Chapter Seven

S afe behind the comforting shelter of his desk, Sam regarded Ysella with a distinct lack of equanimity. His heart beat a painful tattoo, and he'd steepled his hands to keep them from fidgeting. He had to keep telling himself this was just an infatuation. She would be married off soon, and go to live in the house of her new husband, whoever the lucky devil might be. A burning desire to plant a facer on whatever young gentleman she ended up with curdled his stomach. The thought of any man laying a hand on his beloved Ysella—in lust—made his blood run cold.

That he himself was capable of lust, and indeed was feeling it right now, made his cheeks flush more warmly than ever. Thank goodness she appeared not to have noticed. For want of anything else to say, he tried, "If Doctor Busick is coming, I think I shall remain here for a while rather than return to my house. Perhaps he'll have some new treatment that will help Lady Ormonde."

What a formal idiot he sounded. As if there was any new treatment available or he would be of any help if he remained here. Even Ysella must know the likelihood of either of these things was remote. The only thing he'd achieve by staying would be to annoy Mrs. Higgins by not turning up for his evening meal. And yet Ysella's presence drew him like a magnet and he couldn't bring himself to leave.

Ysella rose to her feet. "I need to change out of my traveling clothes. Are we taking dinner as normal in the dining room, do you know?"

Sam hesitated. "I couldn't say. Perhaps your mother would like to take her dinner on a tray in the sickroom, like Kit?" Kit had been taking his meals by his wife's bedside for days now, not that he'd been eating much. Sam had seen the trays come downstairs with the food barely touched, and Cook kept fussing over trying to find something to tempt her master to eat, muttering under her breath about keeping his strength up to help her ladyship.

Ysella nodded. "A good idea. I'm sure she'll want to keep Kit company. Perhaps you could tell Cook to organize this. But as for me, I would like it if you would dine with me, if that is agreeable. Otherwise, I'll be quite alone, and I don't want to be. Not tonight. Perhaps we should order it brought to the library. It might be just a tiny bit warmer in there than it is in here. You could tell Cook that as well. I can't see the point in opening up the dining room and lighting its fire just for us two. You can tell her just a light repast will do me."

Cook, who had been preparing food all day for the return of the dowager and Ysella, would not be pleased to hear this news. But Sam nodded, rising to his feet and abandoning the security of his desk. "I'll do that straightaway, Miss Ysella."

She shot him an unreadable look through her thick eyelashes, but said nothing and moved over to the door. He opened it for her, and she went out into the corridor. Without glancing back, she disappeared towards the main part of the house, her skirts swishing behind her. Gone, leaving only the scent of her perfume hanging in the chill air.

Sam stood for a moment staring down the empty corridor. He hadn't planned on eating with Ysella when he'd suggested he might stay. But what had he wanted? To know he was near her, perhaps, but nothing more. Her proximity brought out the worst in him, turning him into a tongue-tied idiot, blushing at the smallest thing. Should he be upset that she didn't even seem to have noticed his awkwardness, or glad?

He gave himself a shake, rather like a dog after a bath. Remembering to lock the office door again, he turned towards the kitchens.

Cook was pleased to see him. "I hear the dowager's arrived," she said, the moment he walked through the door. "She'll be wanting dinner in the dining room?"

He'd best get this over with.

Five minutes later, a little the worse for wear after Cook's righteous indignation that no one wanted the six-course meal in the dining room she'd been preparing them, he left the kitchens and headed back into the main part of the house. The kitchen boy had been dispatched to inform Mrs. Higgins that he would be dining at the Abbey, and Sam had distracted Cook with the suggestion she should concoct a tempting menu for Kit and his mother, both of whom might be lacking in appetite.

He went into the library and added some logs to the dying embers in the hearth. A maid's job, but he didn't feel like sending for one. Not that even the most blazing of fires would warm the large room up in so short a time. He needed to have a word with the maids about keeping the fires going. They'd become slack since Morvoren was taken ill, and it wasn't as if they didn't have plenty of firewood stored.

Taking a book at random from one of the shelves, he drew a wing back chair up to the fire and sat down in it.

But he couldn't settle. After a while, the realization dawned on him that he'd read the first page of a stodgy book on Roman history a good half-dozen times without taking any of it in. The fire was now going well, the flames leaping up the chimney, but the heat only reached a few short feet from the fireplace. There was a lot to be said for the smaller, cozier rooms in his own house. He'd be glad when summer came.

