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“I see that you have not,” she laughed. Leave it to this man to refuse care on the matter of taste. She set the tray across his lap and unstoppered the bottle, sniffing the murky concoction. Quickly she replaced the cork and covered her nose with the flap of her apron so that she might be rid of the odor.
“You see?” he laughed. She did and told him that she would not enforce the doctor’s orders so long as he ate his meal and remained abed until he had been declared fit. Lord Robert did not seem to care for this offer, but when she reached for the tonic, he conceded with a hasty breath.
Caroline could see that his coloring was a bit pale but as the duke had been evaluated only a moment before she refrained from pressing the back of her hand against his forehead. All at once she was far too aware that he was wearing only his nightshirt and that they were in his bedchamber no less! She willed the heat away from her cheeks but knew that when the duke tucked into his meal with the focus of a madman, he had noted the blush. She was meant to be cross with him, she reminded herself, and here she was teasing, making deals and, God forsake her, blushing. She resolved that the best approach was to ignore him as best she could in the hope that he would in truth put himself to rest.
Caroline took up a chair on the far side of the room, checking first that the fire was well fed. She did not have anything to occupy her hands, or her mind, so she abandoned the chair and began to move about the room, tidying it as she went.
Although the duke ate in silence she could feel his eyes follow her path, noting her futile attempt to keep busy.
“You should pilfer a collection of books from the study,” he suggested when the last of the soup had been spooned from the bowl. “There is a stack of letters that require my attention on the desk, if you would be so kind as to bring those as well? I have all else that I would need on the table there.” He indicated the table near the window which held a package of stationary and all of the other accoutrements that would be required to craft and seal a letter.
“Doctor Portner said that you are not to spend your energy with matters of business,” she scolded. She would choose an assortment of books for herself, however. Anything to keep herself distracted from the hours and hours that she would be required to spend in this room. She had bristled at his mention of letters. Oh, how the thought of him putting his own writings to post and discarding her one made her blood boil. He could write his damned letters when he was feeling better, she thought with indignation.
“I promised not to leave the bed,” he countered. “It would hardly sap my strength to read and write.” He looked like a mischievous little boy trying very hard to get his way and Caroline almost laughed aloud. “Besides,” he added as his pièce de résistance, “if I am to be busy then I shall have less reason to pester you.”
The wretch, she thought. He was wicked, and he knew it. The duke had noted that she would have rather have been anywhere else than his bedside and he would use that knowledge to get her to do his bidding. Still, she hemmed, it would keep his attentions elsewhere and perhaps she could get through this ordeal without having much to speak with him. The more they conversed the more she became worried that she would have it out with him about the letter and demand to know his reasoning. A small part of her, the secret part that was clinging to the hope that he was innocent to the horrors of his house, did not want to hear the truth on the chance that it would crush that last kernel of optimism.
She approached the bedside and took the tray with a glower.
“Thank you!” he called after her and she could have kicked him for his attempt at cheerful banter.
Caroline delayed her return for as long as could be managed without finding herself on the receiving end of Mrs. Reilly’s wrath. She took her merry time choosing a handful of novels for herself and retrieving his letters. She may or may not have flipped through the pile in search of anything that might have been sent by her father, perhaps the reply that she had been searching for? There had not been. She then filled a pitcher with cold water, wrapped a hunk of bread and cheese in a napkin to stymie her own hunger, and headed back up the stairs.
The duke had lost his playful tone by the time she made her reappearance.
“Leave them on the table for now,” he said, his voice weak and his lips dry. She did as she was told, bringing only the pitcher of water to his bedside. She filled his cup, perched herself upon the edge of the bed and bade him to drink.
He took a few sips before handing it back. She pressed him to take more.
“I’m only tired,” he sank back into the pillows. She noticed a slight sheen upon his brow. Pressing her hand to his forehead she felt that it was warm and clammy.
“Drink a little more,” she crooned as she filled the nearby washbasin with fresh water and carried it over to the bedside. She soaked the accompanying cloth in the crisp liquid, rung out the excess, and pressed it to his forehead, worried. Hadn’t he been teasing her only an hour earlier? Caroline continued to blot the skin of his face and his neck until he had fallen into a deep slumber. The poor man was exhausted, and it was no wonder the way he ran himself ragged. There was a bone-deep weariness about him as if he carried the weight of the world upon his broad shoulders and knew not how to fix it. She looked upon his features as they relaxed in sleep. She had a better view of his scars, what with the way the laces of his nightshirt and been pulled open in his discomfort. Again, she thought that beneath the scars he possessed an innocent appearance. Interesting, she thought. It was a wonder that his injuries could play such a role in one’s perception. The jagged lines and sheer volume of damage gave the impression that he was harsh and beastlike. They had taken away all of the softness that would have shone otherwise, a softness that only appeared now in sleep. Despite the fact that she was still very angry with him, she determined that he deserved more from the people around him than he had been given. She resolved to give him the best care possible. She could do, at least, that much.
“You are far more ill than you let on, aren’t you?” she whispered as she made one more pass along his jawline. His skin had cooled now, and he was sleeping soundly, so she added another log to the fire and settled into her chair to read and watch over him.
He did not awake until some hours later when Caroline had gone to retrieve his evening meal. The sound of the door closing upon her return must have startled him because he jolted upright, his hand reaching beneath his pillow for what she assumed was a knife or a pistol, but it came up empty. It took him another moment to place himself but when he saw her standing just inside the doorway, he sank back against the pillows and sighed.
“I see that you are feeling better,” she observed for the color was back in his cheeks and his eyes were much more focused than they had been during the bout of fever.
“I am merely tired,” he repeated what she had decided would be his mantra for the duration of the illness. May the Lord help her, she raised her eyes to the ceiling and huffed.
“When the fever surfaces again, you shall take the tonic,” she said with her best schoolmarm voice.
Again, he wrinkled his nose. She hated that she found the action endearing, the boyish side that he never allowed others to see.
“Agreed?” she pressed. She twisted her body as if she were to refuse him the tray of food, letting him starve if he did not take the medicine.
“If it rears again,” he hemmed, “and if you tell me why you keep looking at me as if I might need to be throttled, then I will take it.”
Caroline bit her lip as she considered his offer. She was not ready to have it out with him just yet but she nodded. “I shall tell you why you ought to be throttled if the situation arises.” She said the words as if it were a matter of certainty. He did need to be throttled, not that he might need to be. She was also hoping that the fevers had passed and she would not be required to fulfill that end of the bargain.
“That’s not fair,” he argued. “What if it never does? Oughtn’t we to hope that I don’t have a fever?”
“Then it is a conversation for another time.”
“You ought to tell me now,” he pressed with a singular raised eyebrow. “If you wait for the fever then it is unlikely that I will remember what you say, so really it cannot be a fair trade. If you were to tell me now while I have a clear mind then I might have a hope to fix it.” He must have been a nightmare of a child, she realized. His mother must have been hard pressed to deny her son anything if he would use such logic to get his way. She really ought to let him starve.
Her eyes were narrowed as she considered her options. Really, what harm could there be? She could be ransomed any moment now, perhaps even before the duke recovered. If he revealed his duplicitous nature to her now, there was little he could do from his sickbed.
