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“Dealing with her has already put you in bed for a week.”
“You can hardly blame her for that.”
“No, nor for that harebrained journey north in the midst of a snowstorm. That was your fault.”
“It wasn’t snowing when we set out,” Ian said, smiling. “And John brought help as quickly as he could, despite the stable fire. Nothing that happened was her fault. It was simply a combination of unfortunate events.”
“And somehow I have a feeling you are about to embark upon another series of those.”
“I?” Ian asked in astonishment. “I assure you, Val, my life is most circumspect. By necessity, perhaps, but I’m beginning to consider the possibility that I am simply boring by nature.”
“Good,” Dare said. “Until your health is fully restored, I intend to see that you continue to be thoroughly bored. And boring. Now, go back to sleep,” he ordered, picking up his book.
And after four or five minutes of watching Dare studiously pretend to read the same page, Ian felt his eyelids begin to droop. He briefly fought their heaviness, and then finally succumbed to the lure of a world where there were no worries or concerns. Particularly no concerns about a lively redhead, whose assets in the husband hunt were as meager as Dare had suggested.
He would deal with that when he had to, Ian decided, just before he drifted back into the invalid’s world of exhausted sleep.
“Believe me, Mr. Sinclair, I truly wish I could disagree with the opinions of your surgeons. I’m afraid, sir, I must concur with what you were told on the Peninsula. Your lungs were irreparably damaged. They will always be prone to infections. That, in and of itself, however…”
“It is the ‘however’ that concerns you,” Ian Sinclair said.
While he was again being prodded and poked, this time by the man many considered to be the finest physician in England, he had determined that whatever the outcome, this would put an end to it. Whatever McKinley told him, he would accept. And he would live his life, whatever remained of it, exactly as he had lived it before—to the best of his ability.
“The largest piece of shrapnel within your chest is indeed, given its location, impossible to remove. The attempt would kill you outright. Frankly, I can’t understand why it didn’t kill you immediately when you were hit,” McKinley said. “However, if there is anything I have learned through the years, it is that the human body is a remarkable instrument, frequently quite capable of healing itself. If we doctors could let well enough alone,” the physician added, smiling.
Ian returned the smile, recognizing what the Scottish-trained doctor was trying to do. And it wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the effort. It was simply that he preferred his truths unvarnished. Even if the varnishing was intended to make them more palatable.
“Are you suggesting that if we leave it where it is…” Ian began cautiously, knowing this was the only question that mattered. For reasons he chose not to examine right now, it seemed to matter more than it had when he had first been given this same diagnosis more than a year ago.
“It may stay in place for the next forty years, and if it does, you will die an old man, peacefully in your own bed. Or it may shift tomorrow and pierce your heart. In that case…”
He paused, and Ian finished it for him. “In that case, I won’t die an old man, peacefully or otherwise.”
McKinley let the silence build a moment, but he didn’t deny the truth of what his patient had said.
“I should advise you to avoid the kind of physical exertion you recently engaged in. That may not be the life you would have chosen for yourself, Mr. Sinclair, but it is life,” the doctor said. “And much preferable to the alternative, I should think.”
“I appreciate your honesty,” Ian said, fighting the disappointment of a ridiculous hope he hadn’t even realized he had been harboring.
“I take it your brother doesn’t know.”
“I prefer that he never does. What good would it do?”
“He is very anxious about you. Since you have not told him the truth, he quite naturally feels that your convalescence has been unnecessarily slow.”
“And no doubt certain that your well-known skills could remedy the situation.”
“I would that they could, Mr. Sinclair,” McKinley said.
“So do I,” Ian admitted with a smile. “However, since they can’t…And not one of us is guaranteed even one more day, of course. That is a lesson I saw demonstrated quite effectively in Portugal. I have simply received notice to live each of mine as well as I can.”
“I have no doubt that you will. What do you wish me to tell the earl?”
“That he isn’t rid of me yet,” Ian said. “It is, after all, nothing less than the truth.”
“I’m sure he’ll be relieved,” McKinley said. And then, as his patient reached for the bell on the table beside the bed, “Don’t bother the servants. I can see myself back to the parlor. If you have need of my services in the future, do not hesitate to send for me.”
As the door closed behind the physician, the eyes of Ian Sinclair focused on the fine plaster ceiling above his head. The verdict had been nothing he hadn’t known, he told himself.
There were things in his life he regretted, but the actions that had led to his being wounded were not among them. And he would therefore deal with the consequences of them without complaint. It was better, however, that he deal with them alone. He had always known that. Better for him. And much better for his family.
Chapter Four
It had been a very lonely Christmas, Anne thought on the bleak, snowy morning following that equally bleak holiday. Whatever Ian Sinclair had intended when he had brought her to his home, she must believe it had not been this.
Of course, there had been a formal Yuletide dinner last night, which had included all the traditional dishes of the season and which she had eaten in solitary splendor in the dining room. The whole house was decorated quite beyond anything she was accustomed to at Fenton School.
What she was unaccustomed to, however, and the lack of which she had felt most severely, was companionship. She missed the girls. She missed taking care of the younger ones and she had worried about them. She also missed having someone to talk to and with whom to share games and cherished holiday pastimes.
