Someone to Wed

“She is so happy,” the young man said, “that she has gone out just when I was expected home and taken the girls with her.”

She clucked her tongue. “She is at Hinsford, worrying herself silly about you, Mr. Harry,” she said. “And Lady—And Miss Abigail too. They sent you home from that nasty heathen place, then, did they?”

“Kicking and screaming,” he said cheerfully. “I got a sword cut on my arm again. A mere scratch is all it was, but then it turned putrid and I got the damned fever and dashed near died. When I didn’t, they packed me up and sent me home. Colonel’s orders until I am better. He doesn’t want to see my ugly face for at least two months, he told me. And here I am, fit as a fiddle and half a world away from my men, where I ought to be. It’s a lark out there, you know.”

By the time he had finished babbling they had him in his room, had stripped him of his coat and hauled off his boots, and had him lying on his bed. The butler had gone off to send someone running for the physician, the housekeeper had opened a window to let in some fresh air, and two maids had come hurrying in, one with a bowl of water, the other with cloths in her hand and towels over her arm.

Half an hour later Wren was alone with the young man, the door of the bedchamber open behind her. Mr. Lifford had gone downstairs to await the arrival of the physician, the maids had gone about their duties, and the housekeeper was in the kitchens supervising the making of nourishing broths and jellies for Captain Westcott. Wren was bathing his face with cool, wet cloths and listening to his increasingly delirious ramblings. His right arm, she had seen through the sleeve of his shirt as soon as his coat came off, was heavily bandaged from shoulder to wrist. If the physician did not come soon, she would have to change those dressings herself. She very much doubted it had been done recently.

She turned with some relief when she heard a light tap on the door, expecting to see either the physician or—please, please—her betrothed. The man standing in the doorway, however, was decidedly not the latter and could not possibly be the former. He was not a tall man. Indeed, he was several inches shorter than she. But he was a man who somehow filled the room with his presence even though he had not stepped quite into it yet. He was blond haired, handsome, exquisitely tailored, and decorated with rings on several fingers, a jewel that winked in his intricately tied neckcloth, and chains and fobs at his waist. He looked gorgeous and powerful and somehow dangerous. He was holding a silver quizzing glass halfway to his eye but beheld the scene before him through lazy, heavy-lidded eyes without its aid. She knew instantly who he must be, just as she had known who Harry Westcott was, and felt more exposed than she had for days and weeks. Her veil might have been a hundred miles away for the amount of good it could do her now. Her hand—the one that was not holding the wet cloth—came up to cover the left side of her face.

“Netherby at your service, Miss Heyden,” he said in a weary voice as he strolled into the room and approached the bed. “I suppose that is who you are. Lifford sent a runner for me, and apparently the lad really did run. Perhaps Lifford has forgotten that I am no longer Harry’s guardian since he passed the age of majority several months ago. But I was in the act of leaving the house when the runner came, so here I am.” He turned his attention then to the young man in the bed. “You have a bit of a fever, do you, Harry?” He set the backs of perfectly manicured fingers against the captain’s brow, Wren having stepped to one side.

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Avery?” the captain said irritably. “If you have come to stop me from enlisting, you can damned well forget it. I want to be an army man. I like the military life. And you are not my guardian any longer.”

“For which blessing I shall offer up a special prayer of thanks tonight,” the Duke of Netherby said. “I came to cool your fevered brow, Harry, though Miss Heyden appears to have been doing an admirable job of it without me. I hope you have not been unleashing similar language upon her to what you are using on me.”

“I damned well have not,” Captain Westcott said testily. “I know how to speak to ladies. If you want to be useful, Avery, stop the wardrobe and the dressing table from walking about the room, will you? It’s dashed unnerving.”

“I shall have a word with them,” the duke said, and looked at Wren. “I take it Cousins Althea and Elizabeth are from home, as well as Riverdale? I apologize for this unexpected intrusion upon your privacy by yet two more members of your betrothed’s family, Miss Heyden. I understand that you are something of a recluse.”

“I agreed to meet you all on my wedding day,” Wren said. “That is only three days away.” She was still holding her hand over the left side of her face.

The duke took the cloth from her other hand, dipped it in the water, squeezed it out, and spread it over the young man’s brow. “We all have things about ourselves that we would rather hide than display,” he said softly, more as if he were speaking to his former ward than to Wren. “I grew up small, puny, timid, and pretty, and I was unleashed upon a boys’ school when I was eleven.”

She could only imagine what that must have been like. Boys’ private schools—though they were called paradoxically public schools—were reputed to be brutal. She wondered how he had come from there to here, for though he was still small and slight of build and beautiful to look upon, there was not the merest suggestion of puniness or timidity or effeminacy about him. Quite the opposite.

“One either succumbs,” he continued, “or … one does not. I think perhaps you are in the process of not succumbing. Why else would you have agreed to take breakfast on your wedding day with strangers who just happen to be related to your prospective groom?” He dipped the cloth and wrung out the excess water again. “It sounds as if the physician may have come ambling along at last.”

It was not he, however. It was the Earl of Riverdale who appeared in the doorway, taking in the scene before his eyes.

“How is he?” he asked, flicking a glance at Wren.

“Alex?” Captain Westcott turned his head on the pillow. “What the devil are you doing here? Is a man’s own room not his private domain any longer? I am supposed to resent you, aren’t I? Can’t remember why, though. I’ve never had anything against you. Where are Mama and the girls? Why are all these people in my room?”

“Because you have come home safely from the Peninsula, Harry,” the earl said, moving closer to the bed, “and we are happy to see you. Your mother and Abigail will be here soon. They are coming for my wedding to Miss Heyden in three days’ time. At least, I trust they are. Camille is in Bath with her husband and children. I understand from Lifford that a physician has been summoned. Is his fever high?” The last question was directed to Wren.

“Yes,” she said, lowering her hand at last. “He has a wound on his right arm that needs to be cleansed and dressed again.”

“If you would care to withdraw from the room to spare your blushes, Miss Heyden,” the Duke of Netherby said, “Riverdale and I will contrive to undress Harry and make him more comfortable. And ourselves too, I hope. You do not exactly smell like a rose, my lad.”

Wren went to her room. A few minutes later she heard what must surely have been the arrival of the physician. Another half hour passed before the Earl of Riverdale tapped on her door.