In the entryway, a passing footman halted mid-step to gape. “Fetch Lord Willowdale,” Liam ordered. “I will take Miss Miller to her rooms.”
The footman rushed away even as Liam picked her up in his arms and carried her up the stairs. He grinned down into her uptilted face. “Much easier on you, Miss Miller, in your weakened state.”
Inside the house and under the light of the lamps, Thea could now see his red-gold hair plastered to his face, still dripping water down his cheeks. His lips were tinged with blue, as no doubt her own must be, while wet and cold. “Your livery,” she whispered. “Is it ruined?”
“Have no worry about such small matters, Miss Miller,” he said, carrying her up the stairs with the same ease he might display in carrying a puppy. “Your life and health are far more important.”
At the door to her chambers, Liam turned sideways to turn the handle, then pushed it open with his foot. Her personal maid, Felicity, gave a small screech of shock as he brought her inside. “Fetch Miss Miller a blanket,” he ordered as he set Thea gently on her feet. He gazed down at her while Felicity bolted into the other room, and said, “I will leave you in the care of your abigail, Miss Miller. But should you have need, I will be right outside the door.”
Thea nodded. Liam smiled, then bowed low and turned to leave. He closed the door behind him, Thea wishing she could ask him to stay. Her fingers numb, she plucked at the lacings on her bodice even as Felicity returned with the thick wool blanket.
“Let me get you out of those wet clothes, Miss Miller,” she said, fussing over Thea like a mother cat over her litter of kittens.
Within minutes, Thea had been stripped and dried, her wet hair wrapped in a towel. Warming up, at last, Felicity helped her into a night-dress, then insisted she get into her bed. But a knock at the door took the maid away from Thea before she could. Suspecting it was Freddie on the other side, Thea wrapped the blanket around her shoulders to cover herself properly.
Freddie burst in, apparently unmindful that she might be stark naked when he did so. “Are you all right?” he demanded.
Finding it still too painful to talk, Thea nodded. In spite of his strict adherence to never showing affection, Freddie threw his arms around her and held her close to his chest. “The footman informed me you fell in the lake and were drowning.”
“He saved me,” Thea whispered.
“I could not bear it if I lost you, too,” he muttered against her hair, his voice thick. “I love you so much, Thea.”
Contenting herself with just letting herself be held, Thea closed her eyes, her arms around Freddie’s waist. Their quarrel seemed so distant now, so trivial and unimportant. She suspected that was what happened when one almost dies – one learns what is important and what is not. When at last her brother let her go, Thea smiled up into his face. “I love you.”
Freddie lightly touched her nose with his finger. “I will send a servant up with hot tea and honey. Get yourself to bed, and get some rest. All right?”
Thea nodded. As Freddie went to the door, she saw Liam standing outside and looking in, and raised a tiny grin for him. He bowed low as Freddie passed him, still damp, but most of his drips appeared to be gone. But Felicity shut the door in his face before he could answer her smile.
“Come,” Felicity ordered, ushering her into her bed chamber. “To bed, Miss Miller.”
Thea let herself be herded like a sheep, feeling exhausted and unwell. She shivered even under the warm sheets and blankets of her bed, wondering if she had caught a fever. Not even the tea, well laced with honey, helped. When Felicity put out the lamps, it took her a long while to get to sleep.
When she did manage to drift off, Thea dreamed of death coming for her on a black horse, dread filling her even as she slept.
Chapter 4
Robert Cartwright, the third Baron of Ampleforth, whistled under his breath as his carriage conveyed him closer to the Willowdale estates. He looked forward to not just seeing his friend Freddie Miller again, but also little Thea. “Thea,” he muttered, grinning to himself. “Soon to be my wife.”
He had no doubt Freddie could be persuaded to let him marry the girl. Robert knew himself to be everything a young, gently born woman would need in a husband – a title, wealth, and influences at court. “Yes, Thea, you may have spurned me in the past, but your dear brother will not.”
Laughing to himself, he recalled the last time, a few weeks before her parents’ tragic deaths, he had asked Thea to marry him. She had responded with a polite smile and a firm no, yet her eyes had burned with a fierce dislike. Robert did not care if she did not regard him as highly as Freddie did. She was everything Robert wanted: beautiful, young and with a title to match his own.
Determined to marry her whatever the cost, Robert would have her whether she consented or not. He knew he had become obsessed with Thea, his need to have her for his own overwhelmed everything else in his life. She danced through his sleep, haunting his dreams, and his every waking thought was of her. “I think I fell in love with you when we were all children,” he mused, staring out the carriage window at the passing fields, ripening oats tossing on the light wind. “Do you remember that, Thea?”
Freddie himself stood on the wide veranda with several footmen as Robert’s carriage rolled up and the horses reined into a stamping halt. Disappointed that Thea had not put in an appearance, Robert still found a wide grin with which to greet his oldest and best friend as his footman opened the carriage door for him.
“Freddie,” he called, stepping down. “You are looking dapper, as usual.”
“As are you, Robert,” Freddie replied, heading down the steps to take his hand, grinning. “Did you have a pleasant journey?”
“I did, thank you. Though I had hoped to see your sister here to greet me as well.”
Freddie’s welcoming grin faded. “Thea had a bit of an accident, Robert. Come in, let us go into the drawing room for brandy. I will tell you about it.”
“She is not hurt?” Robert asked, concern filling his heart. “Is she all right?”
“No, she is not hurt. Not really, anyway, but right now she is confined to her bed by my order.”
