Page 14 of Yielding to Love

They all had lives.

That was not to say there wasn’t plenty for him to do. It was the height of the Social Season. The Marriage Mart. He’d gone with Jasper and Vanessa to one ball, the Prince Regent’s Carleton House ball celebrating Wellington, foolishly thinking it would be a pleasant night of dancing. But he was twenty-nine years old, the brother and heir of an earl, discreet in his vices, and in uniform. He might as well have worn a target on his back. Dancing was a prelude to courting. Since he had no intention to marry, he felt he was misleading every young lady he led onto the floor.

And then came Miss Sedgewick. He’d asked her to dance the waltz because she was so tall most fellows wouldn’t. She nearly swooned from the heat just as he was whirling her past a door to the balcony. When he began to haul her outdoors for air, Vanessa appeared from nowhere to lend him a hand. Miss Sedgewick recovered promptly and scurried away. Vanessa scoured him with her glare. “Do you see anyone else out on that balcony?”

He’d peered out. “It’s too dark to—”

“Exactly. And Miss Talbot was complaining to Lady Rosalind that Miss Sedgewick had set her cap for you and bet she could get caught compromised. Rule number one, Crispin: Don’t drag young ladies onto dark, lonely balconies.” He must have looked aghast because Vanessa patted his arm and teased, “For any reason.”

He’d been away so long he’d forgotten that the Marriage Mart was a take-no-prisoners battlefield where slyboots posed as innocents. He wouldn’t go to another ball.

He stood in his bedchamber, peering out the window. It was unnerving having no place he needed to be. No task demanding his attention. He’d already taken Mercury out to Hyde Park for a lengthy morning ride. He could go see Jasper’s tailor and order another few shirts and a jacket or two. Visiting a brothel was a possibility, but he’d prefer to wait until night for that.

He ambled aimlessly away from the window, then stopped at his bedtable and picked up one of the books in the set he’d purchased for Olivia. In all the wedding excitement, he’d forgotten to give it to her. It was the novel Miss Harrington had been reading. He found it strange that she’d been so captivated, yet left it unfinished rather than purchasing it.

If he were to let fly his imagination, the fact that she’d abandoned the novel bolstered a theory that she had been passing time while waiting for someone. A secret lover? That seemed more plausible than that she had lost track of time reading. He wondered if she had been frantically wishing him away. How embarrassing if he had ruined her tryst by intruding.

Hmmph. Now he was curious. He should have followed the hackney cab to see if she circled back to the shop.

He thumbed the pages, then set the volume down. He was being absurd, of course. And unjustly suspicious of an innocent young lady. He should pay another call on Colonel Harrington. If he was bored to distraction, Colonel Harrington must be half out of his mind.

*

Feeling both impatient and lazy, he rode Bolt, one of Jasper’s better mounts, rather than walking to the hospital or disturbing Mercury’s rest. He left Bolt in care of an eager urchin in the drive. He was wearing his redcoat, and the clerk at the entrance saluted before waving him on. He was halfway down the hall when a short, heavyset man with light golden-brown skin and dark-brown hair stepped out of one of the rooms, a frown on his very familiar face.

“Adam!” Crispin called.

The man looked up. “Ah. Lieutenant.” Crispin drew near and Adam said, “You are well, I can see.”

Crispin nodded. “I’ve been well. And with largely you to thank.”

“Your gratitude cannot compare to mine.”

That must be true. Nearly two years earlier, in Portugal, Crispin’s regiment had come across an abandoned contingent of wounded French soldiers. They were being tended to by one harried civilian, a Greek with some medical training, who had no business being there since he was not a French army surgeon. Harrington had been in a particularly poor mood that day. He decided, without evidence, that Adam Diakos was a spy. The only way Crispin could talk him out of executing Adam was by guaranteeing the prisoner himself. He made a poor jailor, but, thankfully, Adam was a trustworthy sort. He was also curious and driven. Before Crispin knew it, the man had ferreted out the details of his irregular health, diagnosed him as having “an intolerance for many common foods,” and set out to cure him. He wasn’t cured, but he was vastly improved. As long as he avoided most everything that everyone else ate with abandon.

“How did you end up here?” he asked. The last he had seen of Adam, he’d been released from parole. Crispin had expected him to hightail it back to Greece.

“I needed work.” Adam cast a glance down the hallway, both directions, then dropped his voice. “Why are you here? You should leave.”

“What? Why?”

Adam took a step closer and lowered his voice even more. “There is contagion. A pox of some kind. On the third floor. It’s very bad.”

Crispin felt the blood rush down to his feet. “Are you leaving?”

“I believe I have had it.” He pointed to a small pockmark on his cheek. “I told the physicians I would work with the sick, but I should stay on the third floor. They thought otherwise. They think if I survived, I cannot spread it.”

“But you think you might?”

Adam shrugged. “It does not matter what I think. And it will spread regardless. You should leave.”

The devil. Colonel Harrington might prefer a quick death, but he should not be condemned to it. And there was Miss Harrington to think of. If she was going to take Old Harry back home to Tonbridge, she should do it now, before she caught this pox.

“I’m here to see Colonel Harrington. What is the process for discharge?”

“No one will stop him from going. But Miss Harrington cannot remove him by herself. He cannot walk.”

“She said she was hiring a manservant.” Unfortunately, it was not likely to be Adam. Harrington did not like to admit it when he’d been wrong.