Chapter 14

 

“Wherein our hero fights fate.”

Dev was frantic by the time he saw the sorry image of the bedraggled horse and rider lit up in the bright white glare of the lightening. He had been searching for hours, having ridden all the way into Tillforth, and then back again once the pub’s landlord had assured him that Kit had left hours ago. Dev knew how easy it was to miss the path in the dark and frenzy of a storm on Dartmoor. He prayed nothing worse than a good soaking had befallen the young fool though, in his poor health, that could be quite dangerous enough.

“Kit!” he yelled through the din of the storm, urging his tired horse forward.

To his dismay, he found the young man slumped in his saddle with exhaustion.

“David,” Kit said, the word barely audible as he gave a wry grin. “Bit foxed,” he admitted. “Lost the path. Devil of a thing, never done it before.”

Dev clamped his mouth shut against the barrage of angry words clamouring in his head. He needed to get the fool home and in front of a fire. Then he could shout at the blasted scapegrace to his heart’s content. It soon became clear that Kit was in no condition to ride, however.

It took all Dev’s strength to haul him onto his own horse, and then time he could ill afford chasing Kit’s reluctant mount about the moors as he tried to evade being recaptured. Eventually however, horse and rider were firmly in hand and Dev made his weary way back to the farm with as much haste as he dared. The ground was treacherous, and his mount slipped and slid under the extra burden it carried.

By the time they reached the farm, Kit was unconscious. Dev hauled him down from the horse, both men sopping wet. Thankfully he was by far the larger of the two and, though it was a struggle, he hauled Kit over his shoulder and carried him to the house.

“John!” he shouted as he thundered through the front door. The boy ran from the parlour, wide eyed with horror as he saw Dev carrying his big brother. “John, see to the horses. They need rubbing down. I’ll look after, Kit, don’t worry. Don’t come up until you’ve dried yourself off, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, his voice faint with worry.

“He’ll be all right, John, you’ve my word,” Dev said, praying he wasn’t making promises he couldn’t keep. “Where’s your sister?”

“I put her to bed an hour ago, sir.”

“Good lad. Knew I could rely on you,” Dev said as he climbed the stairs. He didn’t wait to see if John followed his instruction; he knew he would.

For once in his life, Dev felt pity for the valets he’d employed over the years who’d struggled to deal with him in various states of inebriation. Undressing an uncooperative man was no mean feat, especially when that man was soaked to the bone. Just getting his blasted boots off had Dev sweating and cursing. John had been as good as his word and kept the fire blazing, so the bedroom felt like a furnace.

Once Dev had stripped away his sodden clothes, he rubbed him down with a rough cloth to get his blood moving and dry him off. It worked for horses, so Dev saw no reason why it wouldn’t be good for Kit, too. Working on the same principle, once Kit had been hauled into bed, Dev hurried down to the kitchen.

The only man who’d ever had any time for Dev as a little boy was an irascible old groom. What that man hadn’t known about horses, in Dev’s opinion, wasn’t worth learning. It had been him who had shown Dev how to make a mustard plaster which had saved a little colt’s life. The poor thing had been frozen and only just alive, but the mustard had livened it up right enough.

Dev took a cup of flour and added two large tablespoons of mustard powder, adding just enough water to make a thick and unappetising paste. He snatched up a clean tea cloth before heading back up the stairs.

Kit was awake when he entered the room. His skin was almost translucent, the veins standing out starkly against his unhealthy pallor, though his cheeks were flushed with fever. He turned glittering eyes on Dev as he moved towards the bed.

“How are you feeling?” Dev asked, noting how Kit shivered under the covers.

“Colder than a witch’s tit,” Kit replied, struggling to get the words out through his chattering teeth.

Dev snorted as Kit wrinkled his nose.

“What the b-bloody hell is t-that st-stench?” he demanded as Dev favoured him with a vengeful grin.

“This is retribution for making me scour the moors on a night unfit for man or beast, you young hell hound.” He stripped back the bed covers, making Kit suck in a breath as he sent Dev a look of horror.

“This will put some fire in your blood,” Dev said with a wicked grin before slapping a huge dollop of the mustard paste on Kit’s chest.

Kit yelled and protested but was too weak to put up any kind of fight. A moment later and the revolting concoction was spread thick over his chest and then covered with the clean tea-towel.

“Bastard,” Kit muttered, which Dev took as a good sign.

He fell into an uneasy sleep and Dev sighed, praying he’d done his best for the fool.

Then began the longest few days of Dev’s life. His hopes that Kit would sleep and awake recovered were dashed a few hours later as he woke coughing and coughing, unable to catch his breath. The noise awoke John, who brought him the medicine that had been prescribed for him. It seemed to do little good, but eventually Kit slept again from sheer exhaustion.

