Page 21 of Yielding to Love

It was pleasant in that half-dark kitchen. Very pleasant. He found himself growing too aware of the faint scent of lilacs whenever she moved about, rustling her dress. Too aware of the tumbling black hair she had neglected to fix. She had a marvelous full-throated laugh. And he had already noted her prettiness at their first meeting, though that was something he was trying to ignore.

Something he must ignore. She was Harrington’s sister. She was a lady. She was an innocent. For these three reasons and more, she was untouchable. She would make a fine sister-in-law if he had any more brothers. That was the box his brain could shove her into. The sister-in-law box. Beautiful women who held no attraction for him at all.

Miss Harrington suddenly stood up, her mouth a surprised O.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I believe there is tea. It might be a bit stale.” She stepped, smiling, from the table toward a wall cabinet. “And I think I left some sugar the last time I was here. No cream, I’m afraid. But the fire is still going if you would like tea.”

“I would love a cup.” Tea with sugar, no cream. Perfect. He hadn’t had to refuse anything or make off-putting excuses for his odd eating habits.

She filled a kettle and set in on the stove. Then her head tilted, and she frowned.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Neville.” She pointed at the wall. He heard it now, too. A creaking bed. A low groan. She removed the kettle from the heat and picked up a plate of supper she’d set aside. “I hope he’ll eat something.”

He rose and followed her from the kitchen, then into Harrington’s bedchamber. The man was wide-eyed and red in the face.

“Where the hell am I?”

“Home, Neville. You’re home.” Her voice was soothing. Hopeful.

“How?”

Miss Harrington explained, succinctly, how they’d brought him here. She reminded him of the pox outbreak at the hospital. Harrington nodded along. She told him she’d had his bedchamber furnishings moved to the ground floor. And the library.

He looked peeved. Or pained. But he made appropriate noises of appreciation. Until Miss Harrington began pressing him to eat.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Neville, you’ve eaten nothing all day.”

“I can’t eat. I’m gut sick,” he growled. “I need my medicine.”

Crispin kept his face neutral. He knew firsthand the laudanum-induced gut-sickness. A cure worse than the injury, worse than the disease. It had been years since he’d had to resort to it, and he was resolved never to touch it again. Still, Miss Harrington’s dismayed expression spurred him to speak. “Try half a dose, Colonel. Then try to eat.”

She held out the potatoes like an offering to the gods.

“Just give me the damn laudanum!”

“It’s in my reticule,” Miss Harrington said, dropping the plate to the bed table, then hurrying from the room.

Crispin scowled but didn’t scold. Harrington was still his superior, and a major did not talk back to a colonel. If Old Harry wanted to waste away in his bed, drugged, that was his prerogative. But there was no excuse for being so rude to his sister.

“Damn it,” Harrington muttered. Crispin heard a hint of remorse. Good.

They waited in silence until Miss Harrington returned. She gave him a spoonful of laudanum.

“Just leave the plate, Camellia. I’ll eat when I can.” He smacked his lips and grimaced. “Now I need a chamber pot.”

Miss Harrington’s face went white.

“Is there a pot?” Crispin asked.

“In the water closet,” she whispered, with a gesture toward the far door. She’d foreseen this necessity, obviously, or she wouldn’t have been waiting to return here until she’d hired a manservant. This was his fault. He’d been too quick to rush her out of London.

“Miss Harrington, there were no linens in the guest chamber. Why don’t you go see to that and I’ll tend to your brother.”

She gave him a look that mixed horror with humiliation and gratitude. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, nodded, and sped from the room.

Crispin headed to the water closet. The devil. Snap decisions were his forté, but he generally based them on better information. He’d thought only “pox, house in the country, escape.” He’d assumed, wrongly, that everything would be in place for the colonel’s return. Of course it was clever, practical even, to have moved the colonel’s living spaces to the ground floor. But no servants at all? How was that possible?

Extricating himself from this muddle was a problem for tomorrow. For now, he was a manservant. He sniffed a laugh. Not what one expected of an earl’s brother. And certainly not on his list of options for what to do with the rest of his life.