“The scoop was a stylistic choice!”
“They could keep this up all night,” Georgia said with a shake of her head. “How are you at charades?”
* * *
Sally and Maggie had both been on her sofa, nodding off, when Uncle Edward and Aunt Eunice finally called it a night and Ashley escaped to her room. As soon as her maids finished helping her prepare for bed, she dismissed them. She sat on the edge of her bed in her night rail and wrapper, supplies on the bedside table.
One last task to complete.
“As pretty as you were in the green dress and jewels in your hair,” Ravencroft softly rumbled, “I like this look even better.” He captured her braid and used the tip of it to caress behind her ear, down her neck, and along her collarbone to the drawstring tie of her night rail.
She kept breathing only by conscious effort as she watched him play with her hair, reveling in the sensations he created. “I thought you were asleep when I left.”
“Half asleep. Your maids have very firm opinions as to which hairstyle would flatter you most.”
“Did their arguing disturb your rest?”
He shook his head. “It’s a perspective I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. All I knew is that my sisters take forever to get ready, but not why. Now I have a clue.”
“With that clue, you are ahead of most gentlemen.” She unwound the bandage on his forearm and gently wiped off the poultice, threw it in the fire, and stirred the preparation in a glass jar that she’d made earlier.
“No moldy bread?”
She sat beside him again. “At the academy, we used this recipe on less serious wounds and cuts. With the infection under control, I feel it’s time to switch.”
“Smells better.”
“Honey, with powdered lavender, marigold, and comfrey. Want to try a taste?” She held up a spoonful, the golden liquid gleaming in the candlelight as it trickled back into the jar.
He grimaced. “I’ll rely on your word that it’s effective.”
He took deep breaths, preparing himself for the discomfort he’d come to expect when she tended his arm. “Drink up.” She handed him the cup of tea, heavy on the whiskey because according to the sheet, Maggie and Sally had not given him any in all the hours she’d been gone. He was likely thirsty as well as in pain.
He saluted her with the cup before gulping it down.
“I met Mr. Barrett tonight.” She glanced to gauge his reaction. He was staring into the bottom of this cup. “He asked about you.” Thinking of the elderly gentleman calling out for his ‘bassy boys,’ she couldn’t hold back a grin. “Westbrook told him you were at your estate.” Her smile faded. “Barrett said what a tragedy it was about your father and brother.”
David continued to stare into his cup as though it held the answers to all the questions in the universe, including those she hadn’t dared ask. She proceeded with spreading on the honey preparation and the muslin dressing. When it came time to wind the bandage, David reached his hand between her arm and torso rather than expend the effort to hold up his arm. Without thinking, she tucked her arm close, trapping his hand. Through the loose fabric of her night rail and wrapper, she felt him caress her bicep with his thumb.
“I was at Barrett’s house party when they died.”
He uttered the words so quietly, she felt them more than heard them.
“He’d invited a dozen of us, some with their wives, to his estate. He and his wife never had children. They invite current and former students to join them every summer, to make music. Put on plays.”
His eyes closed while she wound the muslin strip around his arm.
“He retired. This was the first time they’d invited us for Guy Fawkes Day. We wrote music to play during the fireworks display in the village. Liam and I were going to travel back to spend Christmas with our families, but snow kept falling, and we were having fun. Why travel in nasty weather?”
She tied off the bandage and rested his hand on her thigh, covering his fingers with her own. Just to check his temperature. Make sure the bandage wasn’t too tight.
“A letter from my mother arrived just after New Year’s Day, telling me Father was ill.”
She wrapped her fingers around his.
“By the time I reached the house in London, not only had my father died of influenza, so had my elder brother. My mother didn’t survive the combined strain of her grief and the illness. Two maids and a footman also succumbed. The butler greeted me at the door as Lord Ravencroft.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “While I was off making merry, they were dying.”
There was nothing she could say that would take away his grief or guilt, so she did the only thing she could, and held onto his hand. The fire crackled and the clock on the mantel ticked. Her mind raced.
