Chapter Thirteen

R eginald trudged into his bedchamber and shut the door firmly before stripping off his gloves and jacket. A bowl of water had been set on the dresser, so he dunked his hands, then pulled them out and plunged his head in. The cold was bracing.

Behind him, the door opened and shut. Barclay exclaimed, “My lord! There is warm water on the way, if you would be patient.”

Reginald lifted his head. Water ran off his hair and down his shirt. Barclay dropped Reginald’s best boots, freshly blackened and oiled, to fetch him a towel. “Was it a successful hunt?” Barclay ventured.

“No,” he said, rubbing himself dry. “One of the Willowsetts took a tumble. Broke his leg and rattled his brains.”

“Ah. That explains the hullabaloo downstairs.” He nodded at Reginald’s riding boots. “May I help you with those?”

Reginald glanced down. They were caked with dirt and there were bits of hedge stuck on. He hoped he hadn’t tracked all that up the stairs.

“Yes.” He sat down and let his valet pry off his boots, then set them outside the door to tend to later. He was still motionless, staring vacantly at the wall, when Barclay offered him his banyan.

“No. Tea clothes, I’m afraid.” He scowled. “I don’t think I’ll survive two weeks of this. God forbid three.”

“I don’t suppose Lord Taverston will require three,” Barclay said wryly.

Reginald lifted his chin and stared. It was not the farthest step over the line he had permitted his valet, but it rankled. Barclay turned hastily to the clothes trunk to find suitable tea wear.

“Trousers rather than pantaloons,” Reginald suggested, injecting enough warmth into his voice to counter the stare. He said nothing further while Barclay tended to him—undressing, shaving after the warm water arrived, dressing. He was oppressed by his thoughts.

That horse! What a waste of a noble animal. Inviting the Willowsetts was a mistake. The two brothers had been making cakes of themselves over Olivia for months. And now farce had turned to tragedy.

Jeremy would recover, so long as his head had not been thumped more severely than Adam suspected it had. They would have to see what Dr. Haraldsen thought. But it might have been a worse tragedy. Indeed, for the first few minutes, Reginald had worried the boy had broken his neck.

He shuddered. Too much illness and death. He didn’t know how Crispin stood it.

Of course, the looming storm of grief hanging over them all kept death at the forefront of Reginald’s thoughts. He kept pushing it back and pushing it back, but it hovered, nevertheless.

And Lady Georgiana. He had determined to avoid her as much as possible. He would not make a cake of himself. Not over Jasper’s intended.

But God. The way she had gone straight to Jeremy’s side, heedless of her dress, unfazed by all that blood. Unbothered by Crispin, who must be cool as ice in battle. And she had, with tender mercy, attempted to comfort him as well, yet he had not dared even acknowledge her kind-heartedness.

He hoped he hadn’t looked like a fatwit.

Barclay put the last twist in his neckcloth and knotted it.

“There you are, sir.” He still sounded contrite. “Is there anything else? More cologne?”

“The devil! There is more than enough in the neckcloth. My eyes are watering.”

Alarmed, Barclay leaned toward him and sniffed. Then he chuckled, sounding relieved. “Very funny. I didn’t use even a drop. Hardly a dab.”

Reginald stepped away. “I’m going to go sit with the Earl for a bit. I’m not ready to return to the crush that our drawing room has become.”

*

Father was awake, sitting in his chair by the window. He wore a nightshirt and bed jacket and had a blanket over his knees. His eyepatch had slipped down his cheek. His nurse puttered around the room but didn’t appear to be doing anything of note.

Reginald said, “If the Earl is set for now, you may go have your tea. I’ll be here for a while.”

“Very good, sir.” She wiped her hands on her apron and shuffled out.

“How are you today, Father?” he asked, dragging a chair over beside him.

“Bored.” He sighed. “Hell of a thing.”

A hell of a thing? Reginald wasn’t certain he’d heard right. He hated asking Father to repeat himself when it was so difficult for him to speak. “What is?”

“Dying.”

Reginald blinked. His eyes watered threateningly.

Father went on, “Crispin said,” he cleared his throat, “better than dead.” He laughed, short and chesty, then coughed. “Not so sure.”

Reginald hoped his father wasn’t looking to him for some sort of homily on the soothing delights of Heaven. Especially as the sun was casting a disturbingly brilliant sliver of light on the carpet like some sort of omen. Or like Jacob’s ladder.

