When Beauty Tamed the Beast

The doors swung closed on the sound of her voice.

Chapter Fourteen

Gavan was sitting up in his bed when Linnet put her head in the door of the infirmary some time later. He smiled a big gap-toothed smile and shouted “Hey, miss!”

There was a groan from the bed next to him.

“Mr. Hammerhock, how are you feeling?” Linnet asked.

“His fever broke,” Gavan reported. “His face is still all mucky, though, and his tongue isn’t too good. The doctor came along and tried to get him to say yes a bunch of times ’cause he likes how he says it.”

“What?” Linnet asked, confused.

“He says weth, don’t you, Mr. Hammerhock?” Gavan said. “And that makes the doctor laugh. Me too.”

Mr. Hammerhock grunted.

“Anyway, he’s going to live, that’s what the doctor said.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Linnet said. “See, Gavan, not everybody is—”

“Can you take me out now?” he interrupted. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you. Who knows what Rufus is doing? We need to go see him.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be out of bed,” Linnet said.

“The doctor said that he can start walking today,” came a stern voice behind her.

Linnet scrambled to her feet. “Nurse Matilda?”

The woman standing by the bed was wearing a leather apron that went to her knees. She had a black knob of hair on top of her head, a white knob for a nose, and a very long chin. In short, she looked rather terrifying.

“My name is Mrs. Havelock,” she replied, witheringly.

“I’m so sorry.” Linnet found herself babbling. “Lord Marchant referred to someone as Nurse Matilda, but of course he has more than one nurse, as there are so many patients.”

“The doctor refers to me as such because of his impertinent and foolish ways,” Mrs. Havelock said. She didn’t bother to add but you may not. “I am not a dry nurse, but the housekeeper for this wing. Now if you’re taking young Gavan out of doors, you may not take him to the stable. I don’t want him returned with a single flea on his body. That boy is a magnet, a flea magnet.”

Gavan piped up. “We won’t go near a flea. Miss will just take me down to the pool again to look at the purty water.” His eyes were shining with all the fervor of a missionary before the Pearly Gates.

Mrs. Havelock grunted. Apparently the halo was invisible to her. “I’d say no, but he’s driving my other patients mad. I want him out.”

“Don’t give my bed away,” Gavan said, his face falling.

Linnet waved at Neythen, whom she’d stationed at the door. “If you could pick up young Master Gavan, Neythen, we’ll get out of Mrs. Havelock’s way. I’m sure she has a busy morning ahead of her.”

Mrs. Havelock gave her a scathing look that made Linnet suddenly realize just how different a beaten leather apron looked in comparison to a pale yellow morning gown adorned with cherry ribbons.

But she gave the housekeeper a deliberate, defiant smile. It wasn’t her fault that she’d been born into a family that thought one could easily spend the morning paying calls, the afternoon sorting ribbons—not to mention buying more ribbons—and the evening galloping around a ballroom.

Any more than Mrs. Havelock had chosen to be born into a family that apparently enabled—or forced—her to hold a position in Piers’s hospital. And it was absurd to feel even the slightest twinge of jealousy about that.

“Do you take care of all the patients in this wing by yourself?”

“Certainly not,” Mrs. Havelock said. “That would be most improper. I am assisted by maids and male orderlies.” Clearly she thought that Linnet was constitutionally worthless; she turned around without a farewell.

Of course they didn’t go to the pool. Neythen deposited Gavan in the stable and then returned to his duties in the castle, promising to come back in an hour. Linnet sat on a rough wooden bench while Gavan played with Rufus.

“He looks different,” Gavan said. “Don’t you think he looks happier now that he has me?”

Linnet looked at the dog. Rufus didn’t have much fur, but what he had stuck straight out. One ear poked up, and the other seemed to have been bitten in half at some point in the distant past. His tail bent sharply to the right, so it wagged only on that side of his body. “He is not beautiful.”

“He is beautiful,” Gavan protested. “You’re just not looking at him the right way.”

“What’s the right way?” Linnet asked.

“You have to look at the doggy bits of him.”

Rufus sat down and panted. “Well, he has a very long tongue,” Linnet observed.

“He has, hasn’t he? It’s a pink tongue too, that’s the best for a dog. I think we should give him a bath. You know Mrs. Havelock doesn’t like fleas. And I think he might have them. See how he’s scratching?”

He was, indeed, scratching.

“That’s because he needs a bath,” Gavan said. “We should give him a bath, miss.”

She could just imagine that. “I don’t think you should get wet at this stage in your recovery. Perhaps we could ask one of the footmen to do it.”

“Good morning, Miss Thrynne.”

It wasn’t Piers. Of course it wasn’t Piers, because he had important work to do. It was odd that his father’s voice was so similar, though, when they looked entirely different. And it was more than odd—just plain stupid—that Linnet’s heart had leaped at the sound of that voice.

She jumped up and curtsied before the duke. “How are you, Your Grace? May I introduce Gavan, and his dog Rufus?”

Gavan looked up. “Yergrace is a funny sort of name.”

“He’s a duke,” Linnet explained. “That’s how he’s addressed.”

Gavan nodded and went back to scratching Rufus’s stomach.

“I’m afraid there’s nowhere to sit except this bench,” Linnet said, sitting back down. She was tired after the swimming lesson. “Did you come to see how your horses are faring?”

The duke sat down on the other end of the bench. “I had to leave the house.”

Linnet thought he probably meant that Lady Bernaise was in the drawing room, but she didn’t know precisely what to say. And then she realized that the duke had buried his face in his hands, so she reached out and touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“The mistakes were all mine.” A tear dropped from between his fingers.

A voice slashed through the air, making Linnet look up with a jolt. “Isn’t this cozy?”

How could she have thought that Piers’s voice was like the duke’s? It was entirely different: darker, stronger, more manly—angrier.

“Gavan is acquiring new fleas,” Piers continued, “and dear Dad is acquiring new friends. We’re all happy, happy, happy. It must be your influence, Beauty.”

“Don’t call me that!” she said fiercely.

“It must be your influence,” he repeated, thumping his cane.

“Don’t be such an ass,” she retorted.

The duke took a deep breath and dropped his hands. His eyes were red and glossy. “You told me never to apologize to you again. But—”