“Is Lady Katharine well, my lord?” Filber asked, his voice softening.
“She will be much better soon, Filber.” He couldn’t prevent his eyes from straying momentarily to the closed drawing-room doors.
“If you pardon my saying so, my lord, all of us here wish Lady Katharine the very best. If you would be so kind, my lord, as to give her our regards.”
Julien strode down the front steps and without a backward glance mounted his horse.
It was late in the afternoon when the sound of Julien’s voice reached Kate through the half-open door of her bedchamber. She heard his sure stride on the staircase, the sound of his Hessian boots, and she stood rubbing her sweaty palms on her skirt, in an agony of indecision. Oh, dear God, she couldn’t see him, not yet.
Her instincts for survival drove her into action. “Milly, quickly, go to the door and tell his lordship that I’m not well, no, that I wasn’t well, but I am well now. Yes, now I’m asleep. Go, now, hurry.”
She tugged off her dressing gown, threw it to the floor, and scrambled into her bed.
“Yes, my lady,” Milly said, moving as quickly as her plump figure would allow to the door of the countess’s bedchamber. She shot a furtive glance over her shoulder at her young mistress, now burrowed beneath mounds of covers, her eyes tightly closed. Milly gulped and stepped into the hallway, her nervous fingers closing the door behind her. Like most of the newer members of the St. Clair household, she was completely in awe of the earl, and as he approached nearer and nearer to her, she began to feel almost incoherent, her tongue lying thick in her mouth. She couldn’t lie to him, she couldn’t. But what choice did she have?
“Good afternoon, Milly,” the earl said politely. She bobbed in front of him, not once but at least three times. He motioned with an elegant gloved hand to the closed door. “Is the countess in her room?”
“Yes, my lord.” As the earl made to move past her, she rushed into desperate speech. “Ah, but her ladyship isn’t well, my lord, that’s it, she’s quite ill, at least she was a few minutes ago, but now she’s sleeping, soundly, my lord, very soundly.” Milly bore up rather well, she thought later, under the earl’s close scrutiny, but at that moment she was aware only that her stays were much too tight. She shifted her weight to her other booted foot and looked at him hopefully.
“Very well,” he said.
Milly breathed a sigh of relief, but to her consternation, the earl moved to the door and quietly opened it. She wondered frantically whether she would be able to secure another such excellent position as this.
He looked into Kate’s room, now bathed in the somber gray late-afternoon light. A lone candle cast its withered light above the mantel, blending in curious patterns with the smooth orange glow of the fire. He could still picture his mother sitting on her favored spindle chair— a damned uncomfortable chair— remorselessly plying her needle into a swatch of material that never seemed to become anything. Only Kate’s collection of hairbrushes scattered across the dresser top gave proof that another now occupied the bedchamber. He stood silently, hoping to see some movement from the bed, but the blue-velvet goosedown quilt remained firmly in place. He could make out only the general outlines of her still figure, the rich hair fanning out about her face on the silk pillow giving her Kate’s identity. He stepped forward, stopped, and again retreated. Her dressing gown was on the floor. That was odd, surely. He frowned, started forward again, then halted. No, it would be better not to awaken her, he decided, pulling the door closed behind him. The maid, Milly, still stood where he had left her, like a small, plump pug, parading like a watchdog at his mistress’s door. He raised an inquiring brow.
“Yes, Milly?”
Milly gulped. “Nothing, my lord. That is, if you wish me to remain with her ladyship—”
“No, let her sleep. She will undoubtedly ring if she has need of your assistance.” He nodded dismissal, turned abruptly, and walked to his own room, his greatcoat swirling about his ankles.
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