“Well,” he told his father, “I’ve learned not to argue with Crispin.”

“Ha!” He patted the arm of his chair, a gesture meaning Reginald should sit. He lowered himself into the chair he’d brought near. “What…a hunt?”

“Yes. Today we attempted to hunt. Jasper invited the Willowsetts. Jeremy suffered a fall at the hedge.”

“Better seat,” he sputtered.

“I thought so too. But…” he stopped and turned up his hands. He didn’t want to upset the Earl with tales that the Squire’s boys were bothering Olivia. Probably today had been the last of that. “Accidents happen.”

Father nodded, the movement emphasizing the sagging of his face. Noticing that a trail of drool had trickled from the downturned corner of his father’s lip, Reginald picked up a handkerchief from the blanket and dabbed the side of his father’s mouth, then lifted the eyepatch back into place.

“Would you like me to read to you? I thought, perhaps, from Psalms?”

“No.” He breathed noisily. “Talk.”

“All right.” Reginald tensed. “About anything in particular?”

“Lady Georgiana.”

He tried to ignore the heat creeping up his neck. “That topic is best directed to Jasper, don’t you think?”

“Crispin says.” He paused to breathe. “Too good for him.”

Reginald snorted. “Well, Crispin would say that.”

His father half smiled. “Pretty child. Good parents. But.”

“But?”

“Hasty.”

“Well.” He thought a moment, then said, “Jasper is not one to dawdle once he’s made up his mind.”

“Heh.” After a moment’s silence, he said, “Tell me.”

“All right. Lady Georgiana is a beauty. A rare beauty. Fair with just a little red in her hair.”

“Fiery?”

“No. She’s very proper,” he assured him. Then amended, “Without being prim.”

“Clever?”

Reginald stopped himself from saying he believed she was intelligent rather than clever. He didn’t know for sure that she had been reading Newton. “I expect so. I haven’t spent much time with her, but she speaks well.”

The Earl grunted.

Reginald said, “I’m sure she’ll make him a splendid wife. Mother thinks so.”

“Tell him…” His good hand balled into a fist on his lap.

“Tell him what?”

“Give up Vanessa.” He scowled, wheezing. “Give her up.”

Reginald flushed. Father knew about Jasper’s mistress? Obviously, he did. But that was something sons did not discuss with fathers. At least, not this son. Good Lord . He hoped Father didn’t know about Annie.

“I’m not telling Jasper what to do. For one thing, he doesn’t listen to me, and for another—”

“He listens.” Father’s chest rose and fell. “To you. Tell him.”

“I’m sure Crispin already has.” Reginald could not imagine why their father was making an issue of this. “And Jasper will say it’s none of my concern.” Nor was it any of Father’s. But the man looked so sorrowful, Reginald said, “Vanessa never struck me as a woman who would remain a married man’s lover. If Jasper doesn’t set her aside, I suspect she’ll drop him.”

He braced for the name “Plodgett” to come from his father’s lips, but the words that did emerge were even more of a shock.

“Should’ve married her.”

“Vanessa?”

When his father nodded, Reginald did also, but warily. He wouldn’t expect the Earl to champion the cause of a girl who’d followed the drum. Besides, it was too little too late. She was a fallen woman in the eyes of the ton.

His father rubbed his good eye, then dropped his chin to his chest.

“I’ve good boys,” he mumbled. “All of them. Good boys.”

“Thank you?”

His father did not respond to the jest. “Where’s Nurse?” He coughed. “I want…lay down.” He shifted restlessly. Contorting his face, he coughed again.

Feeling panicked, Reginald stood and put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “I’ll send for her. Try to be still. She’ll be back in a moment.” He straightened his father’s blanket awkwardly and repeated, “Be still.”

Then he walked quickly out of the chamber, told Father’s valet to go in, and sent the footman for the nurse. Alone, he leaned against the wall and wiped his smarting eyes.

What kind of clergyman ran from a sickroom? He’d been about as useful as a cow in there. He pulled away from the wall, giving it a backhanded punch with his fist. Oh, Father! Damn it all.

He should have gone to the library. Buried himself there with inanimate things. Things that would never die. Things he could not disappoint.

*

Georgiana replaced the Analytical Calculation carefully back in the exact spot where she had found it. She’d read three pages and was confident of her understanding of only one paragraph at most. Still, she refused to be discouraged. Naturally, it would take multiple readings. And a lot of careful thought. It would likely take years for her to grasp the whole of it. Perhaps the rest of her life. That thrilled her a little. She felt awake for the first time in a long while.

