Page 63 of Yielding to Love

Adam was quiet a moment. Then he said, “Will you eat fish?”

Crispin nodded.

“You should speak up sooner. We cannot work at cross purposes.”

“Yes,” he groaned, hating himself, his vulnerability. “I know.”

“Then you also know you must stop taking laudanum. You forget half of what we say from one day to the next. You are befogged.”

“I don’t want to relapse.”

“I will give you cat’s-claw. An herb from South America. It is better for your particular complaint. I believe your intolerance has progressed to an inflammation of the bowels. I can’t agree with using laudanum for—”

“It works. It has always worked. Why should I put myself through—”

“Major, laudanum is for men like the colonel. He suffers from pain that can never be healed. He will not live very much longer. That is not your case.”

Crispin slumped. Every word Adam said was true. He murmured a confession. “I don’t know if I have the strength.”

“You do.”

*

Adam said some men required a slow reduction in dosage, but that for others, the best course was to stop all at once. So Crispin did. Adam said he had two great advantages. One, that in spite of everything, his body was sound. Sound? His body? And two, he did not enjoy the effects of the drug on his brain. That, of course, was a matter open to debate. But it was true that he preferred being clear-headed to artificial bliss.

He spent a week in the depths of hell. Another week in a lesser hell. And finally, although physically he was still limping along, his head felt clear.

Adam told him to go out in the fresh air. Enjoy the springtime. Stop acting like a sick man. So Crispin was riding Mercury about the property, counting his blessings.

Now that logic had returned to him, it mattered not one jot that Miss Harrington had married that dull stick Sir Manfred Bodwell. He’d foreseen it. Lady needs security; man needs heir. They were lifelong neighbors. Of course, they had eventually wed. If only they had done so sooner.

He was now considering a journey to Cambridge. While he had been in hell, word had come that Arthur now had a baby brother. Randolph. Crispin had missed the celebration with Mother, Jasper, Vanessa, Olivia, and Benjamin. Had it been awkward? Or sincerely joyous?

He should go visiting. He would like to see Reg. Georgiana and Reg. To experience their unadulterated, simple goodness. He wanted to get to know his nephews. The one unalterable fact of his life was that his family meant everything to him. That, and that he had been granted another chance at living.

He was thirty years old. He didn’t need any more adventure. He didn’t need to witness any more death. He didn’t need to kill any more men.

And so, he had decided, finally, to be quit of soldering. He would sell his commission the next time he returned to London. He would keep his set at Albany. Join White’s gentlemen’s club and do what he could, short of standing for the Commons, to support Jasper’s political career. And he would finish refurbishing the cottage so that it would once again be a Taverston retreat. He hoped to be inundated with nieces and nephews.

He returned Mercury to the stable and found, to his delighted surprise, that Hazard’s coach was being placed in the carriage house. He’d been in Gladnorshire while Alice was in Cambridge. Were they both here now?

Crispin hurried to the house. Stepping inside, he pulled off his gloves and hat and handed them to Peters. “Viscount Haslet has come?”

Peters nodded. “They are in the parlor. I believe they are waiting for you.”

“Very good.” He trotted to the stairs. No doubt Hazard was afraid he’d find Crispin a shriveled wreck sitting on the terrace with a blanket tucked around him. He owed Haz a debt of gratitude. A very large debt.

The parlor door was open. He could hear a hum of conversation, but he was in too much of a hurry to try picking out words. He sauntered into the room and the talk ceased. Alice was there too, sitting on the couch beside Olivia—who was definitely increasing. She had sent back a refusal to his written challenge that morning to race Mercury and Second Place. He grinned at her, but as she looked up at him, his grin fell away. She was white-faced. He looked around. They were all white-faced.

“What is it?” His heart dropped into his feet. “Did something happen to Georgiana?”

“No,” Alice said. “Everyone is well.” Her gaze went to Hazard. So Crispin’s did too.

“Haz? What is it?”

He looked grim. Impossibly grim. “I…It was probably absurd of me, of us, to race here. You’ll see it in the newspapers tomorrow, I’m sure.”

Jasper said, “Crispin, why don’t you sit down?”