Chapter 14
If it wasn't one thing, it was another that conspired to rob Fiona of sleep. She was concerned that her leg was not healing as quickly as she had hoped. It had been a month now, and despite that she had not put her weight on the leg, she was never free from throbbing pain. In addition to the woes of her infirmity, now she was upset by her obtuse brother. His snub of her husband was simply intolerable. As she lay alone in her bed, the crackle of the fire the only noise in the room, she held a dozen imaginary conversations with Randy. He must allow himself to get to know Nick, for to know Nick was to admire him. But what could she do to lubricate the process? She had already admitted her deep affection for Nick, and that had only served to rankle her wretchedly snobbish brother all the more.
Perhaps Randy would soften when he saw how well the
ton
would accept Nick once they began to entertain on the lavish scale she had planned. She was assured the grand ladies and gentlemen who inhabited Mayfair would flock to Menger House, if for no other reason than to see the finest townhouse in all of London.
Miss Peabody's come-out would be sure to draw any number of peers because Rebecca Peabody was, after all, connected by marriage to Lord Warwick. Warwick's statureânow that he'd become foreign secretaryâwas such that he moved in the most exalted circles. He was even a confidante of the Prince Regent himself.
Incredibly weary but utterly incapable of sleep, Fiona waited for Nick to come to bed. After several hours her fire went out and, clutching the bed coverings up to her neck, she shivered all the way to her bones. Why had Nick not come? She suddenly realized she'd forgotten that he said they would sleep in his bed. No wonder he hadn't come to her chambers. He must think she had no desire to sleep with him.
She managed to slip from the bed without putting her weight on her broken leg, then she eased herself into the invalid's chair and rolled to the chair where she had tossed her Kashmir shawl earlier in the evening. Still shaking with cold, she directed her chair toward Nick's chambers, deciding to go by way of the hallway rather than through their crowded, carpeted dressing rooms. Wheels, she had learned, glided much more easily over hard surfaces.
Once she was in the hallway, she heard a child's muffled cries. Panic struck her.
Emmie!
What could be wrong with the child? Her heart leaping to her chest, she bolted from the invalid's chair and sped to Emmie's room at the end of the hall, careful to keep most of her weight on the good leg.
Inside the little girl's room there was just enough firelight for Fiona to see the child sitting up in her bed, her little fists jammed into her eye sockets, sobbing. “Pray, love, what's the matter?” Fiona asked, collapsing on the bed.
“I want to go back to my other house,” Emmie said in a forlorn little voice.
Poor lass. She was afraid to sleep in the strange new room. “But this is your new house,” Fiona said softly. “You're understandably upset because this is unfamiliar to you, and it's dark and quiet, and you're alone. I promise that once you get used to it, you won't be frightened anymore.”
The little girl shook her head, her rumpled tresses scattering. “I want to go back.”
“But, love, there's no one left at the old house. You'd be all alone.”
“Miss Beckham could come.”
“That wouldn't be fair to her, to take her away from all her other friends.”
“Please, can't I go back? I don't wish to be here.”
Fiona held out her arms, and Emmie flowed into her embrace. All of Fiona's senses awakened to the feel of this child, to her sweet, herbal scent. “Don't you like your lovely new room?”
“I only like it in the daytime,” Emmie whimpered. “Not at night.”
“Would you feel better if I lit some candles?”
Emmie shook her head emphatically.
Fiona's first instinct was to summon Miss Beckham to sleep in the child's room until Emmie became used to her new surroundings, but she decided that rousing the poor governess from her sleep was too cruel.
“Would you like to come to my room and sleep with me?” Fiona asked, sweeping lazy circles on Emmie's heaving back.
The little girl sucked in a deep, quivering breath and nodded, the last of her tears sliding down her reddened cheek.
“Come along then.” Fiona began to limp toward her chambers, Emmie clutching her nightshift. When they reached Fiona's door, she instructed the child to wait for her right there. “I've got to go tell your Papa something. I shall be right back.”
To allay Nick's concerns, Fiona sank back into the invalid's chair for the short trip to his chambers. She had to see him, to speak to him before she could sleep. Nick must not think she hadn't desired to share his bed.
When she entered his room her glance darted to his huge, curtained bed that had belonged to a French prince. It was dressed in royal blue silks that were illuminated by bedside candles. “Nick?” she called softly, but there was no answer. Only an eerie silence. She came closer to the bed and discovered it had not been slept in. Could he have gone out for the evening?
Disappointed, she returned to Emmie, who stood just inside Fiona's doorway. “Come, love, climb up on my nice, big bed,” Fiona said.
Having made a miraculous recovery from her hysterics, the child settled her head on the pillow closest to the window. “Winnie used to sleep with me when I was sick,” she said wistfully.
Winnie had likely been the only person to ever show the child real affectionâexcept for Nick, but men never concerned themselves with a child's emotional needs.
“She used to tell me stories, too,” Emmie said, her mouth puckering into a pout.
Fiona smiled down at the child. “Should you like me to tell you a story?”
“Ever so much.” A radiant smile transformed Emmie's solemn face. It was such a delicate face with a dusting of freckles across her nose, a fringe of feathery lashes, and a dimple in one cheek. Just like her father.
“What story should you like to hear?”
“
The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse
.”
That had been a great favorite of Stephen's. “I used to tell that story to my younger brother,” Fiona said.
“Is he little like me?”
“Not anymore. He's twenty years old now and at university, but when he was your age, he loved the mouse story. I know it by heart.”
“So do I,” Emmie said in her wispy little voice.
“Then perhaps you should tell it to me,” Fiona teased.
