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Right. Mustn’t forget dear old Robbie. Ever.“If you’d like to return to Lynley Vale, we can probably manage from here.”
“For me to leave now would not be wise,” Althea said, rising. She wrapped a cinnamon bun in a table napkin and stuffed it into a pocket. “Robbie argues with you, while he merely grouses at me. If I tell him to endure a sponge bath, he puts up with it. You ask him, and he refuses, and that’s an end to it. Now, when he thinks full recovery assured, he’d win all the arguments.”
Nathaniel stood as well, mentally reviewing the previous night’s activities, to the extent his recollection functioned at all.
“I am in the habit of respecting my brother’s wishes.”
“Respect your brother,” Althea said, preceding him into the bedroom. “Take issue with his wishes when they’re patently foolish. Ye saints, I haven’t been this tired since the Crown tried to execute Quinn.”
The maids had managed to remake Nathaniel’s bed and tidy the room. The bed abruptly loomed like a promised land of bliss, and that was irrespective of any cavorting Nathaniel might envision with a woman who casually mentioned her brother’s attempted execution.
“Get some rest,” he said. “I’ll keep Robbie in line as best I can. He’s stubborn.”
“For which God be thanked or he’d be long dead. Would you undo my hooks?”
Nathaniel had undone them late last night, he’d done them up again a few hours later. Althea wasn’t blushing, but rather, standing with her back to him, her hair swept off her nape. Fatigue must have made his hands clumsy because the dress abruptly sported ten thousand hooks, each one smaller than the last.
“Thank you,” she said, moving away long moments later. “I don’t dare leave my hair in this state, or bachelor hedgehogs will send me flirtatious glances. You must not allow me to sleep more than a few hours. If Robbie worsens, you will awaken me regardless of the time of day. You should sleep as well. The second night of an illness can be the worst even if the day goes well.”
She disappeared behind the privacy screen, and Nathaniel sat on the bed rather than gawk at the triangle of bare flesh exposed below her nape.
He pulled off his boots, intending to find some house slippers, but that would require traversing the length of his bedroom, rummaging in his dressing closet, and trekking back to…where? Where was he supposed to be? From behind the screen came the sound of teeth being brushed, then quiet humming.
Do not fall asleep. Have some damned dignity. Althea slept less than you did.
Closing one’s eyes was not falling asleep, and Nathaniel’s eyes stung with fatigue. He did not decide to lie back on the bed so much as he bowed to the inevitable conclusion reached by his body when his eyelids shuttered and his bum encountered a soft mattress.
The bed was bliss, the pillow his most cherished friend. His aching body relaxed, his mind gave up. He had never been this tired ever, in body, mind, or spirit.
“How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle,” some female murmured, just before a weight dipped the mattress.
Fallen indeed. Nathaniel’s last thought was that he really ought to get up and do something, be somewhere, accomplish a task.…He most assuredly should not tarry here, where…
The scent of roses came to him, and his thoughts wafted away into dreams.
Althea woke to the disorienting awareness that somebody was sopping a cloth in a basin of water. When an entire family lived in a single room, no sound, regardless of how private, remained unheard by others.
Constance, whimpering through another nightmare.
Stephen’s restless shifting in a doomed quest for a comfortable position.
Jack, stepping an entire two yards up the alley before relieving himself against a wall.
Scents and sensations came to her rescue, reassuring her that she was not dreaming, but rather, waking to an unfamiliar reality. The sheets she lay upon smelled faintly of sandalwood and lavender. The covers were ample and soft. She had the bed to herself, no sibling elbow or knee impeded her stretching.
Althea was in Rothhaven’s enormous bed, where she had enjoyed a good long nap, her sleep more rejuvenating than the snatches of rest stolen from her duties in the sickroom. She was stiff, as she expected to be when great fatigue was followed by real repose.
“You are awake.” Rothhaven emerged from behind the privacy screen. “I had hoped not to disturb you.” Beneath an open dressing gown he wore a shirt tucked into breeches. The buttons at his throat were undone, no cravat in sight. He scrubbed at his face with a linen cloth, his cheeks newly shaved.
“I am barely awake,” Althea said, struggling to sit up amid a sea of pillows. “What time is it?” Her voice was rusty, and she must look a fright, but self-consciousness could not push aside her fascination with that patch of bare male chest on view several feet away.
“Time for luncheon,” Rothhaven said, “and I, for one, am famished. Robbie slept for most of the morning, took some porridge and tea, then asked for the London newspapers.”
Althea pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “London newspapers? Is he trying to bring on dyspepsia?”
Rothhaven took off his dressing gown and draped it over her shoulders. “He reads the financial pages from many newspapers with more focus than a fortune-teller at her tea leaves. Thanks to his interest in the estate’s investments, our fortunes prosper, I’m pleased to say. If anything ever happens to me, he’ll be able to afford good staff, assuming he remains in control of his affairs.”
Althea patted the mattress on the empty side of the bed. “You have rested enough to resume your worries.”
