One Forbidden Evening (Zebra Historical Romance) Page 18

  “I beg your pardon?” he said, coming late to the realization that Webb was asking him something. “I did not hear your question.”

  “I said I was given to understand that you know things, sir. Uncommon things. Not like what the rest of us know. I wondered if that was true.”

  One of Ferrin’s eyebrows lifted, but he continued to study Cybelline. “Will you bring me a basin, Webb? I will also require a pitcher of water, not cold, mind you. And a bottle of spirits. Whatever is in the drinks cabinet will serve.”

  “Yes, sir.” She rang for help and requested the spirits, but she brought everything else to Ferrin from the dressing room.

  He made room for the basin on the bedside table and indicated Webb should pour some water into it. “How did you learn that I know uncommon things, as you called them?”

  “From Mr. Foster. Is it true?”

  “Ah, yes, Mr. Foster. He and I have exchanged pleasantries. He owns the notions shop, I believe, or have I mistaken him for another?”

  “No, that’s Mr. Foster.”

  “He also owns a telescope.” Ferrin wrung out the wet flannel and applied it gently to Cybelline’s brow. “Did you know that?”

  “I didn’t, sir. It seems a might peculiar. What does he need one for?”

  “To gaze at the heavens, one would presume.”

  “What a thing to do,” Webb said. “And him with a shop to keep.”

  “It is my opinion that a man’s livelihood should not dictate all of his interests.”

  Webb considered this as she watched him work. He was using the damp flannel just as she had earlier, though this time Cybelline was insensible to it. “Have you looked through a telescope, Mr. Wellsley?”

  “I have.”

  “Do you own one?”

  “No, I made a present to my father of the one I made.”

  She blinked. “You made a telescope?”

  Ferrin nodded. “It was a number of years ago. More than six, now that I think on it.” He turned down Cybelline’s quilt another fold and pressed the flannel to the opening at the neck of her gown. She did not stir at all, and this alarmed him more than the look of her. “When the spirits arrive, Webb, ask for a bath to be drawn. The water must be warm but not hot. And have the tub placed as close to the fire as possible. If there are towels in the dressing room, stack them near the fire now so they’ll be warm when we have need of them.”

  Webb disappeared again and returned in moment with an armload of towels. She divided them into two piles and placed one on the seat of a chair and the other on the footstool. She had not yet returned to the bed when one of the maids arrived with a decanter of whisky. Webb held it up for Ferrin to see.

  “Is there no more? It’s only two-thirds full.”

  Webb turned to the maid. “Ask everyone in the house if they have any spirits hidden away. It is a pity Mr. Kins did not hire that Harding fellow. He looked as if he knew the taste of the stuff well enough.” She stopped the maid from leaving and told her, “And inform Mrs. Henley that Mr. Wellsley requires a bath to be drawn for the mistress. The tub will go in this room.” The maid bobbed her head several times before she hurried off. Webb rejoined Ferrin. “Where shall I put this?”

  “Pour a third of it into the basin.”

  She did as instructed, then stoppered the decanter and set it on the floor. She watched him wet the flannel again and wring it out. “Will it pull the fever from her, do you think?”

  “That is my hope.”

  “Have you done the like before?”

  “No. But I have read about it.”

  She made no attempt to hide her misgivings or her disbelief. “That is all? You’ve read about it?”

  “It is how one acquires knowledge of uncommon things, Webb.”

  “But, Mr. Wellsley, she is—”

  “Shh. You are a distraction now. Find a glass for me. A tumbler will be sufficient, but something taller would be better. Not a wineglass, though. That will not work.”

  Webb obeyed because she didn’t know what else to do with herself. There was no glass in the dressing room, only a heavy stoneware mug and a tin cup. She used the servants’ staircase at the rear of the house to reach the dining room.

