One Forbidden Evening (Zebra Historical Romance) Page 19

  The housekeeper frowned, but she said nothing and waited until Miss Webb gauged sufficient time had passed. Instead of opening the door without announcing herself on this occasion, the maid called out for Mr. Wellsley as she had been instructed to do. Mrs. Henley found it all rather queer, but she supposed she had a great deal to learn about quality and Londoners.

  Ferrin entered the bedchamber armed with an idea he had not considered before. “When did she last eat, Webb?”

  “I brought her a tray this morning before the doctor came.”

  “That is not what I asked. When did you last observe her eating?”

  “Last night?” It was a question, not an answer. She looked at Mrs. Henley for help. “Do you recall if she ate anything on her tray? I did not stay; she wouldn’t allow me to stay.”

  “Mrs. Minty remarked that it was untouched when Becky returned it to the kitchen.”

  Stricken by this news, Webb flushed and could not meet Ferrin’s eyes. “Then it was as long ago as yesterday morning that she ate. I know she did not take anything in the afternoon save for tea. She told me she had her fill at breakfast.”

  “Then I want a cup of warm broth prepared for her. I will need bread also. It doesn’t matter if it’s stale. It’s only to soak up the broth.”

  It was Mrs. Henley who nodded and left to relay the request.

  Ferrin addressed Miss Webb. “Will you bring Anna here?”

  “The child? Oh, no, Mr. Wellsley, I could not. And Nanny Baker will not permit it. My lady gave the strictest orders that Anna could not visit.”

  “Is the child sickly?”

  “No. You could pluck roses from that girl’s cheeks.”

  “Then I do not believe it is a great risk to the child, and the benefit to her mother might be enormous. I will not keep her here long, and if it distresses her overmuch I will gladly allow her to leave.”

  “Will Nanny be permitted to stay? She’s very protective of Anna. She doesn’t allow the child out of her sight except when she’s with her mother.”

  Ferrin glanced toward the bed. He tried to imagine the nanny’s reaction at seeing her mistress in such a state of ill health. What fears Nanny Baker might entertain would surely be the cause of more harm than help to Anna. “No,” he said firmly. “She can’t stay. It will be me and the child. I shall manage it well enough. I have never found children to be so very terrifying.” He thought Webb might have snorted, but she did so with such delicacy that he wasn’t certain.

  Anna arrived before the broth did. Ferrin met her in the sitting room where she hid behind Webb’s skirts while she took his measure. As he had on the occasion of their first meeting, he hunkered down and spoke to her in a voice that had always captured the attention of his youngest sisters when they were no older than she.

  “Do you know the story of the sleeping princess?” he asked.

  Webb felt the small fists tugging on her skirt open suddenly and release their hold. Looking down at her side, she watched Anna step boldly to the front and announce importantly that she knew the story very well. Webb backed out of the room then, certain now that Cybelline’s daughter was in skilled hands.

  Anna clambered onto her mother’s bed, using the bed rail for a stepstool, then grabbing the quilt for purchase. Ferrin had offered her a leg up, but Anna refused him with something very much like disdain. Standing back, his hands raised in an attitude of surrender, he let her go and observed that her climbing was a practiced skill.

  “Mama?” Anna inched closer to where Cybelline lay. She looked up at Ferrin. “She’s sleeping princess?”

  He nodded. “She’s been sleeping for a very long time.”

  “Wake her.”

  “Soon. She wants to hear a story. Will you tell her one?” He sat at the foot of the bed and turned toward Anna. The child looked properly skeptical of his suggestion. “Go on. She will be able to hear you.” He hoped it was true. What mother didn’t know her child’s voice and respond to it? Even his own mother, who rarely frequented the nursery, swore she knew the individual cries of each one of her infant children and precisely what was meant. He suspected that Cybelline was a more attentive mother to her child than Lady Gardner had been. You only became interesting at eight, she’d told him once, and then it was time to send you to school. “Shall I begin it, Miss Anna?” he asked.

