Still, he remembered how Cecelia had looked at him, the affection and gratitude that had shone in her gaze as they had crouched over her sodden, half-drowned sister.
He could not quite bring himself to believe that it was over just yet.
Perhaps Elizabeth might actually have given him the courage he needed to look past his stubbornness. And, he would forever be thankful to her for it.
Chapter 25
“Catherine, you must stay in bed!” Cecelia scolded as her sister tried for what felt like the hundredth time to escape her confinement.
“But I feel fine!” Catherine protested, her tone little more than a whine.
Cecelia and Mary glanced at each other, rolling their eyes before Cecelia urged Catherine back beneath the sheets with one word, “Bed.”
Catherine threw herself back into the mountain of pillows and crossed her arms across her chest.
“You two have never been any fun,” she snapped, sticking out her tongue like a petulant child, and Cecelia was once more reminded of her tender age, of the young age at which they might have lost her yesterday.
“I do not think there is anything fun about your near drowning, sister,” Cecelia sighed. She perched on the edge of the bed and brushed back her sister's hair from her face. “If you were to catch a chill now, Mama would never let you leave the house again.”
“If you do not let me up and about soon, the lake shall thaw, and I shall not be able to skate for another year,” Catherine protested.
Cecelia's insides tied in knots. “I do not believe there shall be any skating for the rest of us, ever.”
Catherine's eyes widened.
“Do not say such a thing!”
“If you do not listen to Cece, Mama will surely prevent us from doing anything fun for the rest of our lives,” Mary insisted. She crossed the room from where she had been warming her hands beside the fireplace.
“Besides, the weather is terrible this morning,” she continued, perching on the opposite side of the bed. “I am quite envious of your being allowed to stay abed.”
At that, Catherine looked hopeful. “I shall gladly swap with you.”
Mary offered a stern look, shaking her head. “Well played.”
Together, all three sisters laughed.
They were disturbed by the sound of gentle knocking upon the door.
“Come in,” Cecelia called as Mary clambered closer to Catherine on the bed and wrapped her arms around her.
“If you cannot get out of bed, I shall join you.” She laughed, and Cecelia smiled as she playfully began to tickle their youngest sibling.
Cecelia rose from her seat on the bed as the door opened to reveal a maid.
“My Lady,” the woman greeted her, dipping a low curtsey. “I wished to know if you might have need of anything.”
Cecelia suspected that, no doubt, her mother had sent the poor young woman all the way up there to enquire, and so she did not have the heart to turn her away without instruction.
Though they had no desperate need for anything, she suggested, “Perhaps another blanket?”
“Of course, My Lady,” the maid said, and with that, she left the room once more, returning only a few minutes later with said blanket.
“Your mother also wished me to remind you of Lord Greystone's visit, My Lady,” the maid said as she placed the blanket on the end of the bed and positioned it so that it covered Catherine's legs.
Cecelia grimaced. “Do not tell me he is still here.”
The nobleman had arrived just after dawn to enquire as to Catherine's health, and though Cecelia herself had gone to tell him she was well before excusing herself to tend to her sister, it appeared he had not got the hint she had no time for callers right now.