Ysella would be cold in here. Perhaps he should get a blanket for her. For himself as well. Putting the book down, he went over to the window seat nearest the fire and lifted the upholstered lid. Hidden beneath the brocade cushions lurked a useful storage box filled with blankets. A house this size deep in the country would never be the warmest of habitations and there were similar blanket boxes stowed in most of the rooms. High ceilings did little to help, and without the fires kept in every day, the house quickly became glacial.

He put a thick plaid blanket on the second wing chair, ready for Ysella, and settled back into his seat. This time he didn't pick the book up, as his mind wandered to the uncomfortable subject of Ysella again. Was she going to be here for long? Surely her mother wouldn't want her to miss too much of her first season? Although what happened next depended on the outcome for Morvoren, and for Kit. If the family went into mourning, Ysella could not expect to attend any social functions at all. She'd be wearing black for months.

It occurred to Sam that from his point of view this might be a good thing. She'd remain here, in mourning, with no danger of suitors carrying her off. But he dismissed this thought immediately, and with horror. It would mean Morvoren had died and he couldn't bear that thought.

Doctor Busick arrived at last, the noise of his arrival carrying to Sam in the library. He got up and went to the door, peering through a crack as Bannerman, the butler, ushered the doctor in. "No need to show me," the newcomer said. "I know the way very well." Carrying his leather bag, he hurried up the stairs to the upper floors, vanishing from sight. Sam went back to his seat with his shoulders slumped. If only a new doctor could be relied upon to effect some sort of cure.

He didn't remember his own mother, of course, but he'd grown up with a father perpetually with one foot in the past, grieving his lost wife until the day he died, only a few short years ago. He'd given Sam the distinct impression death had come as a welcome friend.

He was still ruminating on his father when the library door opened and Ysella came in, followed by Kit's three dogs, their claws clattering on the wooden floor. She'd changed into a rather somber cream gown and thrown a suitably thick shawl about her shoulders. Sam stood up. Perhaps tact, something he had to acknowledge she'd shown remarkably little of in the past, had finally settled on her.

She hastened over to the fire to stand a little too close to it for comfort, holding out her hands to the flames. "It was quite chilly in my room even though the fire was lit. I suspect the maids have been careless of keeping anywhere but the sickroom warm."

The tip of Ysella's nose glowed a little pink, as if from the cold.

"Doctor Busick went upstairs a little while ago," Sam said as they both sat down. A longing to tuck the blanket around Ysella himself washed over him, but he resisted. Not his place.

Ysella nodded as she arranged her blanket over her knees and the dogs ranged themselves as close to the fire as they could get. "Mama came to tell me. She says he thinks the bloodletting has not helped, but that Morvoren's fever might well break tonight, if we are lucky." She paused. "But she also said that if it does not, we must prepare ourselves for the worst." She shivered. "An honest doctor is not always a comfort, is he?"

Sam leaned forward and added another log. "I happen to know it was old Doctor Nash who attended my own mother to no avail. Doctor Busick, who was not around then, is younger and more modern in his outlook, and a man your mother trusts. If there is something that can be done, we can rely on Busick to do it."

Ysella, who'd been gazing into the heart of the fire, turned her head. "I'm sorry, Sam, that I didn't know you'd lost your mother like that. I feel it is something I should have known, as you are my friend."

Sam, glowing internally at being classed as her friend, shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I didn't know her, so I don't miss her, I suppose."

Ysella inclined her lovely head, her chestnut curls bobbing against her alabaster neck. A finger of electricity coursed down Sam's spine making his knees weak, even though he was sitting. He had to fight to still the shake in them.

"Every child needs their mother," she said, stretching out a hand and resting it on Sam's knee. Could she feel the tremor in it? He willed it to be still. She regarded him out of candid dark eyes. "I would have been such a sad specimen had I not had my own dear Mama throughout my childhood."

Sam couldn't drag his own eyes away, much as he longed to. She had him snared.

Heat radiated from her touch, across his legs, down to the tips of his toes and up to his… stomach, making him want to twist with discomfort and shake her hand off even though at the same time he never wanted her to remove it.

"I can't bear to think of that dear little mite up there having to grow up without his mother," she went on, oblivious to what her touch was doing to him, still holding his gaze. "I went into the nursery to see him, and he is the most delightful creature. No name, as yet, his wetnurse told me. Her own child is a girl, so there's no fear of mixing them up. She told me that, too, and laughed a little as she said it. I daresay at some point in history a wetnurse's child must have been confused with the true heir, if both were boys, and a peasant brat has grown up to be a lord. But she's very sad for poor Morvoren."

