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‘Good morning, Miss Phyllida.’ Anna sounded indecently bright and cheerful. ‘Rise and shine! We’re away after breakfast and his lordship has ordered it for eight o’clock.’ She came to the bedside and looked down, her smile fading. ‘Are you well, Miss Phyllida? You’re as white as a sheet.’
‘I feel it.’ Phyllida struggled up against the pillows and took stock of herself. ‘I have a horrible suspicion that I’m going to be sick, Anna.’
The maid whisked the basin off the washstand and dumped it on her knees. ‘It’s that whiting from last night. We had the leftovers for dinner in the servants’ hall and William the footman swore it was off.’
‘It tasted all right. Oh!’ Phyllida doubled up over the basin with a groan. When the worst was over she lay back, a wet cloth in her hand, and thought back. ‘I do hope Lady Charlotte didn’t eat any. At her age sickness could be dangerous.’
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p; ‘Most of it came back down to the kitchen,’ Anna said, frowning in recollection. ‘That’s why there was enough for the staff. But no one fancied it much because the stew was so good. William didn’t finish his and Cook got the hump because of him saying it wasn’t right, so she took it off the table. I’ll go and get you some hot water and I’ll let his lordship know you can’t be travelling today.’
‘No!’ She had to get home, safely away from Ashe and all the temptation he offered. ‘Lord Clere has to return and I cannot expect Lady Charlotte to spend any more time away from her own home. I’ll be fine now. Just bring me my breakfast up here. Some toast, perhaps.’
Phyllida managed to keep down a slice of dry toast and a cup of weak tea, wash and get dressed, although her stomach was cramping and she felt ridiculously weak. Lady Charlotte was in perfect health and unbent as far as to offer her cheek to be kissed before she was helped into her travelling coach for the short ride home.
‘In we get.’ Phyllida urged Anna towards the chaise the moment the postilions brought it round. She had no intention of standing in the bright sunlight for Ashe to observe her pale, green-tinged complexion. He would probably put it down to a broken night spent fretting over him and simple vanity stopped her admitting to something as prosaic as an upset stomach.
By the time he had waved his great-aunt off and come to the chaise, she was sitting well back in a shadowed corner.
‘What an admirably prompt woman you are,’ Ashe said. ‘The day looks set to stay fair and we’ll be back to London in good time.’
‘Wonderful!’ Her cheerful response must have convinced him all was well for he closed the door, mounted his horse and they set off down the drive.
After ten minutes Phyllida was recalling all too vividly why post chaises were nicknamed Yellow Bounders. This one seemed to have extra-firm springs to make sure that every pothole, rut and stone contributed to the eccentric motion of the vehicle.
She doggedly chewed on the spearmint leaves that Anna had found in the kitchen garden and focused on Ashe’s tall figure. But after a while the even cadences of the cantering horse on what must be a smooth verge only emphasised the swaying and jolting of the chaise. ‘I’ve never felt sick in one of these before,’ Phyllida lamented.
‘Well, you hadn’t eaten stale fish before, had you, Miss Phyllida?’ Anna pointed out. ‘We’ll be stopping to change the horses in an hour.’
An hour! Phyllida bit down grimly on another mint leaf and tried to think of anything but her stomach and her swimming head. The only possible benefit of feeling so queasy, she had decided by the time the chaise reached King’s Langley, was that it was a most effective antidote to amorous thoughts of Ashe.
‘We’re stopping, Miss Phyllida.’
‘Thank goodness for that, because I do not think my breakfast is going to stay down any longer.’ Phyllida clamped a handkerchief over her mouth. As the chaise clattered to a halt in the inn yard she opened the door and stumbled down, clutching the high wheel for support.
‘What is wrong?’ She had not even seen Ashe, but he was there at her side, his hands supporting her.
‘Bad fish,’ Anna said. ‘She’s going to be sick any moment, my lord.’
‘Hang on.’ Ashe bent and scooped her up in his arms, strode into the inn and snapped, ‘A room, hot water, a basin.’
‘Please… I can manage…’ She glanced around as best she could over the lace of her handkerchief. This was a large, smart inn, obviously one catering to the carriage trade, not some shabby little place where she could be ill in dingy privacy.
‘In here, sir. Oh poor dear. Increasing, is she?’ A woman’s voice… a stranger. She was settled in a chair, hands—Ashe’s—pressed a bowl onto her lap. Somehow her bonnet had gone and so had her pelisse.
Phyllida retched miserably, someone held her shoulders, a damp cloth smelling of lavender was put into her hand as the bowl was removed. She leaned into the supporting arm and smelled sandalwood beneath the lavender.
‘Here’s a little peppermint cordial. That’ll settle you nicely, my lady.’
Hazily Phyllida realised that Ashe must have made his title known to secure prompt service and the woman attending her though she was his wife. And pregnant.
She sipped the cordial and swayed as the room lurched around her. This was ridiculous. She would not faint, she was made of sterner stuff than that.
‘She is going to faint.’ Ashe’s voice came from a long way away. ‘I had better put her on the bed.’
If she did lose consciousness it could only have been for a moment. Phyllida found herself propped up against pillows and lying on a vast patchwork quilt. ‘I am sorry,’ she managed.
‘Don’t you worry, my lady,’ the other woman’s comforting voice said from the doorway. ‘I’ll just pop down and get you a hot brick.’
