Page 61 of Yielding to Love

Chapter Twenty

James helped Crispin move from his bed to a chair by the fire in the sitting room. His bones still ached, his gut still hurt, and he still was weak, but he no longer believed he would die. The laudanum was finally doing what it was supposed to do. Perhaps he must accept that he was doomed to a life of mild stupefaction.

He picked up Donne’s Devotions. He had read them all but this last.

Though you have by physic and diet raked up the embers of your disease, still there is a fear of a relapse; and the greater danger is in that.

Grand. Just grand. He set down the book and sifted through a pile of broadsheets James had been bringing him, though he had done no more than skim them until now.

He’d gathered this much: Wellington was no longer in Paris. No longer in danger of assassination. He’d been sent to Vienna to replace Castlereagh as Britain’s representative at the post-war conference. The Coalition’s task was now to reconfigure the boundaries of kingdoms after Napoleon’s disruptions.

Tens of thousands of men dead, just to return the world to stasis.

Crispin stared blankly at the window, and summoned the will to push aside the tide of images that would, if he let them, overwhelm him.

At the top of the pile was the day’s Morning Post. The date was February 15, 1815. February. He’d left Tonbridge in late November. Nearly three months of his life, lost to him. And Olivia’s wedding? Late June. Eight months. What had he done in eight months? Except turn thirty? Perhaps that was accomplishment enough, considering how doubtful had been the chance of success.

He tried to read, at least the gossipy bits, but could not concentrate. This was what laudanum did to him. He could sleep, eat, fidget, but he could not think. Instead, his mind drifted to places it should not go. Tonbridge. The scent of lilacs. Miss Harrington singing. Miss Harrington’s bed. Making it up to her for the lack of kisses—in his fevered imagination, he could.

She’d come to see him, and he’d turned her away. Or was that another of his drug-induced fancies? Had there been a letter? Could he have been deadened enough to burn a letter? He had not been able to make himself ask James.

Someone was knocking. Was someone knocking?

“James!” he bellowed. Tried to bellow. He had never been a bellower. “James!”

He heard his front door open. James’s voice. Hazard’s. Jasper’s?

A moment later, his brother stormed into the room. “Crispin!” He halted. Appalled. Then his face crumpled. “Crispin.”

“Believe it or not, this is recovering.”

“Why didn’t you tell us? Why don’t you ever tell us?”

“It is my cross to bear. And you…you had enough to worry over. How is Vanessa?”

“Holding up.” He looked away. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Your condolence letter. I should have known something was wrong. It was incoherent.”

He didn’t recall writing a letter.

“I thought you were foxed when you wrote it,” Jasper said, shaking his head. “I should have known. You are never foxed. But when we last saw you, you were so well, so confidently well. And Haz said nothing until two days ago, when Vanessa—the doctor said bedrest—but after a month of that, Vanessa had done with it—and Haz finally told us—”

Hazard walked into the room, and plodding alongside was the Greek.

“Adam?” How in the blazes? “What are you doing here?”

Jasper said, “You’d said he’d been hired by the Harringtons. I went and found him.”

“The colonel needs—”

“The colonel is being tended to.” Adam made a slight bow. “Major, I do not forget I owe my life to you. This”—he swept a hand at Crispin and frowned—“this should not have happened.”

“You need his help more than Colonel Harrington does,” Jasper said.

“James has—”

“Has been invaluable,” Hazard said. “But I am taking him back. Alice is going to Cambridge, and I am not sending my viscountess to Reg’s hovel without a footman.” He pretended to shudder.

“Cambridge?” Crispin asked.