  Ferrin threw back the covers completely and raised the hem of Cybelline’s nightgown as far as the tops of her thighs. He wiped down her legs from hip to ankle with the spirit-soaked flannel, working quickly to avoid Webb’s scold in the event she returned. He replaced the covers up to her waist, then lifted the neck of her gown and slipped his hand beneath it so he could wash her chest. He finished just as the rustle of Webb’s skirts signaled her approach. When the maid entered the room he was applying the cloth to Cybelline’s limp forearm.

  “She hasn’t awakened?” asked Webb.

  “No. How long has it been since she’s spoken to anyone?”

  “She stirred some not long before you came, but she didn’t open her eyes or say anything.” Webb bit her lower lip and worried it while she thought. “I suppose the last time she spoke was before I sent Mr. Kins for you. It’s been several hours.” She looked at her mistress; tears glazed her eyes. “She’s not merely sleeping, is she, Mr. Wellsley?”

  There was no point in denying what the maid knew to be true. Webb had the evidence before her, though she sorely wanted to deny it. “No, Webb. She’s not.” He glanced at the glass she held and put out his hand. “May I?” Webb gave it over. “Help me turn her onto her stomach.” When that was efficiently accomplished, Ferrin directed the maid to remove the pillows so Cybelline would not smother herself in them. Webb gently turned her mistress’s face to one side while Ferrin resettled the blankets at the small of Cybelline’s back.

  He placed the overturned glass against her upper back to the left of her spine, then bent over and laid his ear to the solid end of the glass. Her heartbeat was neither as strong nor as steady as he could have wished. “Has she suffered any illnesses as a child? Scarlet fever? Rheumatic fever?”

  “No.” Webb shook her head. “That is, I’ve never heard her say so. I have only been with her since she was a young lady, before her come-out. I know that she enjoyed the best of health until—” Webb stopped suddenly, biting off the thought so deliberately that her teeth clicked together.

  “Until?” Ferrin asked. “Until childbirth? Did she have a difficult delivery, some complication that could have—” Now it was he who stopped as he realized what it was that Webb would not say. “Until her husband died. Is that it, Webb? Mrs. Caldwell has not enjoyed good health since her husband died?”

  “It is not that she has been sickly,” Webb said. “But that she has been sick at heart.” She looked away, clearly troubled. “I cannot say more.”

  “You certainly can.” Ferrin straightened and employed both his superior height and superior station to his advantage. “And you will, Webb.” He gave the maid full marks for not cowering, but it took only a moment before she caved.

  “She’s been troubled of late. There have been dreams, you see. And letters. I’m not supposed to know of either, but I’ve heard her weeping at night. Sometimes it is the same after the post comes. I can tell she’s not anxious to read it. She picks through it carefully, and if she sees something she doesn’t like, I have to take the entire tray away. She reads it all later, though. I know she does because it disappears.”

  “Have you never asked her about the letters?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I couldn’t.”

  “And the dreams?”

  “She never speaks of them to me, though I think she told Lady Rivendale about them. I overheard them talking in London once during one of the countess’s visits. I didn’t listen, sir. I only heard a few words here and there, and because she weeps so at night, I thought I might know what they were talking about.”

  “I see.”

  “Can it not be good that she decided to come to Penwyckham? Change isn’t always bad, is it, sir? To be away from London…from the house…it seemed like it would be for the
better.”

  Ferrin nodded, encouraging her to go on. He wondered if she would mention Cybelline’s decision to attend Wynetta’s masquerade, or even if Webb was privy to any part of what had occurred there. He thought that Webb was mulling over what she might say next, but then two maids arrived carrying buckets of water, and his hope of continuing the conversation was ended. “Tend to the bath, Webb. I will finish here.”

  He moved the glass to different locations on Cybelline’s back and listened at each one. Her every breath was accompanied by an unusual rattling sound that he thought might be fluid in her lungs. He raised the glass and turned it over, found the decanter, and poured himself a finger of whisky. He merely raised one dark eyebrow when he saw Webb regard him disapprovingly.

