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“Oh, my lord!” exclaimed the duenna, shocked. “It cannot be right—I do not think you should—oh, dear.”
“I thought you had gone back to the party,” Maidie said, ignoring the Worm’s protestations, and sniffing away the streaming fluids which had accompanied her last bout of sneezing. “You had better keep your distance. I do not wish to be blamed if you catch it.”
“Well, I am not going to keep my distance.” Delagarde sat on the edge of the bed, equally unmindful of the duenna’s squeaking. He was holding a cup in one hand, which he held out to Maidie. “I have brought you a remedy.”
Maidie took it, sniffing gingerly at the brew inside, from which emanated an aroma strange to her. “What is it?”
“Hot lemon and sugar.” He grinned wickedly, adding, “And a measure of strong navy rum.”
Maidie nearly dropped the cup, but Delagarde reached out and grabbed it. “Take care!”
“I can’t drink that!” Maidie thrust it back into his hands as she began again to sneeze.
“Rum, my lord!” came from the scandalised Miss Wormley. “Oh no, no, no!”
“My dear Miss Wormley, it is a highly effective restorative for colds, and will help her to sleep besides. It is, I promise you, far less harmful to the system than laudanum.”
“Laurie, have you run mad?” asked Maidie, when she had blown her nose. But she could not help smiling, for a warm softness had entered her at this unprecedented mark of thoughtfulness.
“Drink it!” Keeping his fingers on the cup, he encouraged her to raise it to her lips.
Maidie took a wary sip. “It is not unpleasant.”
“Of course not. It is liberally dosed with sugar.”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” muttered the Worm distressfully, but ineffectually, for neither of the principals paid her the least heed.
Maidie was engaged in taking a few more concentrated sips of the hot thick liquid, which tasted more pleasant every moment. Soon she began to feel a rosy glow in her chest and a heady sensation wreathing her brain. She looked up to find Delagarde watching her, amusement in his eyes. She tried to speak, and found difficulty in enunciating the words.
“I h-hope I shill… shall not tomorrow, s-s-su—”
“Suffer a morning head?” supplied his lordship, grinning at her. “Well, if you do, I hope it may prove a lesson to you not to plague defenceless Viscounts with unreasonable demands when they have barely had a chance to open their eyes.”
Maidie giggled uncontrollably, and hiccupped. She heard the Worm tutting away, and opened wide her eyes. “D’you mean I am in-in-inee…drunk?”
“I should not so describe it. A trifle foxed, perhaps.”
Maidie sneezed. She felt the cup removed from her hand, and heard faintly the murmur of voices as the violence of her sneezing took all her attention. When she was once more able to take account of what was happening, she found Delagarde had gone and the Worm was sitting in his place. The rosy glow dissipated, and Maidie discovered she wanted to weep. But a drowsy feeling was stealing over her and, instead, she began to drop asleep. Her last thought was a conviction Delagarde had not been there at all, and the whole episode was a figment of her fevered imagination.
“How is your protégée, Laurie?” asked Corringham, coming up to the Viscount at their friend Riseley’s house.
Delagarde had escorted Lady Hester thither, so she might at once apologise for Maidie to her hostess of the previous evening, and set it about her indisposition would keep her in bed for a day or two.
“She has only taken a cold. It is not serious.” He found himself being regarded with a quizzical eye, and frowned. “Well?”
“Nothing, my dear fellow, nothing at all.”
But the gleam persisted, and a surge of irritation threw Delagarde into speech. “Everett, I know that look. What do you mean by it?”
From behind him came Lord Riseley’s voice, filled with frank laughter. “My boy, you had much better ask me. Everett will never bring himself to say it.”
Delagarde turned on him. “Well, I do ask you. What are you at, the pair of you?”
“Don’t fly up into the boughs with us, dear boy. Ain’t our fault you felt compelled to dance attendance on the chit merely because she caught a cold.”
“Dance attendance? That is ridiculous.”
“Is it?” returned his irrepressible friend. “Then what came over you to persuade Lady Hester to stay while you escorted her home?”
