When Beauty Tamed the Beast

Page 61

The pool glimmered in front of her, exquisite blue, cool and refreshing. And there was Piers, his lean, sardonic, lovable face grinning at her.
For that moment, before the fever called for her again, she concentrated on loving him, the way he made his fierce way through life, in agony but never stopping. The way he smiled. The intelligence in his eyes.
He never gives up, she thought. Little speckles, black speckles, were gathering before her eyes so that she could hardly see the weather-beaten boards at the bottom of her pallet.
Then the fever claimed her, and her eyes closed again.
Chapter Thirty
The next day
By mid morning there was no question but that the epidemic was contained. Only three new patients arrived at the castle, and they weren’t in extremis.
For the first time since the epidemic began, Sébastien and Piers actually paused for luncheon, falling into chairs in the small parlor, where Prufrock served them braised chicken and glasses of wine.
“This is civilized,” Piers said with a sigh. “Have you brought some of this to my parents, Prufrock?”
“Yes, my lord,” Prufrock said. “His Grace came out to bring it inside, once I had moved back a safe distance, of course.” He cleared his throat. “He seemed quite happy.”
“Lucky bastard,” Piers said. “She’s forgiven him.” And somehow, he had too. Life was what it was. It was time to put away his rage at his father and simply get on with it, defective leg and all.
“Happily ever after,” Sébastien said, taking a deep draught of wine. “Christ, it feels good to be clean again. I didn’t want to get out of that bath.”
Prufrock offered Piers a plate of tender, young asparagus. “Dr. Bitts is out of bed. He’s still quite weak, but his man reports that he is asking questions about the patients.”
“Bitts,” Piers said moodily. “He’s not a bad doctor, especially for a gentleman. Better than Penders. That fool came up with an infusion of roses yesterday for cleansing patients’ tongues. I couldn’t see any harm to it, but no benefit either.”
“I think gentlemen make the best doctors,” Sébastien said. “Look at the two of us.” He grinned, exhaustion shadowing his eyes, but still triumphant. “We did a hell of a job with the scarlatina outbreak, Piers. And it didn’t even involve cutting off people’s limbs, which is what we’re best at. Or I am, at any rate.”
“We’re an anomaly,” Piers said, swirling his wine and trying not to think about Linnet. Which was futile, because the only time he didn’t think about her was when he was actively working on a patient. “Most men, like Bitts, at home in the ballroom, aren’t—”
He stopped.
Bitts . . . dancing with Linnet, laughing down at her. Bending his neck toward her. Breathing on her. Every night, almost every night. He shoved back from the table so hard that his chair fell over. “Linnet!”
Sébastien opened his mouth.
“She danced with Bitts. I’m a bloody, bloody fool. She danced with Bitts the night before he fell ill, and then she left in that carriage by herself.” The blood was gone from his head; he felt dizzy. “Where’s my cane, where’s my perishing cane?”
It had fallen to the floor. Prufrock rushed to pick it up. Sébastien was standing now too, frowning.
“Bitts’s symptoms appeared the next day,” Piers said hoarsely. “The next day, Seb! She could be anywhere, sick. She could be—”
He turned, pushed Prufrock out of his way so roughly that the butler fell back against the sideboard. “I’m going after her.”
“Wait!” Sébastien shouted. “We have to think this through.”
“There’s nothing to think through,” Piers said. Panic was pouring through him like quicksilver, burning in his veins. “I’m going after her. Get my coat, you fool,” he snapped at a footman. “Prufrock, a carriage. The fastest we’ve got. The curricle.”
“You don’t know where she is,” Sébastien protested. “What route she took to London. You can’t take a curricle all the way to London.”
“I’ll ask my father for the route. And if she dies because he allowed her to travel alone, I’ll come back here and kill him.”
“Piers!”
He ignored Sébastien’s shout, running down the castle steps, watching his cane carefully to make sure that he didn’t misstep.
The duke came out of the guardhouse and turned white when he heard Piers’s explanation. “The road to the Swansea,” he said. “I told the servants to wait for her in Llanddowll.”
“Llanddowll or Llanddowrr?” Piers demanded.
The duke grew even paler. “I think I said Llanddowll. I’m not sure.”
“Llanddowrr makes more sense; it’s on the road north to Carmarthen.” Piers pivoted on his heel and thrust himself back up the path to the castle. It was his nightmare, all over again. Trying to get down the path, up the path, it was all the same, and too slow because of his bloody leg, unable to save her.
The carriage was ready and waiting in front of the castle, four fresh horses attached.
“That’s not a curricle,” Piers snarled at Prufrock, who was standing at the coach’s door.
Sébastien ran down the castle steps. “You don’t know where she is. If she’s caught scarlet fever from Bitts—and there’s a good chance she hasn’t, as your mother seems perfectly well—still, if she has contracted it, she’d have had the first symptoms within a day’s journey. Two days at the most. But you’re not going to find her so close, Piers.”
“Why not?” he snapped.
“Because she’s not ill. If she were, the duke’s servants would have brought her back directly. They would have sent someone here on horseback, if she were too ill to be moved. It’s been six days. Even if she hadn’t fallen ill until the second day, someone would have brought us news by now. They’re not all sick. None of them danced with Bitts.”
Piers stopped, one foot on the carriage’s step. “Seven days since she left, not six. They could have gone a long way before she felt symptoms. Some patients are—Oh. I see. No curricle as I might have to go all the way to London. I understand.”
Sébastien put a hand on his shoulder. “She’s not ill, Piers. They continued on to London, and she’s there, safe and sound, waiting for you.”
“You can’t know for sure.” Piers swung up into the carriage.
“You will never know for sure if she’s dead or alive unless you keep her near you all the time,” Sébastien said with perfect, if maddening, accuracy.
Piers threw himself into a seat. His cousin handed a satchel through the coach door. “Take this. Just in case . . . all the salves the orderlies have been using, though I’ve no idea if they work. A bit of frothing mash, even a jar of Penders’s acidulated rose water. Do you want footmen?”
“You can’t spare them,” Piers said. “Neythen is still in bed. I’ll be fine with Buller.” He put the satchel on the seat beside him.
“I’m convinced she’s fine, and you won’t need that, but do go fetch her.” Sébastien was grinning. “We’ll be all right here.”