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“Dr. Alton recommended a bit of wine and some wafers,” Mrs. Henshaw explained. “Just put the tray with the service into the hall when you are finished with it, Mrs. Swinton, and someone will come for you when Mr. Rudge is made tidy and tucked into bed.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Henshaw,” Evelyn said. As she poured the tea and a glass of wine for the Duchess, she worried and fretted, but tried to keep her fears off her face. As Dr. Alton had said, it would not be an advantage to have two invalids to look after.

Chapter 36

Bruce and one of the other footmen acted as body servants for Mayson. He found himself efficiently divested of his smoke-stained nightwear, and gently lowered into a tub of warm water where he was briskly, but not unkindly, scrubbed from one end to the other.

The steam from the water began to clear his head, and by the time they had him settled between clean sheets in the wide bed of the guest chamber, he was feeling far wider awake and alert.

Dr. Alton settled on one edge of the bed, listened to his chest through an ear trumpet, took out a large watch, and held his thumb on his wrist while he counted under his breath.

“Now then, my boy,” Dr. Alton said, “You’ll be going nowhere for a time. You will have pleurisy of this, if not pneumonia. But in just a few minutes, you would have had worse if not for Mrs. Swinton’s quick thinking. Indeed, were it not for her, in a few minutes, the village would have been up here doing a bucket brigade and come morning, we’d have been sifting the ashes for your bones.”

“What if there are other traps?” Mayson asked.

“Bruce and the other footmen are searching the house from cellar to attic to discover that very thing, Mr. Rudge. We’ll have no more of this tonight.”

“And tomorrow?” Mayson asked.

“Tomorrow, we shall see. I caught a little of what you were telling Mrs. Swinton. If you left home for the reasons I am thinking on, then you surely knew this would not be easy.”

“I knew that,” Mayson replied. “But I did not think it would go so far as to endanger others.”

Dr. Alton sighed. “No more did anyone else. And considering the state of a certain place, I am sure that you had the best intent. But we scarcely know what our actions might put in motion.”

Mayson sighed, and said nothing.

Dr. Alton patted his arm. “You rest easy now tonight. Let others see to things. I will go see the Duchess now, and send Mrs. Swinton in to see you. If I do not, she will fret herself into a fever, I doubt not.”

With that, the physician let himself out of the room, leaving Mayson to look about him in the gloom. A small fire crackled on the hearth behind a screen, emitting a pleasant aroma of good oak wood. The candle on the nightstand beside the bed smelled of beeswax and vanilla. No tallow candles or warmed bricks for this room. It was intended for honored guests.

Perhaps not highly honored guests,Mayson thought. Though what he could see of the room was pleasant, it was small.Better than what I or any of the other servants have. There is something amiss with that.

But his ruminations went no further than that, for the door opened and Evelyn slipped in. She pulled a straight-backed chair up beside his bed and sat in it, putting out her hand for his. “Oh, Mayson! I thought I had lost you.”

“While I was doing no thinking at all. Evelyn, I fear I have set something dreadful in motion.”

She shook her head in denial. “Not you, Mayson. The person who intends you harm has set something in motion. Could this be your uncle’s doing?”

“Perhaps. Although I would not think that he would risk involving others. He never did before.”

“Evelyn, I have been thinking. If I were to let go of my inheritance, let go of it officially, the funds would go to my uncle. It is all he wants, I think. If I did that, then you and I could go to New South Wales, and begin a life that has nothing to do with any of this.”

Evelynn clasped his hand in both of hers and drew his fingers to her lips. “Oh, Mayson, I am touched that you would even think such a thing. But what of the people on the estate? What of the way he has treated them?”

Mayson freed his other hand from the covers, and captured her hands in his. He pulled her hands to him, placing a gentle kiss on her knuckles. “That is a thing, is it not?” he said, cradling her hands against his face. “But if I take up my inheritance, I will be expected to wed a lady of my station and beget a bevy of high-born children to carry on the Name.”

“Then I will go with you to your household, in whatever capacity you need. Do not fear that you will lose me, Mayson.”

“In any capacity?” Mayson looked at her, searching her face for any flinching or withdrawing.

“Any capacity,” she said firmly. “I do understand the ways of the world, My Lord Sacrificial Lamb.”

At that Mayson laughed, and a merry smile lit up his face. “Then we shall astonish the world, Mrs. Absolutely Willing, for I would have you to wife, and be hanged to the opinion of the world.”

“Mayson!” she said softly, in astonishment.

“Do not think I have not seen the look on your face these weeks past. I know that you have been prepared to give me up. But I will not have it, do you hear? I want no other, nor do I wish to share you with someone else just to make you secure. I have seen how these arrangements work out, and I would rather defy society than risk you to an arranged marriage of dubious quality.”