Chapter 5
“I remember it all so clearly now, Linette! Like I’ve awaken from a fog. The older man called him Prince Valentin—yes, I would swear it!”
“No swearing is necessary, Miss Easton,” Miss Biddle said firmly to Estelle, and then she glanced with some reproach at Linette, who sat beside the bed. “She’s to stay snug and warm under the blankets, Dr. Whitaker’s orders! Not flitting about the room or playing with Luther. It’s only three days since she nearly drowned—three days! One would think from her antics that it hadn’t happened at all—”
“But that’s a good thing, wouldn’t you say, dear Miss Biddle?”
Linette’s soft-spoken words had the desired effect as the housekeeper’s tense shoulders seemed to relax, and she smiled grudgingly at Estelle.
“Indeed, it is, one cannot argue it. Safe and whole with only a few healing bruises and that lump on your head, scarcely noticeable any longer, to lend credence to the tale. If you’ve need of anything, Miss Easton, just let me know.”
As Estelle nodded, pulling the blankets more tightly beneath her chin to please their long-time housekeeper, Linette murmured her thanks and waited for the woman to leave the room. Yet Estelle’s meek compliance lasted no longer than the door clicking shut and she threw back the covers and sat up to face Linette.
“His hair was the color of gold, almost like Lindsay’s Jared, and he was so handsome! And the other man…yes, Robert was his name. Robert said Prince Valentin was in danger. Danger! What could it all mean, Linette?”
“It means that perhaps you hit your head so hard that you dreamed this incredible tale. Now lie down and take a nap like Luther, will you?”
Estelle glanced at her little dog snuggled deeply into the blankets at the foot of the bed, not rousing at all no matter his mistress’s restless fidgeting. If she had bounced back quickly from her misadventure, Luther had preferred to sleep the days away with occasional bouts of play, though he ate and drank normally.
Apparently, Dr. Whitaker had tended to Estelle’s beloved Luther as well during his daily visits, though Linette wouldn’t be one to attest personally to it. She had kept to her room until he had come and gone, still stunned by his unexpected Christmas kiss and its effect upon her.
It seemed she couldn’t stop thinking about him, but she didn’t want to think about him! He wasn’t the man of her dreams, he couldn’t be.
She wouldn’t meet the man of her dreams until she went to London for her much longed-for Season when she would be dressed from head to toe in shimmering satin and he, in the finest evening apparel worn by a gentleman of the ton. Just like Marguerite when Walker Burke, then Lord Summerlin, had swept her off her feet at Almack’s, and Corie’s friend Lindsay when Jared Giles, the Earl of Dovercourt, had swept her into a waltz.
Corie hadn’t ever wanted a Season and Donovan had swept her off her feet right here in Porthleven, but that wasn’t what Linette wanted at all! She didn’t want her heart to flutter every time she thought of that serious-minded Dr. Adam Whitaker with his striking hazel eyes, tall stature, and unforgettable smile that made her insides melt just remembering it now. Or the warmth of his lips grazing hers when she thought she might swoon dead away in the middle of the foyer.
Ridiculous! Preposterous! The man of her dreams wasn’t in Cornwall at all but somewhere far away in a noble castle or a hunting lodge or his family’s stately country house—
“Linette, didn’t you hear me? I’m not allowed out of bed so you must go to Donovan this very minute and tell him what I’ve told you! Prince Valentin is in danger! There must be something we can do to help him. I’m sure they were staying in a cottage atop the bluff by my favorite beach. I saw smoke curling from the chimney when Luther and I were running across the sand—Linette?”
Her fingers pressed to her lips, Linette found it difficult to focus upon Estelle’s rush of words, and she had to shake her head to clear her thoughts. That made Estelle sink back upon her calves for she had climbed out from under the blankets to kneel on the bed in front of Linette.
“You weren’t listening to a thing I said, were you?”
“Yes, yes, I heard you—oh, Estelle, you must get back into bed.” Linette rose and gently pushed her younger sister backward so she might cover her up again. “Please…and I really have to go now. Dr. Whitaker will be here any moment to see you—”
“And you, if you’ll only stay here with me. But you won’t because he kissed you under the mistletoe and it’s upset you, though I don’t know why. You should see how you’re blushing, Linette! I know you were thinking about him just now when you weren’t listening to a thing I was telling you.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Yes, you were! You can’t lie to me or me to you…and I’m telling you, the young man who saved my life is in danger! I remember Robert saying they were going to find other lodging or a ship to take them north along the coast. That they hadn’t wanted to draw attention to themselves. Why else would Prince Valentin not carry me into the house rather than leaving me on the step? Or deliver Luther to me himself?”
“I don’t know, Estelle, now please stay under the blankets! You’ll catch a chill and then where will that leave you?”
