Page 51 of An Unusual Wager

William, a strapping young man who’d begun life in one of the estate farmhouses, turned out to be far more gentle than he looked. He might have grown up used to handling recalcitrant cows and pigs, and even plough horses, but he now proved he could be gentle as a woman with a baby. Although comparing himself to a baby was unattractive to Jonathan. But at least now he was almost upright in bed.

He leant back against his plumped-up pillows, struggling to control his breathing as the pain throbbed from his toes to the top of his head. “Brandy, William. Fetch me my decanter from my study. Quickly.” He closed his eyes. That would lessen the pain, surely.

“No,” said a voice that had to be Verity’s but had taken on the authority of his first governess. “He’s not to have brandy nor any other alcohol, William. Off you go. I’ll deal with this.”

The sound of the bedroom door closing had Jonathan opening his eyes. He glared at Verity. “This is my house and if I ask for brandy I expect to get it.”

She glared back at him, determination spilling out of every part of her. “And I am your wife and in charge of your care. If I say you can’t have it, then you can’t have it. Believe me, it will not speed your recovery.”

Damn the woman, but he was weak as a kitten or he’d have thrown the covers off the bed and gone and found the brandy himself. However, he had a suspicion that if he tried to stand up he might collapse in an ignominious heap on the floor. And that would do nothing for his pride, as she wouldn’t be able to pick him up herself and would have to call for reinforcements. Possibly two footmen and maybe Dr. Collins himself.

“I need it to dull the pain,” he muttered, loath to admit how much every part of him was hurting.

She fetched a small bottle. “For the pain you may have more laudanum. But not the amount Walter and Robert must have given you last night. It’s a wonder you didn’t expire from its effects. Dr. Collins has indicated to me what a dose for a man your size should be. It will help you sleep as well as dull the pain.”

“Damn it, woman, haven’t I done enough sleeping?”

She chuckled. “Perhaps you’re right about that. And I think if you’re amenable, some sustenance might be a good idea before you take your medicine. I’ll send for something Mrs. Lovell has been preparing for you, and waiting up for you to wake up and need it. Beef broth. It will do you good.” She said that as though she expected a protest.

Jonathan remained silent, however. He wanted to say that he’d prefer a plate of actual roast beef, but it would not have been true. Beef broth, much to his surprise, sounded ideal.

And the beef broth, when it came, turned out to be just that. Although it also turned out to be presented in an invalid cup that didn’t require him to be sitting up straight to drink, nor any use of a spoon. Jonathan had the sense not to cavil at this indignity. He was too hungry and the broth smelled delicious.

Verity put it into his left hand but, he noted, kept a very good eye on him unless he was about to spill it. After the broth, she administered the small dose he was allowed of the laudanum and he found he was tired, despite having slept what must have been most of the last twenty-four hours.

Verity straightened his covers for him and took her seat beside the bed again, her expression peaceful. Gone was the somewhat argumentative young lady he’d first encountered. This was a different Verity to the one who’d banned him from her bedroom. A softer, gentler, and more pliant one, yet, as had been proven, every bit as determined.

Jonathan relaxed back on his pillows, allowing the drug to take effect, but still watching her through drooping eyelids. Dressed like this, she was even prettier than he’d first thought. Who’d have guessed she’d been hiding the qualities of a nursemaid? Hidden depths. Still waters run deep. Several more clichés tumbled through his head. At last, however, his body began to feel light and relaxed and the pain to recede. His eyelids became heavier as his whole body drooped. He could no longer keep them open.

Having turned the oil lamp down a bit, Verity watched his eyes close in satisfaction. A couple of times they flickered open again, but he was fighting a losing battle there. Laudanum would not just dull the pain but bring him much needed, healing sleep. His breathing became deeper and the drawn look on his pale face softened as his whole body relaxed. Hopefully this would be a deep, pain-free sleep. He needed it.

She’d poured herself a glass of water earlier, and now she sipped it as she studied Jonathan’s face in repose.