If, as her guardian had indicated, his servants had been looking forward to providing a festive Yuletide celebration for his ward, Anne had not, during the long, lonely days she had spent in his home, been able to detect any sign of that intent. They had probably been disappointed that she was not the child they expected. And it was apparent they held her responsible for Mr. Sinclair’s illness. She didn’t blame them. She, too, considered his condition to be her fault.
The doctor, identifiable by his bag, had come and gone several times during the past eight days. From her bedroom window, worried and anxious about the cause of each visit, she had watched him arrive and depart. And her new guardian’s older brother, the Earl of Dare, had stayed for several days before finally departing this morning.
Neither of them had spoken to her, of course, although she was perhaps the person most in need of information. After all, no one doubted that Mr. Sinclair had been made ill as a direct result of his rescue of her. A rescue that must surely satisfy every longing for adventure she had ever felt.
A longing she would never feel again, Anne vowed. She saw, thankfully only in memory now, the face of the man with the torch, missing tooth revealed by that ghastly, leering smile, and she shivered. And if it hadn’t been for Ian…
For Mr. Sinclair, she corrected. It would not do to presume, even in her thoughts, which had centered, almost exclusively, throughout these long days and nights, around her guardian. And some of those thoughts—
There was a discreet knock on the door, and Anne scrambled off the high bed across which she had been sprawled in unladylike abandon. She straightened her dress and then her hair, tucking in tendrils before she hurried across the room. She even bit her lips and pinched her cheeks to give them some color.
It was not until she was halfway to the door that she realized this visitor could not possibly be her guardian. And she couldn’t imagine for whomever else in this household she might be concerned about her looks. The acknowledgment that she would wish to appear attractive before Ian Sinclair was a clear affirmation that she had spent too much time daydreaming about him in the last few days, she told herself sternly.
She opened the door and was confronted by the disapproving features of Mrs. Martin, the Sinclair family housekeeper. Unfamiliar with the protocol governing the servants in such a large house, Anne wasn’t sure if she should invite the woman in or converse with her standing in the hall.
“Mr. Sinclair wishes to see you, miss. Mind you now, no matter what he says, I won’t have you tiring him out,” the housekeeper warned. “Ten minutes and no more. You understand?”
“Has he been so very ill?” Anne asked, the fear she had lived with through these lonely days rising to block her throat.
“Mr. Sinclair allows no discussion of his health. Those of us who wish to keep our positions in his household learned that long ago. Something for you to remember,” Mrs. Martin added.
The housekeeper turned and bustled forward with an important jingle of keys, passing door after door along the long hallway. Anne followed, wondering exactly what her warning had been meant to convey. That if Anne mentioned Mr. Sinclair’s health, she would be sent back to Fenton School?
An idle threat, considering that during the past week she had pined for its safe familiarity. She regretted the thought as soon as it formed. Whatever Mrs. Martin meant, Mr. Sinclair had risked his life to save hers. And at last, it seemed she would have the opportunity to tell him how grateful she was.
Finally the housekeeper stopped before one of the doors. She leaned her ear against it for a moment before she straightened and knocked.
“Come in,” someone instructed.
Anne couldn’t tell if it had been her guardian’s voice, but she wasn’t given much time to wonder. Mrs. Martin opened the door and indicated with her hand that Anne should step inside.
Only when she had did Anne realize that the housekeeper wasn’t coming in with her. She started to protest, just as the housekeeper stepped away from the door she had opened and started down the hall. Anne drew a fortifying breath and then looked back toward the room she had just entered.
Ian Sinclair was seated in a comfortable chair before the cheerful fire. He was fully dressed, as elegant as the first time she had seen him. Expecting an invalid, perhaps even a dying one, Anne could not have been more surprised had she entered the room and found one of the men who had attacked them that night holding court.
“I understand you have been ill,” she said, walking forward.
There was a small, uncomfortable silence.
“And I wonder who told you that?” her guardian asked.
He sounded as if he really wanted to know. Remembering Mrs. Martin’s warning, Anne understood why. And despite the servants’ coldness, she had no wish to get any of them into trouble.
“After several years of looking after the younger girls, my powers of deduction are well-honed,” she said. “You disappeared the night we arrived, and I haven’t seen you since. In that time, both a physician and your brother have come to the house, the former on several occasions and the latter for a visit of some days. It seemed rather obvious.”
“I’m sure none of your charges were ever able to put anything over on you,” Mr. Sinclair said, laughing.
And then his laughter became hard coughing. Lucy Bates had died last year of such a cough. Of course, Lucy had never been very strong to begin with, Anne reminded herself, remembering the fragile little girl, whose arms and legs had been more like sticks than like the sturdy, rounded limbs of most of her girls.
And just because something terrible had happened to Lucy Bates didn’t mean anything terrible would happen to Mr. Sinclair. She could not, however, control the surge of anxiety as she listened to the deep congestion the cough revealed.
“Are you all right?” she asked finally as it faded.
“Of course,” he said.
His hand was pressed against the center of his chest. However, since Mr. Sinclair preferred it, Anne gave in to the pretense that what had just happened had not happened and that he had not really been very ill at all.
