An Affair Before Christmas

Say goodbye, he thought dimly. Make it all right. And then he let himself slip away again where it didn’t hurt quite as much.



He didn’t wake up for hours, not til he’d been slipped between linen sheets. What woke him up, finally, was the bellowing. Well, that and the fact that someone had slipped a knife under his arm pit.



“Christ,” he panted. “Christ.” He flailed a bit, tried to open his eyes, panted. Dimly thought that he expected to fade onto the red tide, not leave in a wash of icy pain. It didn’t seem fair. The knife turned again. “Bloody hell!” And he managed to pry his eyes open.



There was a big man standing over him, a kind of rustic monster with a bushy beard. With one huge paw he was holding him down and with the other he was doing…something to his shoulder. Something that was so excruciatingly painful that all Villiers could do was pant. He tried to twist away and humiliatingly, couldn’t even stir under the great hand holding him down.



“Hold on,” the man said in a sticky Scottish brogue. “I have to get this wound cleaned out or you’re done for.”



Villiers would have said something, would have protested, would have—it wasn’t a red tide this time; it was a black wash that covered his eyes and threw him off a cliff.



“Thank God for that,” Dr. Treglown said. For the country bear was a doctor. “Ach, and this is a benighted mess, it is. Who in the bloody hell’s been taking care of the duke, then?”



“The surgeon, Dr. Banderspit,” Finchley said. “Is it because I wouldn’t let him bleed the duke? He kept wanting to bleed him and I wouldn’t allow it. Is it all my fault?”



Dr. Treglown rolled his eyes and started pouring something over the wound that smelled like acid. It even smoked a little. “You’d have killed him for sure if he’d been bled, so there’s a happy thought for ye. With this infection in him, he must have the constitution of a bloody ox to have survived this long.”



“What are you doing?” Finchley whispered.



“Cleaning the damn thing.Disgusting.”



“We cleaned it,” Finchley said anxiously. “We did clean it with lots of brandy, just as the surgeon told us to, until it finally healed over.”



“Brandy! Chaw!”



Finchley wasn’t sure what “chaw” meant, but he didn’t mean to enquire. There was the master, lying as still as death. “Are you sure he’s not gone?” he asked. “He’s looking—bad. I can’t see him breathing.”



“He is bad,” the doctor said, turning away to wash his hands. “Didn’t you see what came out of that wound? It was killing him.”



“But it was all mended on top,” Finchley said miserably. “I didn’t know…”



“No reason you should have,” the doctor said. “Yer not calling yourself by the name of ‘surgeon,’ are ye?” His sneer was frightful. “This time we’re keeping it open, you hear? You’re going to wash that wound four times a day with spirits of turpentine.” He put a black bottle down on the bureau with a clink. “Yer duke here is going to yell like the de vil when he comes around enough to notice what you’re doing. You’d better prepare yerself. And I’ll stop by tomorrow night. If he lives til then, he might survive. Or he might not.”



“Oh God,” Finchley moaned. “And it’s Christmas.”



“Not yet,” Treglown said. “There’s a few days still. I expect you’ll know fairly soon whether he’s going to blight the ceremonies by tumbling into the grave. Wash it again in six hours. You’ll have to do it during the night too.”



“Yes, sir,” Finchley said. “Yes, sir, I’ll do that.”



“When’s the rest of the party coming? Beaumont himself and the duchess? We’ve never seen her, you know. She flit off to Paris before coming to the country. My patients are all beside themselves with excitement.”



“In a few days, as I understand it.”



Treglown chuckled. “It’ll make an unusual house party, I’d say. Dying duke howling off in the rafters. It sounds like one of them women’s novels to me.”



Finchley looked around at the gracious old bedchamber. The Duchess of Beaumont had sent orders ahead to put Villiers in the royal suite. He would like the irony of it, if he woke up long enough to see it.



“Lots of liquids, if you can get him to drink,” Treglown said, taking himself out the door. “I’ll try to stop back later, if I can. There’s babies sprouting all over the place, and the midwife’s just had one of her own. I hardly have time to deal with the handiwork of asinine London surgeons!” He snorted and left.



Finchley looked at his master.



He was lying on the bed, as straight as a board, as if he were ready to be measured for a coffin.



Chapter 42



December 20



Beaumont’s country estate was near Sturminster Newton, in Dorset, at least three days from London. As soon as they had travel rugs tucked around them and heated bricks snuggled against their toes, Poppy blurted it out. “Do you think that Fletch will follow us?”



“That is the fourth time you’ve asked me that question since we sent his invitation,” Jemma said. “I haven’t a different answer from last time: I don’t know. But I do think that repetition points to something, wouldn’t you say? You’re not acting like an estranged wife, happy to dance off to Paris for years.”



“You said you cried for months,” Poppy said weakly.



“I cried because I was broken-hearted. But you are an odd combination of anxious and cheerful.”



“He says he still loves me,” Poppy said with a rush.



Jemma gave her a crooked little smile. “You see? Your marriage and mine have no similarity.”



“Although he doesn’t desire me anymore.”



“I don’t believe that.”



“My mother said that men are fickle and lose interest in a woman’s body after a number of years. Fletch agreed.”



“In my experience,” Jemma said, “a man is quite happy to greet anyone who shows up ready for the business, as it were. If there’s a smiling woman in his bed, he won’t make a fuss about it.”



“Well, Fletch said—”



“You can’t listen too carefully to what men say. Perhaps he wants you to desire him,” Jemma interrupted.



“But that’s not—well—”



Jemma looked at her shrewdly. “Are you sure?”



“How do you know when you desire someone?”



“I feel like taking his clothes off,” Jemma said bluntly. “It’s easier to know when you don’t feel desire. For example, when you see Lord Manning, do you feel that it would be very nice to stroke his tummy?”



“Absolutely not.”



“Good. Now replace that image with one of Fletch. Would you like to stroke his…tummy?”



Poppy couldn’t help laughing. “You are absurd, Jemma.”



“Men’s bodies were made to be admired. That’s one thing that your mother seems to have forgotten. You are lucky: you’ve got a husband who seems interested in paying your body appropriate attention. Now you just have to learn how to do the same to him.”