“No!” she cried, even though vanquishing this man had been the object of her life.
Courtenay closed the book. Julian hadn’t even made Don Lorenzo fall into the abyss by his own greed or treachery. Courtenay didn’t know what the curse signified, if anything. He closed the book and put it on the nightstand, but it was a long time before he fell asleep.
Julian’s head was throbbing. It felt like there were shards of glass where his brain ought to have been. When he moved, he set off a chain reaction of pain throughout his body.
But it was the night of the Preston ball and it would take more than a simple cold to keep him away. Because that’s what this was: a cold. Nothing more. Never mind that when he crawled out of bed after his nap he felt that he could just as easily curl up on the floor and sleep until the next day. Never mind that when his valet tied his cravat, the smooth linen felt like coarse rope against his flesh.
“If you’ll pardon me, sir,” Briggs said after watching Julian wince through having his hair combed. “Will you let me take the liberty of calling for the doctor? Or perhaps Lady Standish? She always knows what to do in these, ah, situations,” he said diplomatically.
“No,” Julian croaked. “It’s a summer cold.” It wasn’t summer and it was becoming increasingly clear that this wasn’t a cold but Julian didn’t care. He would not sit this ball out. He had worked blasted hard to get to the point where his invitation to such an event was a matter of course. “I daresay I’ll feel better once I’m distracted.” His voice sounded like it was coming from far away.
Later, he couldn’t say how precisely he had gotten to the ball. Briggs must have poured him into his carriage and told the coachman where to bring him, because the next thing he knew he had drifted through the receiving line and gone down the stairs into the ballroom.
He lasted about two minutes in the ballroom. It was stifling hot and infernally loud. Were balls always like this? Impossible. He would have remembered. It was like something dreamt up by one of those medieval Dutch fellows who were forever painting their deranged imaginings of a hell populated by jolly demons torturing the damned. Courtenay would have found that vastly amusing, but he was not thinking of Courtenay, because that made his head hurt even worse, to say nothing of his heart. He made his way through the crowd and out into the garden.
Why did the soles of his feet ache so much? That was bloody new. Perhaps he’d tell Eleanor, so she could write the symptom in that little book in which she detailed his illnesses. He hated that book. The cool night air, at least, was blessed relief. Julian wanted to crawl onto a garden bench and fall asleep. The sound of the breeze rustling through the immaculately maintained shrubbery was somehow as loud as a monsoon.
Leaning on the balustrade that overlooked the garden, he let his eyes fall shut. He peeled off his gloves so he could feel the cool of the stone with his hot, painful hands. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know what the Prestons’ garden looked like. The first year he had attended this ball, he had been wide-eyed with astonishment that such a large garden existed behind a private home in a crowded metropolis. Even most wealthy people contented themselves with a modest patch of greenery, but the exceedingly wealthy—and the Prestons were very rich indeed—had obelisks and follies, bridges crossing picturesque streams, cleverly situated temples and grottos. Houses like this must require armies of gardeners—always out of sight, even though a garden like this must need hours of work daily to coax flowers to bloom coincidental with the ball. He wanted to tally the likely cost of such an enterprise but his mind wouldn’t cooperate.
Even with his eyes squeezed shut, Julian could smell the plants—flowering shrubs and trees, blooms that belonged in Madras, not Mayfair. When he heard a burst of conversation, for a moment his aching brains thought he was hearing the Hindustani voices of his grandfather’s servants, the laughing chatter of Eleanor and Ned as they slipped through the moonlit gardens, Julian watching from an opened window of the upstairs room where he balanced the account books, Julian listening from his sickbed while grandfather’s valet made him drink that infernal tincture.
It was time for the tincture.
“Nora,” he heard Standish say, and Eleanor laughed. They had always been laughing, thick as thieves from the moment they met. He thought he could hear them now, and even in his disoriented state he knew it was not a good sign to be hearing things. He lifted his head but there were Eleanor and Standish in the garden below him. Eleanor was wearing a gown he dimly recalled having bought her, far away in London—dark blue silk shot through with silver thread, and even from this distance he could see the adoring look on Standish’s face as he regarded her.
“Thank God,” Julian said aloud. Maybe he hadn’t made a mess of their lives as badly as he had his own. Maybe Eleanor would have what she wanted, all the things she hadn’t ever spoken aloud to Julian. Julian hadn’t deserved those confidences, because he wouldn’t have understood anyway, at least not before knowing Courtenay. Now he thought he could begin to grasp what Eleanor’s sorrow had been like. “Thank God,” he repeated, when he saw Standish pull Eleanor behind a shrub and kiss her. Then he shut his eyes again and rested his forehead against the blessedly cool stone of the balustrade.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, but after a while he felt a hand between his shoulder blades and smelled tobacco.
“Is that you, Medlock?” It was Courtenay’s voice, low and rumbly and out of place among the exotic blooms.
“Why are you in Madras?” Julian asked without lifting his head. He felt a hand, wonderfully cool on his brow.
“You’re feverish. You ought to be in bed. Or in a vinegar bath. Why are you alone out here?” He sounded angry and worried.
Julian turned his head so his cheek rested against the too-warm wool of his sleeve. The burning tip of Courtenay’s cigarillo seemed as distant as a star in the sky.
“Come here.” Courtenay wrapped an arm around Julian and hauled him upright.
Julian tried to explain that his legs weren’t working properly, but his mouth wasn’t working properly either. He collapsed against Courtenay’s hard chest.
“Christ, Julian.”
“That’s what you were supposed to call me,” Julian said, his words garbled, “if I hadn’t ruined everything. I ruin everything that isn’t money.” It had been better when he thought he was still in Madras, the future laid out before him in all its dazzling potential. Now he was in London and there was no future, nothing to plan for.
“I think you have the influenza.” Courtenay’s voice was stern. “Damn. Is there a doctor here? No, impossible that the Prestons would have invited a lowly professional man.”
“He’s the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But he also has a model village. You ought to talk to him.” Julian couldn’t remember why he thought Courtenay might want to know about model villages, but it had something to do with the Poor Laws and the bad roofs at Carrington.
“You’re delirious.”
Julian thought he very well might be. The world seemed to be spinning about his ears. Music wafted out on the breeze, and as he rested against Courtenay’s chest, he felt like they were dancing together. “We’re waltzing,” he murmured. He had never danced with anyone he loved, and he supposed that wasn’t what was happening now anyway. They weren’t dancing so much as standing still while music played and Julian tried not to faint. Besides, Julian didn’t want to think about love. Whatever it was, it would have been pleasant if he weren’t growing increasingly certain that he might drop dead at any moment.
“I miss you,” Julian said, as Courtenay scooped him up in a pair of strong arms and the world went dark.
Chapter Twenty
Where the devil was Eleanor? Courtenay braced Julian against his chest and called out her name. She would know what to do, while Courtenay could only offer brute strength, and even that was barely sufficient to get Julian out into a hackney. He dismissed the idea of having one of the Prestons’ footmen fetch Eleanor—it would take too long, and create a scene that he knew Julian would abhor. Besides, Julian’s illness was getting increasingly worse. He needed a doctor. He told the hackney driver to bring them to Eleanor’s house. It was only a few streets away, much closer than Julian’s lodgings.