  “No. I do.” She sidled closer to where the curve of the blankets defined her mother’s waist and hip and laid her small hand on Cybelline’s abdomen. “Once upon time…”

  Ferrin remained silent while Anna wove the story. It was a rather convoluted tale as she told it, and acquired elements that were not part of the story as he remembered it, but it was charmingly, and most sincerely, related.

  The broth came as Anna was arriving at the part where the troll fought the dragon. Ferrin thought it was a particularly compelling element to the story. He dismissed the maid at the door and brought the cup of broth and bread to the bedside. He encouraged Anna to continue while he sopped a bit of bread in the broth and put it to Cybelline’s lips and pushed it in.

  Beside him, he sensed Anna was waiting to see if her mother would spit it out. She was not alone. Ferrin touched Cybelline’s throat and watched her swallow reflexively. He grinned at Anna, and she returned the smile just as if she understood the import of what had occurred.

  When Anna reached the end of the story, or at least the end that satisfied her, the mug held less than a third of the broth Ferrin had been given. He deemed Cybelline had taken her fill and set the mug aside.

  “Mama wake now?”

  “Soon,” he said. He did not expect that to satisfy Miss Anna, and he wasn’t wrong. She puckered her lips and made a great smacking sound, communicating clearly what her expectations were. “A kiss?” he asked, though he knew the answer well enough.

  “Wake her.”

  “In the morning. It is a morning kiss that wakes the princess. A kiss at night puts her to sleep.” Ferrin waited to see if this logic would satisfy Anna. He thought it was inspired, but the face she pulled as she considered it made him think she was less impressed by his cleverness than he was. She surprised him when she nodded sagely and proffered her own cheek for a buss. “It’s a night kiss,” he reminded her. “It will put you to sleep.”

  She nodded. “Like Mama.”

  “Very well.” He bent forward and kissed Anna’s soft cheek. She smiled beatifically and lay down beside her mother, finding the curve of Cybelline’s arm and shoulder to nest against. Ferrin expected her to close her eyes as part of the game she was playing, but he did not expect that she would keep them closed for long. In the short time it took him to remove the bread and broth tray to the sitting room and add wood to the fire, she was sleeping.

  Ferrin was loath to disturb Anna by removing her from the bed so soon after she had fallen asleep. He decided she could remain there while he investigated what had become of his own belongings.

  Webb responded promptly to his ring and showed Ferrin to the bedchamber he was invited to use. Ferrin thanked her for seeing to his comfort, but he didn’t linger. He removed two pamphlets from the bottom of his valise, returned to Cybelline’s room, and took up a chair at her bedside.

  He read for the better part of an hour, then put the glass to his patient’s chest again and listened to her breathing. As he expected, the rales were still present in the lower lobes of her lungs. He considered what he understood about the anatomy and how to position Cybelline to help her purge the fluid. In light of what he must do, he decided the time had come to remove the sleeping Anna.

  She opened her eyes when he lifted her from the bed, then she gave him a sleepy smile and promptly snuggled in his arms. Perhaps it would have been better, he thought, if he had been more terrified of children. Had someone pressed a glass to his own heart just then, Ferrin felt certain it could be heard turning over.

  Webb was happy to take Anna back to the nursery and happier still to see the child sleeping so soundly. “Nanny Baker h
as despaired of her sleeping through the night. Mayhap it will be different this evening. Poor thing has had such terrors that it breaks your heart to hear her cry.”

  In light of Ferrin’s recent experience, he understood precisely what she meant. “Did Mrs. Caldwell know?”

  Webb shook her head. “There was nothing she could do save feel all the worse for it. If there’s blame to be meted out, then it’s mine. I could not think how it would help her to know. It cost her peace of mind to keep Anna away; she feared for her so.”

  “I am not casting about to find fault,” Ferrin said. “I cannot say what I would have done.”