Sam got to his feet and made an elaborate show of fetching another couple of logs for the fire, watched with approval by the spaniels, Dash and Duster, although Hector the labrador didn't even cock an ear. When he sat down, to his relief, Ysella kept her hands to herself.

"We shall just have to keep praying that Doctor Busick is right and her fever will break tonight," he said, feeling this to be a lame statement. Being this close to Ysella had rendered his brain in some kind of soupy fog and, try as he might, he couldn't find anything sensible to say. She'd be thinking him an addlepate. Which he was where she was concerned. So much easier to talk to Kit than his sister, but then, he wasn't nurturing disturbing feelings of love for Kit.

The library door, as if in answer to his prayers for a distraction, opened yet again, and two of the footmen carried in a tray each, the plates covered by the silver domes of cloches. Bannerman accompanied them bearing a tray with a decanter and glasses. These he set down on the round table between the two wingback chairs. "Cook rather thought you would like your dinner on trays, like his lordship and the dowager."

Sam jumped to his feet, his blanket falling to the ground, but Ysella remained seated. The first footman lowered his tray onto her lap and stood back, hands behind his back, chin up.

"This is perfect," she said with satisfaction. "Like a picnic. Bannerman, we'll be fine without you and Albert and Joseph. You can all return to the servants' hall for your own supper. Mr. Beauchamp will serve the wine. No need at all to stand on ceremony when the house is upside down like this."

Sam sat down, the feeling of awkwardness increasing, and Albert handed him his tray. Both the cloches having been removed, the servants departed on silent feet. Cook had provided a light chicken dish with small whole potatoes and a few vegetables. Sam wasn't sure he had the appetite for any of it. Not with Ysella this close.

It appeared she didn't either, for she only picked at the food with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. But that was probably from worry about Morvoren. Cook would not be amused.

After a bit, she raised her eyes to meet his. "It's no use. Worrying about Morvoren has taken my appetite away entirely. Even though I've hardly eaten today. And Cook has made such an effort." She put the tray on the floor beside the fireplace, and all three dogs, who must have been feigning sleep, leapt up to clear the plate in an instant. Sam had to smile. Cook was going to think Ysella had licked her plate clean herself.

She smoothed down her blanket. "But I am feeling a little warmer. I think I'll take a glass of that claret. I feel my spine needs some fortifying for this night."

Sam, glad to set down his own tray, for which the dogs repeated their efficient clean, filled two glasses and handed one to Ysella. "Best not drink too much on an almost empty stomach."

She shook her head. "On the contrary. I feel it would be a good idea to lose myself in the claret. Otherwise, I shall never sleep this evening but lie awake worrying, even though there seems nothing I can do. Mama and Kit and Loveday have the sickroom all sorted, and I'm nothing more than a spare part. I feel quite useless."

Sam drained half his glass. Maybe he too needed to find solace in the wine. It might numb the overwhelming feelings for Ysella he was fighting to control. Her two months away had proved the truth in the old adage that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

She did the same with her wine, bestowing a wan smile on him over the rim. "In fact, I'm very tired now after our precipitate journey, and I think I might retire to bed myself." She drained the glass and held it out. "Another one, before I go."

Sam shook his head. "Unwise, Miss Ysella. You might be called upon to help during the night, and you wouldn't like to be found the worse for drink."

She squinted up at him, a slight frown furrowing her brow. "Perhaps you are right. But the temptation is enormous." She rose to her feet and put the blanket to one side. "I shall retire now, before that temptation overcomes me." She settled her shawl more firmly about her shoulders, drawing it close at the front. "And it is still very chilly in here. I've had Martha put a hot brick in my bed for me so that at least should be comfortable. I bid you goodnight, Sam, and a safe walk home."

Sam, who had risen to his feet as well, went to open the door for her. With only a fleeting backward glance, she hurried across the cold hall to the staircase and, with her gown swishing on the treads, disappeared from sight.

Sam sighed. Maybe he wouldn't go home tonight, not with the crisis looming for Morvoren. Maybe he'd try and sleep here in front of the library fire so he could be on hand if Kit were to need him. He went back to the fire and gathered up the two blankets. The wing back chair was comfortable enough. Having stoked the fire again, he dragged the second chair close enough to put his feet on and settled back under the blankets. This was going to be a long night.