All she could think of then was getting out of there, escaping the facts that were staring her dead in the face. Lord Spurnrose believed himself to be dying, yet he had still been attempting to get close to her.
Or was it I who was trying to get close to him?Melissa thought as she fled, forgetting even a single book to compensate for her time trying to help the viscount.
Never before had she allowed herself to be so led by one of her patients. Never had she allowed things to get personal. Yet, as she hurried down the porch steps and into the darkness of the night, she thought again of how Lord Spurnrose had kissed her.
He had kissed her, and she had wanted him to. He had kissed her, and he had believed he was dying. He had kissed her and failed to mention that nothing could come of said kiss.
What was she to him? Simply a way of having a little fun before his time finally ended?
The realisation hit her like a brick wall, and she stopped dead in her tracks at the end of the carriageway at the front of the manor. After all her best friend had told her of him, she should have known better than to get involved. His merely being in Oxfordshire resulted from his antics back in London. All the rumours Daisy had heard of his roguish, rakish, scandalous behaviour had been bad enough, but to stand there and know that she might well be stuck on the wrong end of another one of those rumours made her feel like an innocent, stupid, and naive child, something she hadn’t felt in such a long time.
Hot, angry tears started to stream down her cheeks, a scream threatening to burst from her throat.
This couldn’t be happening. She had not allowed herself to feel for so long. All the emotions she had felt after her husband’s death, after his betrayal, came rushing back to her. Yet somehow, they were far worse this time, renewed and built upon by the fact she had once more allowed a man close only to find that he had been keeping secrets from her.
They are all the same,she thought, not for the first time. Again, she told herself something she had always known deep down. She was better off in the company of women, focusing her attention on caring and healing those who would not stab her in the back simply because she was a woman and deemed too fragile to handle the truth.
Denying herself even a single glance back towards Lord Spurnrose’s home, Melissa hurried on her way. She would be better after returning home to her studies and work. She could focus on the things that really mattered.
Lord Spurnrose was most definitely not one of those things. He had been nothing but a distraction.
And yet, even when she finally made it back through her front door, greeted again by Flit, she still couldn’t stop thinking about him and how she wanted so badly to cure the stomach ulcers that afflicted him just as they had her father for so many years.
But was proving all the doctors in London wrong really worth allowing herself into the presence of a man who had kept something so disastrous from her?
“No, Flit, it isn’t,” she said aloud, dropping down into a crouch to greet her beloved pet, the only male who had never given her any reason to be wary. “No man is worth sacrificing my self-worth.”
Flit looked at her with a cocked head, his large brown eyes gazing deep into hers as though he wanted desperately to understand what she was saying.
Still teary-eyed and frustrated, Melissa knew there was no way she could sleep yet. She ruffled Flit’s fluffy head and said, “Let’s go and see what we can find in the kitchen.”
Maybe a late-night snack with her furry companion would help her forget everything else.
If only the mind and the heart were as easily cured as the rest of the body. Maybe then she would be able to release all the emotions that were clawing at her insides.
One day I’ll find some trick,she thought, knowing if she tried long and hard enough, she would steel herself against all the wounds men had inflicted upon her over the years.
Chapter 19
Elijah wasn’t at all sure how to feel about what had happened in his bed chambers with Lady Belmont. He had tossed and turned over the situation for most of the night, his stomach cramps eased by the tonic she had made him, only to be worsened by his inability to stop thinking of her.
And it was for that reason alone that he was still abed the next morning when Harold came to knock upon his door.
He could imagine how terrible he must look after such a sleepless night, and it was clear from how Harold looked at him that he was immediately concerned when he came to stand at the end of the bed.
“Should I send for Doctor Wallis again, cousin?” Harold asked, looking down at Elijah, where he had barely managed to sit up against a mountain of pillows. “You look dreadful.”
“Do not trouble the man, and do not worry yourself over me,” Elijah protested with a firm shake of his head. After a sleepless night, the last thing he wanted was to deal with whatever advice Doctor Wallis would try to inflict upon him.
Harold did not look entirely convinced that the man’s presence was not needed, but he sighed and wandered across the room. Elijah cringed slightly when his cousin pulled back the drapes, allowing fresh morning light to filter through the windows.
“I have sent word to your parents on your behalf,” Harold explained, turning back to the bed to look him in the eye. The moment he spoke, bile rose in the back of Elijah’s throat.
“Whatever did you do that for?” Elijah asked, trying his hardest to keep his cool. His hands tightened in the bed sheets, and he had to grit his teeth to stop himself from yelling.
“I felt they deserved to know of your accident yesterday,” Harold stated, raising an eyebrow. He looked as though he was searching Elijah’s expression, likely probing for any hint that Elijah had already sent word to his parents. The viscount could think of nothing worse. His mother already worried about him enough.
“If I had wanted them to know, I would have sent word myself,” Elijah said through gritted teeth.