  Webb flushed a little. “You are good to say so. It’s never easy to know what the consequences will be.” She hefted Anna in her arms. “I’ll be back directly to sit with Mrs. Caldwell.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “But—”

  The cast of Ferrin’s features did not invite argument.

  “Very well,” she said grudgingly. “I’ll be available if you have need of me.”

  “I know you will be.” Ferrin waited until Webb exited the sitting room before he returned to Cybelline.

  Turning her on her right side, he began the percussion on her back with his cupped hand as he had done earlier. He was rewarded this time by a weak cough. Ferrin kept up the steady beat, firm but not painful, and had success at last when Cybelline coughed hard enough to dislodge mucus into the basin he had ready for her. He repeated the treatment after turning her to the other side. This time her coughing was stronger and he collected more of the viscous fluid that made it so difficult for her to breathe.

  Ferrin laid Cybelline gently on her back and tucked the blankets around her. He removed the basin, cleaned it, then took up the chair by the bed again. He started to pick up one of the pamphlets, when his eyes fell on the tray of letters on the nightstand. He had seen the post earlier, but he had tried to avoid thinking about it. Webb’s words came back to him now: She’s been troubled of late. There have been dreams, you see. And letters.

  Ferrin’s hand curled around the tray, and he lifted it slowly. The consequences of reading her private correspondence were enormous, regardless of whether his actions ever came to light. He would know of matters that were intended for her alone, matters that she might consider insignificant or grave, but were hers to share as she thought fit. Did he want to have knowledge that was not freely given?

  He spread the letters out on the tray. There were four in all, none of them addressed by the same hand. There was a bold scrawl that he thought was probably Sheridan’s and another that bore the wax seal of Lady Rivendale. The writing on the third was done by a careful hand, the letters formed with great attention to detail. He smiled, remembering how painstakingly he had made his letters when he wanted to impress his mother with his industry. This was a child’s hand and the stamp matched Sheridan’s. One of the scoundrels Cybelline told him about? he wondered. The fourth letter was not franked, nor was the stamp similar to the others. The address was scripted in a hand that was not quite steady, though each letter seemed to be formed as meticulously as the child’s writing.

  There was nothing he could learn without opening the post, and Ferrin knew he would not go so far as that. His decision had nothing to do with the possibility that what letters troubled Cybelline might not be among those on this tray, and everything to do with not allowing curiosity to overshadow his judgment.

  He set the tray down, arranged the post exactly as it had been, then returned to his chair. He tipped it back on the two rear legs and rested his feet on the bed rail. The pamphlets were forgotten as he applied himself to the larger problem of earning the trust of a woman who had no single reason to give it to him and many reasons not to.

  Ferrin did not recall drifting off to sleep. In one moment he had been awake, in the next, he was not. He was uncertain now what brought him suddenly back to consciousness. The chair was on all four legs again, but he didn’t think it was an abrupt drop to the floor that prompted him to come to such sharp attention. He stood, rubbing the back of his neck and stepped closer to the bed.

  It did not appear to him that Cybelline had moved, yet something had most definitely changed. He picked up the stub of the candle on the nightstand and held it over her. Her finely etched profile was still as pale as the lace sham it lay against, and her eyes remained closed. One arm lay outside the blankets; the other was folded under the pillow. Her lips were parted around a softly indrawn breath and—

  Ferrin bent his head close to hers and listened. This was what had woken him, he realized: the sound of her silence. The harsh, labored breaths were absent, and she drew air as sweetly as if she were sipping it.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. His thumb brushed her ear. Did she shiver? He thought he felt the smallest tremor beneath the blankets. He held his breath, waiting.

  “You work too hard,” she whispered. “You have been gone an age.”

  Ferrin had to lean toward her to catch the hoarsely spoken words. He did not know how to respond and settled on, “I’m here now.”

  “Mmm. Yes, you are.”

  Cybelline turned and raised her head, then sought his mouth with her own.

