Seven

“MY, MY, MY.” DOUGLAS FROWNED AS HE CLOSED THE door to the sick room. “Is this the state Mrs. Seaton left you in, susceptible to any draft and breeze?”

“It is not.” The earl sighed, trying to recall where he’d last put the chamber pot. “I was hot, and that nightshirt of yours itches like the very devil.”

“Behind the screen,” the viscount suggested. “A close stool and a chamber pot. I’ll leave if you like, or assist.”

“Neither.” Westhaven made his way across the room, Douglas watching impassively.

“I thought you’d gained some flesh,” Douglas remarked. “A closer inspection suggests I was right. You were getting too thin.”

“I was.” The earl yawned behind the privacy screen. “But, Anna… Mrs. Seaton has taken me in hand and seen to my meals. Part of the problem was an uninspired cook.”

“And your housekeeper inspired her?”

“Anna… Mrs. Seaton interviewed the duchess’s cook, who takes pride in knowing the preferences of each member of the family. The menus became interesting.” The earl emerged from behind the screen, eyed the bed, and gathered his energy. “And she fussed at me did I not eat, told me I was offending my kitchen staff.”

“Up you go.” Douglas took him unceremoniously by one spotted arm and boosted him up the step to the bed. “Hold still.” He dropped the nightshirt over the earl and peered at him. “You are ill,” Douglas concluded on a sigh. “Best get back in bed, and behave yourself. Tonight will likely be the worst, and tomorrow night, but after that, you should be on the mend.”

“Douglas?” Westhaven sat on the edge of the bed, and to his surprise, Amery sat beside him.

“Hmm?”

“When you were courting Gwen,” Westhaven said, finding the bear among his pillows, “did you…?”

“Did I what?” Douglas prompted. “Mrs. Seaton will be returning with your next infusion, and hopefully some food, so you’d best spit it out, as she’s guarding you rather carefully.”

“She is?”

“She left your side to eat, but otherwise, unless I’m here, she is,” Douglas replied. “You had a question?”

“When you were courting Gwen,” the earl tried again. “Was there an almost constant…? I mean, did you find your thoughts turning always to…?”

“I swived her every chance I got,” Douglas interjected. “And if I couldn’t be inside her, I held her or held her hand or just looked at her like a starving man looks at a banquet he can’t eat. The situation was particularly disturbing, because I had come to a point in my life where any kind of passion was beyond me, including the carnal.”

“Why do you tell me this? It cannot be easy to part with such a confidence; not for you, and not to me.”

“I am meddling,” Douglas confessed, his blue eyes warming with humor. “I have my wife’s permission, so it isn’t quite as difficult as if I were acting without her knowledge.”

“Meddling?”

“Encouraging your situation with Mrs. Seaton,” Douglas clarified. “I believe you would suit.”

“As do I. She is not of like mind.”

“Then you must change her mind. If that means a very slow recovery, then so be it. You are the Moreland heir, after all, and no chances must be taken with your health.”

The earl smiled crookedly. “A slow recovery… by God. I never stood a chance against you, did I?”

“One hoped not.” Douglas rose. “Though you assuredly scared the hell out of me and put rather a wrench in my plans with Guinevere. You were never my enemy, nor hers. Rather, the duke was the common nuisance.”

Douglas left the bedroom to admit Anna bearing a tray. She stayed with the patient when the viscount departed, and the next hour was spent nagging Westhaven to eat, making him as comfortable as she could, and letting him drift off to sleep until he woke in the small hours of the morning.

“Anna?” His voice was a croak.

“Here.” She rose from the chair and sat on the bed at his hip.

“Feel like hell.”

“Your fever is high,” Anna said, the back of her hand on his forehead. “Now that you are awake, I can sponge you off, if you’d like. It will cool you down and probably soothe your skin, as well.”

He nodded, and Anna brought bath sheets, a basin, and sponge to the bed. She got him arranged on top of the covers, his lower half covered by a blanket, the rest of him exposed and resting on layers of toweling.

“Fairly had a groom deliver this. It’s witch hazel and some herbal infusions to help your skin heal.” The cool sponge touched his skin, and Westhaven sighed. She brought it again and again down the length of his back, his arms, his shoulders, and sides, then shifted the blanket to bathe his legs and feet. She started the whole process over again and again, until he was nearly resting comfortably, his fever abating. By morning, Westhaven could honestly say he was at least no worse.