Dev was rattled now. The young man was burning with fever, and he didn’t dare leave him alone.

The days became a blur, terror lurking in Dev’s heart as Kit alternately thrashed and sweated with fever and shivered with cold. Dev opened the windows when he burned, wiping him down with cold water straight from the stream, and built up the fire when he shivered, though he hadn’t the faintest idea if he was doing the right thing. Mr Baxter was still abed himself, too weak to get out and work yet. That being the case, there was no one to fetch a doctor as Dev didn’t dare leave for the half day it would take to fetch one, and John was too young to make the journey over the moors alone. Since the storm, low mists had been rolling the countryside and it would be all too easy to lose the path as Kit had.

So, Dev and John coped the best they could, keeping the farm in order and taking turns watching Kit, though Dev worked like three men to keep the worst of the responsibility from the boy.

It was the hardest thing to watch Kit fight for breath. He wondered how Charity had suffered when her parents died. She’d watched them both waste away from this dreadful disease, and he would not allow her brother to follow the same fate.

He forced soup down Kit’s throat, though he protested and complained when he was lucid enough to do so, but Dev was not about to let him lose what little strength he had. The coughing racked his body so hard that Dev wondered how he could possibly survive.

The third night was the worst of Dev’s life. As each minute ticked past he became increasingly terrified he would have to face Charity and tell her Kit had died in her absence. The fear of it sat in his chest like a lead weight as he watched her twin struggle for each, rasping breath.

He’d not slept for more than five minutes at a time since bringing Kit home and exhaustion tugged at his eyelids, but nothing on God’s green earth would let him fall asleep. He forced medicine and water down Kit’s throat whenever he could, keeping him cool as the fever mounted to impossible heights. In a last-ditch attempt to cool him, Dev took a blanket down to the stream and soaked it. The water was icy cold and the sodden blanket cumbersome as he carried it dripping back through the house.

He laid the blanket over Kit and opened every window upstairs, leaving the bedroom door open so that the wind flowed through. Mr Baxter yelled that they’d all catch bloody pneumonia at this rate, but Dev ignored him. He had to do something. At least the weather had turned for the better and the night air was no longer as damp as it had been.

Just as the first rays of daylight lightened the skies outside, Kit cracked open his eyes.

Dev sat up, reaching over to put his palm against his forehead.

“Thank God,” he muttered, meaning it for once in his life. Though he was still hotter than he ought to be, the fever that had been raging out of control had broken, and Kit seemed to breathe a little easier this morning.

Charity’s twin turned his head on the pillow, his feverish eyes finding Dev as a rueful smile curved over his handsome face.

“Should have come home with you, I suppose.”

“You suppose?” Dev said, relief and anger and terror tumbling around in his chest. “If I hadn’t just spent the last three nights praying you’d live, I’d bloody well wring your neck!”

Kit gave a weak nod. “Sorry. Don’t tell Charity.”

Dev opened and shut his mouth, gritting his teeth. “I’ll not tell her anything. You can explain.”

“Good man,” Kit replied, closing his eyes once more.

Dev sucked in a deep breath, wondering if his heart might consider the possibility of beating again now. He felt as if he’d been holding his breath for days.

“I’ll fetch some soup,” he said, knowing he sounded grumpy as hell but quite unable to forgive Kit for scaring him so. Not yet, at least. He went to get up when a slender, elegant hand grasped his wrist.

“Thank you,” Kit said, his voice full of sincerity.

Dev snorted with amusement and gave the young man an impatient look though there was no heat in it. “I didn’t do it for you, wretch.”

A smile flickered around Kit’s mouth and he dropped his hand. “I know that,” he muttered, sounding a little sheepish. “But thank you anyway.”

With a sigh Dev nodded, praying he never had to endure such a thing again. “You’re welcome.”

***

Charity listened to old Mr Jones wittering away about the damage the storm had done to his barn and wanted to scream with impatience. His ancient mare was picking her way along the path at a steady snail’s pace and Charity wanted to jump down and hitch up her skirts, running for all she was worth. It had been the morning after the arrival at her Uncle’s house in Bristol when the terrible sensation that something was wrong hit her with the force of a lightning strike.

At first, she’d thought her anxiety was from the situation, from being away from home, from fears of the future, Mr Ogden… David. David wasn’t David at all, of course, just to add to her troubles. The Lord knew she had enough to worry about, so at first, she hadn’t recognised what was wrong.

Kit.

As twins they knew each other inside out. Charity instinctively knew Kit’s mood without him even opening his mouth, as attuned as they were each to the other. So, when dread had hit her square in the chest in the early hours of the morning, she had insisted they leave at once. It had taken time to arrange their return, partly because her uncle thought she was being a hysterical female, overwrought by the loss of her home. Charity had become exasperated and truly hysterical at his lack of understanding, and only Mrs Baxter’s calm assurance that if Miss Kendall said something was amiss, it was, made her uncle make the necessary arrangements.