If Mr. Taverston dared pack up his books, she would have to find a way to steal that one.

Thank goodness he was not there. Georgiana had called out to be sure when she first entered the room and had received no answer. Now she glanced at the curtain, remembering again her shock when he had appeared there before.

What had he been doing so silently? Was this where he worked? What on earth did he do?

She looked back at the door, which she had left ajar. Then hesitantly, guiltily, she crept toward the curtain and pulled it back a few inches. That was his desk. A ledger rested on it with a few scattered papers nearby. There were numbers and notes on them, written in a bold hand, but most of the figures had slashes through them. Nothing was there that made any sense. And she had no business looking at it anyway. There was also a leather case closed with a clasp which looked as though it might contain something more substantial. She wouldn’t touch it, of course. She couldn’t explain why she wanted to. Her curiosity about it was a mystery. She was not generally a nosy-body, especially not enough to go rifling through a man’s papers.

What had Crispin said to ask him? What was he sitting upon? She pulled the curtain back a little farther. A stool was set partially under the desk. But what an odd stool. The legs looked to be of uneven lengths and the bottoms were roughly sawed. The seat had been painted to resemble a chessboard.

“Lady Georgiana?”

Heavens! She whirled around. “Oh! Mr. Taverston, you frightened me.”

“Again? Then I apologize once more.” He appeared more concerned than angry as he waved a hand toward his desk. “May I ask?”

Heat rose to her cheeks. “It is I who should apologize to you.” This was not something she could explain. Not readily. She stalled. “Lieutenant Taverston said I might find you here.”

“You were looking for me?” His expression darkened.

“Oh! No. I mean, not at first. I was looking…well, for the library. I asked him where I might find it and he said you might already be here.”

“Ah.” His posture seemed to lose some of its tension.

“But I came anyway. Because I was agitated. And libraries calm me.”

“Yes. I remember. They put you to sleep.”

She dropped her chin, mortified.

He said, “And you worried I might be behind the curtain again, waiting to jump out and startle you?”

“Oh, do stop teasing!” she begged. She hated that he was so peeved. But what should she expect when he caught her practically rummaging through his things? Things he had taken care to hide behind a curtain. “Let me explain. Crispin said—”

“Crispin?”

“Lieutenant Taverston.”

Laughing roughly, he said, “Yes, I know who Crispin is. What has he done now?”

“He says, well, first, he accidentally called me ‘Georgiana.’ Then he apologized for it and, to tell it quickly, we agreed to use Christian names. Except…” She blushed again. “Except not to tell Lord Taverston. But to tell you. Am I making sense?”

“Yes.” He rubbed his nose. He looked embarrassed. “It is the sort of thing we do. Annoy each other. It must seem rather childish.”

“No,” she protested. Silly, yes, but not childish. “I think it’s lovely how you rally one another.”

“Well.” He reddened, as though touched by her words. “Then my name is Reginald. Or Reg.”

“I think Reginald. Good Heavens. My poor mother.”

A smile flickered across his face. “And is Miss Fogbotham in on the game, Georgiana ?”

“She will be.” Now she relaxed. She knew how to explain her odd behavior. “There is something else.”

“Is there?”

“Crispin told me to ask you what you were sitting upon. He wouldn’t say why.” She bit her cheek and pointed to the stool. “I’m afraid curiosity got the better of me. Why are you sitting on that?”

“On what?” he stepped forward and looked around her. Then he snickered. “Well, I always hated that table.”

She looked at him questioningly, but he merely shook his head.

“It’s too involved to explain.” His fingers flexed. “More childishness.”

“More rallying,” she said gently. “This must be so difficult for you all. And then to have to entertain us as well.” She bit her tongue. How was he supposed to respond to that except with bland reassurances?

He sighed. “Yes, you are a pestilence.”

She started. Then laughed. He would not have said it if he meant it.

“Is it teatime yet, Reginald? I’m famished.”

He offered his arm. As he led her out, skirting the kissing chair, he glanced at the bookshelf, then away. He cleared his throat. “You’re welcome, naturally, to borrow anything you like.”

How nonchalant. Ha! And what would he make of it if his Analytical Calculation went missing? He wouldn’t catch her out that way. But he was onto her. To misdirect him, she was going to have to take one of those awful novels back to her room.

She smiled and said, “Thank you. I may.”