There was a discreet tap on the door, and then the viscount was with them, looking refreshed and ready for his day.

“Good morning, Mrs. Seaton, or might I call you Anna?” he asked. “And good morning, Westhaven.” He laid his hand on the earl’s forehead and frowned. “Better than I thought you might be.”

He shooed off Anna to Gwen’s company, leaving the men alone.

“How is it,” Douglas asked his patient, “your fever responds only to her touch, hmm?”

“Shut up,” the earl replied tiredly. “She put something in the water, if you must know. I think it helps.”

By the time Douglas had clean sheets on the bed and Westhaven extracted from his morning bath, the patient was once again growing drowsy. Douglas forced more willow bark tea down the hapless earl’s gullet, tucked him in, and left him dozing peacefully beside his borrowed guardian bear.

The next day was a mosaic of little activities and naps. Val sent out a note saying he’d visit shortly, Westhaven penned a note to His Grace, explaining that he was making a visit to Rose at Welbourne. Rose did visit her uncle, but Westhaven invariably found that fifteen minutes into any task or visit, he needed to either use the chamber pot or to nap or both.

The evening passed just as slowly, with Anna first beating him at cribbage then reading to him from a translation of Caesar’s Gallic letters. He dozed in that twilight between sleeping and waking, aware of her voice but not the sense of her words. He did rise to wakefulness when she fell silent, but only to open his eyes and see Anna had paused, her own eyes closed, the book facedown on her lap. Sensing she was tired, he did not disturb her but let himself slip back into sleep.

The night was difficult for them both, with the earl again dozing between bouts of higher fever and Anna tending him as best she could. Sponge baths helped, but not as much as either of them wished.

“I think you would be more comfortable if we doused you in cool water from head to toe,” Anna said as the clock struck two.

“That would involve moving, and right now, Anna, it hurts to breathe.”

“But if we can get your fever down it won’t hurt as much.”

“If you insist.” The earl made the monumental effort to push himself to the edge of the bed, but he needed Anna’s assistance to climb into the tub and lower himself to the water. In less than ten minutes, his teeth were chattering, though to the touch, the water was almost warm. Anna got him out of the tub and wrapped him in bath sheets to sit by the fire while she toweled his hair dry.

“So tomorrow night should be easier?”

“It should,” Anna said. “In adults, this sickness can be much more severe than in children.”

“Do you have children?” the earl asked from the depths of the towel around his head.

Her hands went still, but her voice was steady when she answered. “I do not. Do you?”

“None. But marry me, Anna, and you can have all the children you can carry.” In fact, he would enjoy having children with her, he thought, feeling—in the midst of his other discomforts—his cock stir.

“I will not marry you,” she said, going to stand behind him. He felt the first gentle tug of the brush through his hair. “But you should have children. You will be a very good father, and children will be good for you.”

“How so?” He closed his eyes, the better to enjoy the feel of the brush stroking gently across his scalp. “My father has hardly given me an example I want to emulate.”

“That’s just bluster.” Anna waved a hand. “You paint him as a pompous, self-important, old-fashioned aristocrat, but he apparently went to tremendous lengths to attempt to secure access to his granddaughter.”

“Ridiculous lengths,” Westhaven said. “I would regale you with the details, but I hardly have the strength to keep my eyes open.” He rose under his own power when Anna put down the brush, but grabbed her hand when he sat on the bed and brought it to his forehead. “I must trust you and Amery when you tell me I am following the predictable course for this illness, but I don’t feel myself improving, particularly.”

“Nor are you worsening, particularly.”

“True.” He closed his eyes and inhaled the rosy fragrance of her skin. “If I should worsen, you must promise me not to let His Grace inflict his cronies on me.”

Anna leaned in and kissed his forehead.

“I will not let your father bother you. It has occurred to me that were you in need of someone to guard you from his mischief, Lord Amery and his wife are probably better equipped to do that than the Queen’s own.”

“Come to think of it, you are right. I will sleep better for the realization.”

She tucked in the covers around him, laid a hand on his forehead, then smoothed back his hair. When his breathing evened out into sleep, she blew out the candles, banked the fire, and drew the extra blanket around her shoulders. As she curled down to rest her cheek against the bed, she felt the earl’s hand stroking her hair in a slow, repetitive caress. The tenderness of the gesture soothed them both, and Anna soon followed him into slumber.