, now they returned to taunt her.
For one fleeting moment, she pictured herself dangling at the end of a rope while an eager crowd chanted, “Murderess!”Then she rolled up her sleeves and got to work.
“Fetch Mother’s recipe book, please,” she told Tom as she sat down beside the marquess to check his dressing.“And see if there are any spirits in the house.There might be some brandy in the cellar.And bring up a bowl of water, straight from the spring, so it is especially cold.”
Tom hesitated, and she shot him a look that questioned his delay.
“It’s not proper,” he protested, with a mulish expression.
Kate nearly gave in to the hysterical laughter that bubbled in her chest.“Proper?Proper?How could that possibly matter now?Lucy already is with child by a man who pretended to be someone he isn’t!”
“Well, that doesn’t—”
Kate cut him off with a sharp glance.“We must fend for ourselves, Tom.You know that.”
The two shared a poignant look until Tom dropped his gaze and mumbled one of his oaths.“Well, it ain’t right.”He eyed her again, suddenly apologetic.“I’ll take care of him.”
“No,” Kate said firmly.She had entrusted Wroth to Tom today, and he had failed her, whether by accident or by design.It had only reinforced the lesson she had learned a long time ago that the only way to ensure that anything was done was to do it herself.
Waving Tom away, she waited until she heard his footsteps leave the room before she checked her charge.Beneath the unnatural flush that stained his cheeks, she could see the strength and beauty of his face.He had kissed her, this elegant, assured nobleman, Kate thought, still amazed by the memory.
She had no notion why he had done it.Perhaps he thought her a housemaid, eager for a tumble, or maybe he thought any girl who would dress as a boy was fair game.Whatever his motivation, Kate was secretly thrilled by his fleeting interest.
In the quiet struggle her life had become, she had never thought to visit the dark, sensuous world she had known in his arms.Now she would have that small wonder to carry with her always.