  The whisky went down smoothly and put a satisfying heat in his blood. He continued to attend to Cybelline while the maids carried a tub from the dressing room and began to fill it in front of the fire. They worked under the watchful eye of Webb and Mrs. Henley, who came bearing a bottle of gin and another of whisky. There was some discussion among women as to where the spirits were found, but Ferrin gave it no heed.

  He stopped what he was doing only once so that he could test the temperature of the bath. He bid them add another kettle of hot water before he pronounced himself satisfied. “Leave,” Ferrin told them.

  “But, sir, you cannot—” Webb actually took a step backward at what she saw in his glacial expression.

  “It’s not proper,” Mrs. Henley said, then she, too, retreated a step.

  The maids did not offer any objection, though their mouths hung open.

  “Leave,” Ferrin said, “or I will.” He turned away, not waiting to see if they would obey or wait him out. They could not know he was lying; his own mother would not have been able to catch him out this time. It was only when he heard the door being closed behind him that he released the breath he’d been holding.

  “Well, Mrs. Caldwell, it appears you have been abandoned to my tender mercies. Let us see what we shall make of it.” There was no response of any kind, and he had not anticipated there would be. Ferrin had no use for idle chatter of the sort that Mrs. Lowell often practiced, but he spoke as he worked, hoping that the steadiness of his voice would give Cybelline comfort or draw her out.

  He added the decanter of whisky to the bath water, cooling it slightly, then he removed his frock coat and waistcoat, and rolled up his shirt sleeves to the elbow. He loosened his stock as he returned to the bed. After drawing off Cybelline’s blankets, Ferrin turned her and slipped one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. He lifted her carefully but was unable to cradle her head. It fell backward, exposing the long line of her throat. Her breath rattled. She was dead weight in his arms, but he was hardly aware of it. She was as insubstantial as a wraith, and he carried her to the tub and set her gently in it. Her shift billowed around her, floating on the surface of the water for a moment before it sank.

  Ferrin took one of the warm towels, folded it, and made a pillow so that she might rest her head against it. She was so limp that he was afraid she would slip under the water if he didn’t hold her up. He positioned her feet against one end of the tub, wedging her in place long enough for him to retrieve the flannel and the bottle of gin.

  Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead from the proximity of the fire. The task he set for himself with Cybelline was to keep her from becoming chilled while he drew the heat from her skin. He had never seen anyone with a fever who was not flushed. Her colorless complexion, the near translucency of her closed eyelids, alarmed him.

  He applied the gin-soaked flannel to her forehead and added hot water from the kettle as the bath cooled. When it seemed that her chest with constricting with the effort to breathe, Ferrin leaned her forward against his arm and with his other hand tapped her back with his cupped hand, trying to loosen the phlegm when she could not cough for herself. After several attempts, and little success, he realized he needed much more in the way of cooperation from her.

  Had she surrendered? he wondered. It was not what he would have anticipated from her, yet he freely acknowledged that on such a short and highly unusual acquaintance, he was in no position to assess what she might do.

  “Did you love him so much,” he asked aloud, “that you would follow him to his grave? When King Prasutagas died, his queen raised an army to keep what he’d meant for her to have. Did you know that when you chose to become Boudicca? Or did it mean nothing that you were queen to the Iceni people? You told me you selected her for her ruthlessness. Do you recall? It was a quality of character that you had come to admire, I thought. You cannot be ruthless and surrender so easily.”

  Ferrin watched her face carefully, looking for the slightest alteration in her features that would indicate she heard him. There was nothing.

  “What of your child? What of Anna? She has lost one parent. Can you also leave her behind? She will never know her father unless you are there to answer her questions and tell her what sort of man he was. You cannot let his death define his character. The man who killed himself was not the man you loved. I cannot believe that and neither should your daughter.”