  Chapter Eight

  A fortnight passed, and the memory of what she had done still embarrassed Cybelline. She did not speak of it, and neither did he. There were moments when she wished he would put aside his gentleman’s manners. A rake as seasoned as the Earl of Ferrin should confront her, she thought, or treat her with less respect and make his own expectations clear. He had never done so, not once. He had been unfailingly polite, even solicitous.

  But then, for reasons she could not comprehend, he was engaged in his own masquerade. He had won over her staff and made himself a comfortable and invaluable presence in her home, and no one suspected that it was Lord Ferrin who was underfoot. She remained alone in her knowledge that he was not Mr. Porter Wellsley.

  Cybelline leaned her shoulder against the window and tilted her head to one side to rest it there also. The upholstered bench in her sitting room was a welcome change from the confines of her bed. In the earliest days of her recovery, Ferrin had carried her to this place. Now she could make the distance on her own and not become short of breath or overtired. At night, when she was certain everyone was sleeping, she sometimes walked the length of the house several times, moving from room to room until she reached the stairs. She was not so brave—or foolhardy—that she thought she could navigate more than a few of the steps without assistance, but that time was rapidly approaching. She could feel herself becoming stronger daily and shared her thoughts on it frequently.

  The pity was, she reflected, no one paid her any heed. It was not that she was not given due attention. It was simply that what she said about her own health no longer held any sway. Webb and Mrs. Henley, even the maids who came to change the linens, listened politely and nodded their agreement occasionally, but they made no alterations to her routine or care unless it was sanctioned by Ferrin.

  Maddening did not begin to describe what Cybelline thought about his lordship’s behavior.

  She plucked absently at some misplaced scarlet threads on the embroidery piece in her lap. When she asked for her sewing basket this afternoon, she’d hoped that some industry with her hands would better occupy her mind than reading had done. What she was coming to realize was that it did not matter what task she set for herself, other thoughts would always intrude unless they were confronted openly.

  As it seemed Ferrin could not be depended upon to broach the subject that troubled her, the onerous task fell on her shoulders. That was not entirely unfair, she reminded herself, as she was the one who had behaved most precipitously. She could tell herself that she had been dreaming, that she had been sick, that turning to him had been the act of someone both desperate and disordered, but none of those excuses cleared her conscience. What must be said, had to be said to him.

 
Not for the first time, Cybelline wondered if she could find the resolve.

  “Mama!” Anna slithered out from under the sofa, where she had squeezed herself, and rose to her knees. “Look!” She raised her right hand to show off her prize. Her doll dangled awkwardly from her tiny fist.

  Cybelline smiled. “Yes, darling. How clever you are to find it there. Come. Bring it here, and allow me to see if your poor baby is all of a piece.”

  Anna scrambled to her feet and rushed forward at full speed. She thrust the doll at her mother and tried to climb onto the seat beside her.

  “Just a moment, Anna, while Mama makes room for you.” Cybelline set aside her embroidery hoop and rearranged the blanket tucked about her legs, then she reached over and lifted her daughter onto her lap. “Oooh, are you really getting so big, or is it that I have not yet recovered my strength?”

  “Might I be permitted to offer my opinion?”

  Cybelline started at the sound of Ferrin’s voice. Her head swiveled around, and she saw he had come to stand in the open doorway. As was often his habit, he stood with one shoulder resting on the jamb, giving the impression that he was not only at ease but also that he had been so for some time. It was this casual posture that she associated with the rakehell and not with the gentleman of manners. She felt quite certain that Mr. Wellsley, scapegrace though he was reputed to be, did not stand about in so familiar and easy a fashion as the rogue lord did.

  “Misterlee! Misterlee!” In contrast to her mother’s reserve, Anna welcomed Ferrin’s interruption with a bright smile.

  “Mis-ter Wells-ley,” Cybelline enunciated. “Wells-ley.”

  “Wez-ley!”

  Ferrin chuckled. “I think I prefer Misterlee.”

  “Will you join us?” Cybelline framed the question in polite accents but without enthusiasm. She wished she had not just been thinking of him. It was as if his physical intrusion went far deeper than into this room.