Emmie shook her head. “Please, My Lady, you tell it.”
With a smile on her face, Fiona reached to stroke her palm along the child's bouncy curls. “Very well.”
As Fiona told Emmie the story, the child's eyelids became heavy, and before she had finished, Emmie was fast asleep. The crying must have worn out the poor child. For a few minutes Fiona peered into the little girl's angelic face, her heart wrenching. Then she lifted the covers up to Emmie's shoulders and bent to press a whispery kiss on her brow.
The sound of the child's breathing was oddly comforting, yet Fiona still could not sleep. She missed Nick dreadfully. Had he stormed from his room after not finding her there? Did he think she had no desire for him? Or, worse still, had he sensed her brother's hostility and thought her guilty of the same bigotry? Her eyes began to mist. How could Nick not realize how much she was coming to love him?
For the next several hours she tormented herself, wondering where Nick could have gone. The very idea that he might have slaked his physical hunger between the thighs of Diane Foley made Fiona ill. She cursed herself for breaking the leg, for driving him away. She vowed to never again retire at night earlier than he. She cautioned herself to never say or do anything that would point to any disparity in their stations. Then she lay in the dark gently weeping until sleep finally released her.
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It was the bloody discomfort that woke Nick early the next morning. He had no notion of where he wasâ even after he awakened, which was understandable, given that he'd not yet familiarized himself with his new surroundings. As he came fully awake he realized he was folded in a deuced uncomfortable chair in the library of Menger House. He bolted up, every muscle in his body crying out in protest. “Bloody hell!” He had allowed himself to get so bosky he hadn't even made it to bed.
Thank God he'd awakened on his own. He wouldn't have liked for a servant to find him in this condition. He had no sympathy for those who overindulged, and he certainly would not expect his servants to respect a man who carried on in such a manner.
He was grateful, too, that Fiona had not found him like this.
Shoving a hand through his disheveled hair, he cursed, then painfully raised himself from the damned chair. He went first to his bedchamber. Would Fiona be there? Would she be worried? Angry with himself, he suddenly realized Fiona would not have been able to come down the stairs without someone carrying her in the sedan chair. He hoped to God she had gone to sleep before his tardiness caused her to miss him.
Stepping into his bedchamber, he was mildly disappointed not to find her there. The silken bed coverings that Ware had turned down the night before were undisturbed, the bedside candle completely burned down, like the fire in the ashen grate. Had she forgotten he wished them to sleep in his bed? Or had the headache that sent her to bed early caused her absence from his bed?
Good Lord! What if she'd been lying sick in her room all night, awaiting him? He tore off toward her chambers, fairly flying through the connecting dressing rooms and flinging open her chamber door.
She stirred, then came up from her mattress on one elbow to face him. “Nick!” Her eyes trailed over the dark shadow of beard on his face and over his mussed clothes. “You're just coming in?”
He tensed for a moment. He disliked telling her the truth, afraid he would lose her respect. Yet he disliked lying more. What if one of the servants
had
seen him sprawled drunkenly in the library and that information got back to Fiona? “I'm ashamed to admit I spent the night in my libraryâafter drinking too much.”
Her brows collapsed. “I thought you abhorred those who overindulge.”
He gave a disgusted grunt.
She patted the bed beside her.
Relief flooded him. She was not disgusted by him. He came to drop a kiss on her cheek, then sank onto the mattress beside her, breathing in her lavender scent. Her elegance in a skimpy nightshift never failed to heat his blood. As lovely as she was on their wedding day, she was ten times more beautiful within rumpled sheets, with rumpled hair, her milky flesh as smooth as satin.
“I was so worried about you,” she said, “and to think you were here all along!”
Could it be possible she worried over him as he worried over her? “Forgive me for making you worry.” As he drank in Fiona's fair loveliness he became aware that she was not alone in the bed. He stiffened, his heart hammering, his suspicious thoughts scrambling.
Then, rubbing her eyes and yawning, Emmie poked up her little head. The air swished from his lungs. “What in the world is the muffin doing here?” he asked.
A smile arching across her little face, Emmie sat up and addressed her father. “I was frightened last night, and my new motherâ” She turned to apologize to Fiona. “I mean My Lady said I could sleep with her.”
He gave his daughter a mock scowl. “You came to Lady Fiona's room?”
Fiona, her face solemn yet kindly, reached out to trail her hand along Emmie's sable hair. “No, I heard her crying and went to her. The poor little lamb was frightened in her new surroundings.”
His heart overflowed with the love he held for these two females who lazily stretched out before him within the silken bed coverings. He'd swelled with pride as he watched Fiona's delicate hands stroke Emmie's hair, as her voice softened when she spoke to the child who was so precious to him.
“I want to go back to my other house,” Emmie said.
“That's nonsense,” Nick said sternly. “This is your new house, and there's nothing wrong with it.”
“Until she gets used to it,” Fiona said, “we can ask that Miss Beckham sleep in her room.”
“Why didn't you ask her last night?” Nick demanded.
“It was after midnight, and I didn't wish to awaken her.”
“She's a servant!”
“Now you sound like my wretched brother!” Fiona said, frowning.
Her brother who thought only one class of people mattered.
Fiona had done well to put Nick in his place. “I take it you refer to Lord Agar.”
“I'm sorry I brought him up.”
Her anguished words conveyed so much that remained unspoken. Their minds were beginning to blend like those who had been married for half a century. He reached out to tenderly touch his index finger along her perfect nose, to touch her full lips. He wished Emmie weren't here so he could be intimate with his wife. “Is your headache gone?”