They’d made it back to Tillforth but had no means of making it to the farm. Thank heavens old Mr Jones had taken pity on them and agreed to take them in his cart, but he was taking his own sweet time about it. Charity didn’t dare hurry him any more than she had. He was a sweet man and doing them a favour by taking them home, but as her terror for Kit grew it was all she could do to sit still and not grab the reins.

When their familiar, beloved farm came into sight, Charity could stand no more. She leapt down from the cart while it was still moving, yelling a hasty thank you while hiking up her skirts and running full tilt down the muddy track.

By the time she reached the yard she could hardly breathe for terror, but then the scent of frying bacon assaulted her senses. Surely nothing bad could have happened if they were making breakfast? Yet her heart did not believe it and she thundered through the back door, uncaring of the mud and dirt she tracked in, to find John spreading butter on uneven slices of bread as the bacon sizzled behind him.

“Charity!” he cried, dropping the knife and throwing himself into her arms. “Oh, Charity, Charity, it’s been awful without you.”

“Oh, John,” she sobbed, hugging him close before crouching down and staring into her little brother’s eyes. “Kit?” she asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

John’s lip trembled, and she prepared herself for the worst. “He was so sick, Charity,” he whispered, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand as he struggled for composure. “I’ve never seen him so ill before but… but Mr David was wonderful. He went out in the middle of a terrible storm and wouldn’t stop till he found him and… and he’s been taking care of him. The poor man hasn’t slept, nor eaten, that’s why….”

He gestured to the bacon behind him and Charity blinked back the hot tears that were stinging her eyes.

“And Kit?” she prompted, her voice thick.

“He’s awake,” John said, his voice a little somewhere between a sob and laughter. “The fever broke last night. I… I think he’ll be all right now.”

Charity let out a broken exclamation as her knees gave out. She sat on the floor, hand to her heart, crying and laughing as John hugged her again and almost knocked her flat. They embraced each other and wept as Mrs Baxter bustled in the room, and burst into tears on seeing them, fearing the worst. By the time she had been reassured she was dabbing at her eyes and demanding to know why her kitchen was full of smoke.

They looked up, noticing the rather acrid burning smell filling the room

“The bacon!” John shouted.

By the time Charity had relayed John’s news and Mrs Baxter thrown out the blackened bacon, they had all calmed down a little.

“I must go to him,” Charity said, heading for the stairs.

“Be quiet, Charity,” John warned her as she left the room. “David was sleeping when I left.”

Charity nodded, wondering at what John had told her.

As she crept into Kit’s room she could see evidence of everything John had said. Her brother lay back on his bed, propped up with pillows. He looked heartbreakingly beautiful, with the flush of fever still visible against his porcelain skin. He stirred as she entered the room, large, dark eyes flashing as he saw his twin.

“Knew you’d come,” he said, the words low as he held out his arms to her. Charity fell into them sobbing and Kit soothed her. “Hush now, David’s out for the count. Don’t wake the poor fellow with your carry on.”

Charity looked up, only now noticing David asleep in a chair in the corner. He looked exhausted: unshaven and unkempt, his head lolling back at an awkward angle. She’d never seen him look more wonderful.

“He took care of you?” she asked, still rather shaken by the news.

Kit nodded solemnly, though a trace of frustration lingered in his expression, and told her just how much he must hate owing the man a debt.

“He did. Reckon I’d be in a box by now if not for him. But... to be honest, it was my own stupid fault. He tried to make me come home. Told me there was a storm coming, only... only....” A proud grin curved over his face, pushing the maudlin frown away. “See, I’m going to be published, Charity! A whole book of my work!”

 “Oh, Kit, that’s wonderful!” she exclaimed, though she kept her voice low so as not to disturb David. Then her face fell as she realised what the sequence of events had likely been. “You were inebriated,” she said, folding her arms and glowering at her twin in anger. “You were drunk as a lord and got caught in the storm.”

He at least had the grace to look rather mortified.

“Now, Charity…,” he began, and started to cough.

Charity cursed, glowering at him as she helped him sit up a little and held a glass of water to his lips.

“Rest now,” she said, through gritted teeth as Kit shot her an anxious glance. “You must get well,” she added, straightening the bed sheets and tucking them in with rather more force than was necessary. “Because the moment you are, I’m going to ruddy well kill you.”

Kit returned a crooked grin, laying his head back on the pillow. “Get in line, sis,” he muttered, jerking his head towards the sleeping figure in the chair. “He said much the same thing.”

Charity rolled her eyes at him and cursed the stupidity of men before leaning down and kissing her brother’s cheek. “Don’t ever do that again, Kit,” she whispered. “I was so frightened.”

Kit took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll try my best. I promise.”