  Ferrin continued in this vein, his voice low, insistent. The last time he had used such a tone with her, his mouth had been at her ear and one of his hands had cupped her naked breast. What he had said on that occasion could not have been more different than what he was saying to her now, but he had learned that the manner in which something was said was often more important than the words themselves.

  “Do you think he did not love you?” asked Ferrin. “I cannot conceive such was the case. I would argue that he loved you too well and himself too little. A man who puts a pistol to his head knows despair such as few of us experience. Have you been so despairing, then? I didn’t sense that when you came to the cottage. You beat so hard against the door that the windows shook. That was not a woman who was eager to give up. That was a woman who fights. That was Boudicca.”

  Ferrin lifted Cybelline from the tub. Water cascaded from her sodden nightgown. Her head lolled to one side. He carried her to the bed, laid her down, then called for Webb. He was not wrong in assuming Cybelline’s personal maid was close at hand. She hurried through the door from the sitting room with Mrs. Henley at her heels.

  “The warm towels, please, and a fresh nightgown.” He stayed with Cybelline until the things were brought to the bed. “I will wait in the sitting room while you dry Mrs. Caldwell and change her gown. The linens will have to be changed afterward. Call for me when you are prepared to strip the bed, and I will lift her.”

  The women said nothing, but Ferrin felt their eyes boring into the back of his head as he exited the room. He did not know what they had expected him to do, nor could he take their expectations into account. Every decision he made, every action he took, had to be the result of his own best judgment. In the end, the responsibility—and the fault, if it should come to that—would rest squarely on his shoulders.

  Ferrin sprawled on the damask-covered window bench, raising one knee toward his chest while the other stretched at an angle to the floor. He leaned back against one side of the alcove and turned his head toward the window. What he saw was naught but his own reflection in the dark glass. Looking past his own shoulder, he saw the interior of the room, the tasteful appointments, the artful and practical arrangements of the chaise and chairs and table so that conversation might be comfortably engaged when guests were invited to sit here. The sewing basket and embroidery hoop on the chaise made him think she enjoyed the room for its privacy, then his eyes fell on a cloth ball and wooden pull toy under a footstool and he thought he might know who was permitted to breach her sanctuary.

  Ferrin was not given to fancies, so it surprised him when he had the sense of an abiding melancholia existing in this room. Casting about for an explanation, he settled on the fact that he was viewing the room through the darkly reflective glass. He turned his head, anticipating that he would shake th
e sensation of deep sadness, but not only was there no shift, the despair was edged with apprehension. Was it what he felt? he wondered. Or what he imagined Cybelline felt?

  Of a sudden he felt the need for great draughts of fresh air, the colder, the better. Rising up on his knees, Ferrin threw out the window and leaned into the opening. A gust of wind beat hard against his face, and he was forced to close his eyes. He sucked in a lungful of air and held it, releasing it just as the wind took its own pause. He sat back slowly, closed the window all but a crack, and massaged his throbbing temples.

  Bloody hell, but what was he doing here? He was no physician. What he knew was what he had gleaned from reading journals and medical accounts of surgeries on the battlefields and in the hospital wards, from studying anatomy and the physics of the body. He had never tried to apply that knowledge to the practice of treatment. Improving the efficiency of a pair of crutches, refining the design of a telescope, making a better compass, all of that required only that he think beyond what had already been imagined. Prompted by curiosity, blessed with cleverness, he had an imagination that had seen what could be while his hands made the vision possible.

  Ferrin was uncertain that imagination had any place here or that his hands were skilled enough for healing. Still, there was something he could do. He clasped his fingers together and bowed his head. Imagination begat faith, and faith begat prayer.

  Webb opened the door to the sitting room. What she observed caused her to pause on the threshold, then quietly back out of it.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Henley asked. “He said to summon him when we were finished.”

  Webb shook her head. “In a moment.” She took a handkerchief from under her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “Let us give him another moment. There can be no harm; only good can come of waiting.”