“I have wanted to thank you since that night,” she began, determined to say all the things she should have said then and had not had the chance to say since.
“I truly wish you would not.”
“I owe you my life, Mr. Sinclair. Or at least…”
She almost said my virtue, but then thought that the expression of that reality might be improper. Although she had had a sheltered upbringing, there had been no doubt in her mind about the kind of danger she had faced.
“You owe me nothing of the kind,” he said into her pause. “Quite the reverse, I believe. If you hadn’t taken a hand, the outcome might have been very different. You had an uncomfortable journey and a dangerous encounter with a couple of rogues you should never have been exposed to. On top of that you have spent a lonely holiday in a house full of strangers. I can only promise you that was not my intent and apologize profusely.”
“I am not to express my gratitude for your rescue, and yet you may apologize for a series of things that were not your fault and were undoubtedly beyond your control?”
“As your guardian, I should never have put you in the position of having to be rescued, either from rogues or a broken axle or a snowstorm.”
“And if you had not, I should probably never in my life have seen the outside of Fenton School,” she retorted.
“I take it, then,” he said, smiling at her, genuinely relieved, she realized, “that your experiences have not all been unpleasant.”
The memory of her arms wrapped around his body while they knelt together in the snow brushed through her mind. She supposed that was not the kind of experience Mr. Sinclair meant.
“Indeed they have not. Your home is very lovely.”
“And the servants have seen to your needs?”
Except for the need of company, she thought, but she didn’t say that, either. If he could be gracious, despite his illness, then surely she could manage not to mention that she had indeed been both bored and lonely in his home.
“Yes, thank you. I have been very well looked after.”
“And yesterday was Christmas Day,” he said, his voice regretful. “I’m afraid I didn’t even have an opportunity to shop for a present, but I do have a surprise for you which I hope will help in some way to make up for that lack.”
“A surprise?” she echoed hesitantly. Surprise?
“As you know, most young women your age have already been introduced into society. Since your father was away with the army, I understand you have not yet been formally brought out.”
“Brought out?” Anne repeated, bewildered by the introduction of this topic. Surely, he didn’t mean…
“In London,” Mr. Sinclair clarified.
Anne swallowed, allowing the images that the very name of the capital evoked to fill her head. Provincial she might be, but even the girls at Fenton School knew about the famed London Season. Several of them had been quite confident of the opportunities that would be afforded them by that experience. And confident that it was in their near future, as soon as their schooling was complete.
Anne had listened to their talk with idle interest, knowing her father would never go to the trouble or expense of arranging for her own coming out. And as far as she was aware, she had no relatives who might be called upon to shoulder that burden.
She had put the possibility from her mind years ago, quite content with the direction of her life. And when Mrs. Kemp had talked about the wonderful opportunities that were opening up for her, this was one which had never even occurred to her.
“The Season starts in a few months,” Ian continued. “I’m afraid there is a great deal of preparation required if we are to be ready in time.”
The Season. The words seemed to reverberate inside Anne’s head, almost blocking the rest of his words.
“Mr. Sinclair, I assure you that I have no desire to be brought out. I am quite content—”
“I believe it would have been your father’s wish, Miss Darlington. After all, it is only what is expected for a young woman of your class. I know it is Mrs. Kemp’s wish. She was quite clear on that score. And I have promised her that as your guardian, I should see to it that you were given this advantage.”
Anne drew breath, preparing to again refuse, before she remembered her own promise to the headmistress. Headstrong or not, I shall endeavor to do whatever Mr. Sinclair thinks is best. She, too, had given her word.
And after all, she would spend the rest of her life at Fenton School. Although she was truly not interested in being presented to society, she was also not sure she was ready to return forever to the only world she had really ever known.
Actually, Anne admitted, she was suddenly reluctant to leave Sinclair Hall, despite the loneliness of the days she had spent here. After all, now that Mr. Sinclair was recovered—
“My brother, who has excellent taste,” her guardian continued, interrupting that foolish notion, “has recommended a modiste. On his advice I have sent for her to come here and make the preliminary measurements for your gowns. Of course, we shall be in London in time for the fittings.”
“In London for the Season,” Anne said faintly, feeling more and more as if she had wandered into some bizarre dream. “We are going to London?”
“Within the month,” he said, smiling at her again, “if you are willing to trust me to convey you safely there, considering your first unfortunate journey under my guardianship. I promise to take better care of you in the future.”
She truly doubted anyone could have taken better care of her that terrible night than he had. And he had done so at a cost to himself that he would not even acknowledge. Or allow her to.
“I would trust you with my life, Mr. Sinclair,” she said.
And watched his eyes change again, the gentle teasing fading from them as they held a long heartbeat on hers. For the first time since she had entered the room, self-absorbed with what she wanted to say, she allowed herself to study his face.
If one looked past the rather obvious effects of the fight, which included a fading bruise around his right eye, and an almost healed gash along his left cheekbone, the marks of his recent illness were there as well. And according to Mrs. Martin, that was never to be a topic for conversation. In truth, Anne could not but admire him for that.