“Right here for another few days while I try to convince you to speak to Donovan. Prince Valentin is trying to elude some terrible trouble, I’m certain of it! Perhaps they’re aboard a ship even now and far away from Porthleven, but if they’re still here, Donovan might be able to help them. Linette, Prince Valentin saved my life!”
So he had, Linette thought, sighing heavily, and she didn’t have any more time to argue with Estelle about a fairy-tale prince, a sailor, or whoever the young man might have been. She glanced anxiously at the mantel clock.
Ten minutes to three. Oh, Lord. Dr. Whitaker had arrived punctually at three o’clock each afternoon, something Donovan had remarked upon as a very fine quality in their new physician.
Linette had known of his arrival because she’d hidden behind her bedchamber door, listening to his footsteps upon the carpeted hall as he made his way to Estelle’s room with Miss Biddle. His remarks low and polite, the deep sound of his voice sending shivers racing through her unlike anything she’d ever known before…
“Very well, Estelle, I believe I’ve time enough to speak to Donovan before Dr. Whitaker arrives—”
“When you’ll go hide in your room? Miss Biddle said she saw you peeking through the crack in the door yesterday, which means Dr. Whitaker must have seen you, too.”
“Oh, Estelle, you’re insufferable!” Linette said with frustration at her sister’s teasing, though she couldn’t help smiling herself.
Her behavior was ridiculous, but there it was. She didn’t want to see their handsome new doctor, not today or tomorrow. She wanted everything to go back to how it was before he’d come to their house on Christmas Day, when all she had on her mind was counting the days until she left for London!
“Lie down now and rest,” she murmured, pulling the covers to Estelle’s shoulders. “It won’t do for Dr. Whitaker to think you might be taken with fever when he sees your pretty face all pink and flushed—”
“Like yours?”
Linette sighed with exasperation as she bent down to give her grinning sister a kiss on the cheek.
A cheek as thankfully cool as her own felt overwarm at the thought of running into Dr. Adam Whitaker if he arrived early. Oh, dear, she hoped not…
***
“Prince Valentin, you say.”
Linette nodded at Donovan, who sat behind a paper-strewn desk.
Christmas had barely come and gone and already the house was a flurry of activity as preparations were being made for Donovan, Corie, and their family’s move to Arundale Hall in Hampshire within the next few weeks. Donovan, in fact, so hale and strapping a man with his midnight hair and dark good looks appeared fatigued to her, but how could he not be?
He was a duke of the realm now, with more responsibilities than any man might wish to shoulder along with the great wealth and position his title now afforded him. And here she’d gone and poured more cares upon him with Estelle’s fantastic story, although Linette really didn’t doubt that it might be true. Estelle had made a remarkable recovery, for which they were all so grateful, her mind clear and sharp again after her near brush with death.
Now, as Donovan leaned back in his leather chair, mid-afternoon sunlight spilling across his desk on an unusually fine winter day, Linette knew he was pondering everything she’d just told him.
“I suspected, actually, that some sort of trouble had kept Estelle’s rescuers from revealing themselves to us. By God, but a prince? From where? He speaks French and perfect English, with the looks of Adonis and golden hair. Surely not too difficult to find if he and this Robert are still hiding out somewhere in Porthleven…”
Linette kept silent, certain that Donovan was thinking out loud rather than talking to her, though suddenly he fixed his dark gaze upon her.
“It’s about time, isn’t it?”
“Time?” She stared at him in confusion, until realization slowly dawned at his cryptic smile that made a blush race to her forehead.
Dear Lord, did the entire household know she’d hidden in her room the last three days when Dr. Whitaker had come to call?
Donovan glanced at the grandfather clock against the opposite wall, then leaned forward in his chair. “Thank you for sharing Estelle’s story with me…but you’ve only a few minutes to make it upstairs. You’ll have to run.”
“I’ll not run anywhere,” Linette said stiffly, knowing now that her childish reaction to Dr. Whitaker’s visits would have to stop. “When the doctor arrives, I’ll accompany him to Estelle’s room, well, with Miss Biddle, too.”
“Excellent. He’s a fine young man, Whitaker. I’m very impressed with him. A bit restrained for my taste, aloof, even—”
“Aloof? I didn’t find him aloof,” Linette interrupted him, Donovan raising a black brow at her.
“Really? Yes, I suppose not. If he’d been aloof, I doubt he would have turned around and met you under the mistletoe for a kiss. Paloma can’t seem to talk of anything else these past three days.”
“Oh, dear.” Linette sank into a chair opposite the desk and looked down at her lap, plucking unseeingly at the linen folds of her rose-hued gown. “I should have declined, Donovan—”
“Not at all. It was an innocent thing done to humor a young girl. A Christmas tradition, after all, the mistletoe. Corie would tell you she enjoys the custom very much.”
