Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-five

“I won’t go back in there with her! His Grace can toss me out in the gutter if he likes. It just ain’t worth it.” The maid wiped her reddened eyes with her apron.

“Now, Bea, don’t say such things. You know your mum depends on you to put meat on the table for your little brothers and sisters.”

“But she’s a monster!” the maid wailed, hurling herself into the comforting expanse of Cook’s arms.

Cook patted her heaving back, exchanging a helpless look with the other servants who had sought shelter in the smoky haven of her kitchen. They had huddled in a nervous knot all morning, arguing and taking wagers on who would be the next hapless soul to be cast into the young lioness’s den. Even the handsome bonuses offered by the duke were losing their allure.

Cook cringed at the demanding tinkle of the servant’s bell. She glared at the ceiling, wishing with uncharacteristic malice that the duke’s invalid niece had the gold cord of the bellpull knotted around her delicate little neck. Master Stefan had rigged the unfortunate device when Sabrina had arrived, not knowing that its tinkling melody would haunt them even when they fled the house.

The girl had been in rare form since the ball the previous night. She’d kept the household awake until dawn, ringing every five minutes for chest poultices, leg rubs, and cool cloths for her throbbing temples. Their good-natured employer had since locked himself in the library while Enid and Master Stefan retreated to the relative peace of the garden.

Cook shivered with dread as the bell rang again, its relentless jangle deafening them all to the firm knock on the front door.

The object of the servants’ trepidation lay alone on the settee in the morning room, seething with ill temper.

Sabrina gave the bell rope another vicious tug only to have it come off in her hands. She stared dumbly at it, her panic growing. There was no rush of footsteps in the corridor, no whisper of satin livery. No one was coming, she thought. Perhaps no one was ever coming. Perhaps she was to be left alone with only her doubts and fears for company.

And her legs.

She averted her gaze. The gilt cupids emblazoned on the mantel simpered at her. Although the heat in the room was stifling, she had forced the servants to lay a fire in the marble hearth. The morning sunlight beat through the casement windows like a taunting fist. Sweat trickled between Sabrina’s breasts. She plucked fretfully at the bodice of her dressing gown, then forced herself to lock her hands in her lap.

The stiff gesture might have fooled others, but it did not fool her. Her control was slipping. She had clung to it for months, manipulating herself and everyone around her as if she could somehow atone for that one near-fatal moment when she had lost control and gone plunging over a cliff. Without its armor to protect her, she feared she would break into a thousand fragile shards and scatter in the warm spring wind.

“Damn you, Morgan MacDonnell,” she whispered.

Morgan was the one who had dared to stride back into her life and jerk her off balance just as he had always done. He was always there to shove her, but never around to catch her when she fell.

She looked at the blanket shielding her legs, then peeked at the door. As long as there were people rushing in and out to do her bidding, she had been safe from the temptation Morgan had dangled before her. Safe from the mocking challenge in his sunlit eyes.

The silence bore down on her, intensifying with each tick of the bronze table clock on the mantel. She could bear it no longer. Drawing in a breath for courage, she cast the blanket aside and parted the skirt of her dressing gown.

Sabrina studied her bared legs as if they belonged to someone else. She tilted her head first to one side, then the other, afraid to admit that Morgan was right. They looked paler and thinner than she remembered, but rather ordinary. She wiggled her toes, childishly fascinated by the simple motion.

“Here you are, darling. I brought the poultice for your poor chest.”

Sabrina snatched the blanket back over her legs as Aunt Honora breezed in. A sullen servant trailed her at ten paces.

Sabrina hid her guilty relief at their interruption behind an imperious sniff. “I do hope it’s wintergreen. Mint gives me hives.”

Her aunt clucked soothingly. “The apothecary was fresh out of wintergreen, dear. We shall simply have to make do.”

The tear-stained maid held her steaming burden a safe distance away as Sabrina snapped, “Have you seen my shawl? It’s freezing in here.”

Aunt Honora swiped her shiny brow. “But sweetcakes, it’s really quite warm.”

“Not if you have bad circulation and are left lying in a draft all day.”

Aunt Honora was rescued from the lash of Sabrina’s tongue by the appearance of Enid and Stefan.

Enid beamed as Stefan thrust a bouquet of lavender blooms under Sabrina’s nose. “Look, coz, see what sis picked for you. We thought some nice flowers might bring you cheer.”

Pollen shot up Sabrina’s nose. Waving the flowers away, she started to sneeze. “Take them away. You know I can’t abide hyacinths.”

Enid and her mother exchanged a dismayed glance. Stefan muttered something beneath his breath and jammed the blooms into a vase on the mantel. But even the maid’s dour expression turned to alarm as Sabrina’s sneezes deepened to gasps.

“Oh, dear Lord,” she choked out between wheezes. “My throat is closing. I can feel it. Help me. Please help me!”

Aunt Honora’s frightened cries brought the servants running. Stefan clapped Sabrina vigorously on the back while his mother sent a footman scampering to fetch the doctor. Before the man could reach the door, he collided with his master, knocking the duke’s wig askew.

“Here now,” Uncle Willie boomed. “What the devil is all this ruckus?”

No one noticed the butler and his towering companion standing before the gilt doors at the opposite end of the morning room. The butler intoned, “The Earl of Montgarry.”

No one paid him any mind. The duke was bellowing, Enid and the duchess were sobbing, and the servants were rushing about in various states of panic.

Giving their guest an apologetic look, the butler cleared his throat politely and tried again. “The Earl of Montgarry!”

Sabrina wheezed harder, clutching her throat and turning a charming shade of lavender to match the hyacinths. The others gaped at her, frozen now in open horror.

After patting the rueful butler on the shoulders, the smiling earl marched down the length of the room, jerked the flowers from the mantel, and dashed the vase of cold water in Sabrina’s face.