When she’d seen him for the first time lying in the coach and for a moment thought him not breathing, her heart had performed a lurch of fear that had nearly made her legs buckle at the knee. Only extreme determination had kept her upright. At the time, she’d not had the opportunity to wonder at her reaction before she’d realized he was not dead. Since then, she’d pushed aside her own feelings as she’d helped both Dr. Collins and her staff with Jonathan’s care and comforted the distraught Kitty.

Now, alone in the dark bedroom with the man whom, so short a time ago, she’d decided not to like, she had time to reflect on her own feelings, which were more than puzzling.

She set her jaw. She absolutely didn’t like Jonathan. She wanted to teach him a lesson. He was spoiled and over entitled, as well as being actually titled, a rich man from a section of society her own father had fled. He was, in short, everything she’d learned to despise after so many years in revolutionary France, and yet she’d allowed herself to be cajoled into marriage with him. There was no denying she could have avoided that if she’d wanted to, and yet she hadn’t. What did that mean? Could he possibly represent the stability she’d so often craved in the last thirteen years?

She frowned, watching him more closely as he slept. She could tell herself a thousand times that she’d done it to save Papa, but was that strictly true? Had not a small part of her been attracted to this man who, in many ways, didn’t seem to have passed the stage of being an over-indulged child? Did she perhaps nurture the idea she could change him? For the better? Did she think him worthy of that effort?

She scowled at him. He was sleeping soundly now, his impressively muscled chest, most of it now concealed by bandages and blankets, rising gently. Was that not why she’d decided to teach him a lesson and even considered what it might be like if she succeeded? Was it not why she’d asked his mother whether his father had given up his hedonistic lifestyle once he’d been married? Had she been picturing a life for herself with a Jonathan who was no longer a rake?

She began to realize that not only did she not know Jonathan very well, but also that she didn’t know herself at all. Everything she’d thought about herself seemed to be sliding away at an alarming rate.

A sobering thought.

Was she no longer the young woman who’d aided her father to extract considerable sums of money from unsuspecting foreigners all over the continent? The woman who’d jaunted about Europe masquerading as a young French woman? Probably not. In fact, it was entirely possible that she’d never been that young woman at all, and that it had all just been a cloak she’d worn over her old clothes to disguise herself. Her true self, perhaps, was the girl brought up by Grandmama at Somerton in the traditional ways of the landed gentry. Hadn’t someone once said, “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man?”

Might she, against her better judgment, like Jonathan a bit too much, despite his many obvious failings? Possibly because of them. A ridiculous thought. What was there to like about him, even? She would ignore his good looks, battered as they were at this particular moment in time, as to include them would be shallow, and she didn’t consider herself to be a shallow young woman. Beauty, as Grandmama had said many times, only went skin deep.

She frowned, considering what she knew of him, which wasn’t much and in no way justified having any sort of feelings for him at all. Possibly a few of those shallow ones, but not the sort that lasted.

She clenched a fist and lifted her thumb to count off reasons why she might allow herself to like him. One: he clearly loved his sister very much. To the point where he, as just a boy himself, had decreed that she should be brought up in his household. She’d been motherless and fatherless and her brother, who should perhaps have shunned her, had ordered her to be brought up like a lady, even though her mother had been nothing but a housemaid. That was surely something in his favor. And on top of that, so maybe this was number two, he’d done this in the face of what must have been stiff opposition from his own mother. To the extent that she’d taken herself off to the Dower House and stopped living with him.

So, from the age of sixteen himself, he must have been independent. And then there was the fact that not only did he appear to love Kitty, but she clearly loved him in return with a devotion that was touching. So that was point three. Kitty had been desperate to do her part in caring for her beloved brother and had sat for a long time before her bedtime at his sickbed, holding his left hand in a most touching fashion and dabbing at the tears which kept springing to her eyes. Surely Kitty would not love someone who was at heart bad? She was not a foolish girl. At least, no more foolish than other girls her age.

So, the question remained. What else was good about him?