Linette glanced up to find Donovan smiling at her, and she found herself praying again for a husband like him who remained as captivated by his wife as on the day they met.
Well, perhaps not the first day, she amended. She smiled now, too, as she remembered the hilarious story of Corie with her pitchfork stabbing at the straw for Donovan’s hapless agent, Henry Gilbert, until Donovan had wrested it from her. Thankfully, Corie’s renowned temper had eased since those days, which made Linette long again for a marriage as loving and ardent as theirs.
“Ah, I believe Dr. Whitaker is here.”
Linette froze in the chair at the clopping of hooves coming to a halt outside, her widened gaze meeting Donovan’s.
“He rides a fine horse, a good thing for covering this parish. I’m considering giving him another so he’ll have two strong steeds, just in case. What do you think, Linette?”
She started as the first resonant chime of the three o’clock hour sounded behind her, not thinking of horses or anything else.
The second chime had no sooner rung and she jumped up and fled from the library, determined to make it upstairs to her room before the footman even opened the front door.
***
A half hour later, Linette paced back and forth across her room, feeling even more foolish than she could have imagined.
Whatever was the matter with her? She was behaving more ridiculously than she had ever done in her life…and why?
Because a gentleman had kissed her—quite innocently, just as Donovan had said—in a time-honored custom known to all? A custom so harmless that most unmarried girls never gave a thought to if it had been one gentleman or three to steal a kiss under the mistletoe, while Dr. Adam Whitaker’s lips had barely touched hers and their kiss was done!
Linette’s pacing only quickened, and she wondered if he might have already left the house.
She hadn’t peeked through the door this time, but had kept it firmly shut, though she had heard his footsteps going down the hall accompanied by Miss Biddle’s lighter tread. She should compose herself and exit her room, and hold her head high no matter that the family might tease her, as she imagined they would. Tea would be served very soon, and all this agitation had made her very hungry—
“Miss Easton, His Grace would like to see you in the library at once.”
Linette had frozen at Miss Biddle’s voice beyond the door, but the request had her baffled.
Donovan wished to see her? Perhaps he had questions about what Estelle had told her, though she had shared with him everything she knew. She opened the door, nodding to the housekeeper as she stepped into the hall.
“Has…has Dr. Whitaker left for the day?”
Linette barely waited for an answer, fully expecting to hear “Yes,” from Miss Biddle, only to halt at the top of the stairs when the woman simply said, “No, he’s in the library.”
The library?
For a moment, Linette didn’t quite know what to do. Plead a sudden headache and run back to the refuge of her room?
Yet Donovan had requested her presence and she could not refuse him. Like everyone in the household, she wished to do her part to make the transition from this home to Arundale Hall a smooth one. She had only to think of his desk piled high with papers and the fatigue under his eyes to make her believe he must need her assistance.
Linette quickly smoothed her skirt, wishing she’d taken a moment to run a brush through her long auburn curls that she preferred to wear loose down her back. There was nothing to be done about it now.
She went down the steps, her pulse beating faster with every footfall. To her relief, she saw that the offending ball of mistletoe had been removed from the chandelier, which gave her courage to propel herself into the library. At once, both Donovan and Dr. Whitaker rose to greet her, though she kept her gaze fully trained upon her brother-in-law.
“Is anything amiss, Donovan?”
“Yes, actually, with Mrs. Polkinghorne. It appears she didn’t appreciate our new doctor here, and surprisingly had no knowledge that Dr. Philcup had left town. She refused to allow him to treat her, and claims now that she lies at death’s door. Her husband assured Dr. Whitaker it wasn’t anything of the sort, but she will not be appeased. A conundrum, to be sure, but one for which Dr. Whitaker has offered a sound suggestion.”
Her mind spinning from this news, Linette only then glanced at Dr. Whitaker, who bowed his head slightly at her, his eyes intent upon her face.
“R-really? Truly, I have no idea what this might have to do with me…” she began lamely in spite of her sudden niggling of suspicion. “Did…did you mean for me to help in some way?”
“Precisely. I’ve agreed for you to accompany Dr. Whitaker to Porthleven, with one of the maidservants and in a carriage, of course, to see if you might ease matters between him and Mrs. Polkinghorne. It’s hardly an auspicious start for our new doctor, Linette, surely you can see that. I would do it myself, but I’ve another matter in the village to attend to.”
With that, Donovan strode from around his desk and past Linette, pausing only to give her a light kiss upon the cheek, and then he was gone from the library.
Leaving her to stare in astonishment at Dr. Whitaker and him, at her, until he swept his hand toward the door, the faintest hint of a smile upon his handsome face.
“Shall we go, Miss Easton?”