Page 53 of The Wolf of Mayfair
Distraught?
Helia snorted. “Impossible.”
“I assure you, it is not only possible, but in fact, the truth.” The housekeeper stole a glance about, as if to check for possible interlopers, and then returned her focus to Helia. “Lord Wingrave did not leave your side, Miss Wallace.”
Had Helia not already been lying down, the servant’s words would have knocked her square off her feet. “He didn’t?”
“He surely didn’t. Even cared for you himself, he did.”
Helia reeled. He’dcaredfor her himself? “Hedid?”
Mrs. Trowbridge nodded. “Toweled your brow and wrists and dripped little amounts of water into your lips so you had something to drink.”
And a terrific heat spread through her chest; this warmth was a tingling one, caused not by any fever but by the staggering breadth of Lord Wingrave’s benevolence. “My goodness,” Helia whispered.
“Never thought I’d see it myself,” the housekeeper confessed. “Not after—”
The woman abruptly stopped, catching herself from sharing something, and Helia held her breath, wishing she would, wishing she’d finish her unspoken thought.
“After?” Helia quietly urged, desperately wishing for her to say more, wanting to know whatever secret she held about the enigmatic marquess.
Mrs. Trowbridge grunted. “That’s neither here nor there. What matters is that you are well and are going to get stronger with each day.”
“Which is undoubtedly why he cared for me,” she murmured. That was the only thing that made sense. “Once I’m well, he can send me on my way.”
The head servant scoffed. “If hedidn’tcare, he may as well have left you to die.” Mrs. Trowbridge shook her head. “But he didn’t. He summoned doctor after doctor, and time after time, he showed them the door because he deemed them incompetent.”
A small smile formed. She’d known the marquess but a very short time, and yet, with Wingrave’s imperturbable sangfroid, she could both hear and see him taking on a team of doctors so. Where Lord Wingrave was concerned, his self-assuredness extended to all matters and things.
Mrs. Trowbridge wasn’t done with her stubborn and faithful defense of the marquess. “After he learned one of the doctors bled you, he refused to leave during any further examinations. He wouldn’t let a single one of those men bring even a single leech near you.” An obstinate glint lit the old woman’s eyes. “Threatened to do each one of them harm if they so much as put a leech on your wrist.”
Ah, he’d refused to allow customary bloodletting as part of her treatment. Now,thatmade sense.
A twinkle sparkled in the older woman’s eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, my dear.”
She couldn’t.
“He didn’t disallow them to bleed you because it was the easiest way to be rid of you.”
Heat exploded on Helia’s cheeks. “I did not—”
“Say so?” The stouthearted housekeeper smiled. “You didn’t need to. You do not know His Lordship, Miss Wallace. You do not know who he was before. But if you’d seen how afeared he was during your illness, you’d see a different man than the one he lets you believe he is.”
Floored by Mrs. Trowbridge’s revelations, Helia lay there. Her mind spun.
Lord Wingrave had challenged an army of doctors he’d let in, forher.
For that matter, what nobleman would ever take on such a grim, effortful task as to play nursemaid for a sick woman? No less, a woman whom he did not personally know and denied any connection to?
Aye, recover she would. And apparently she’d do so not because of any miracle or intervention from any doctor’s part, but rather because of ...Wingrave.
The housekeeper spoke, drawing Helia from her racing thoughts. “In fact, I’ve not seen His Lordship so shaken since—” Mrs. Trowbridge caught herself once more.
Too late.
Helia’s ears immediately latched on to that incomplete thought. She waited a moment for the faithful servant to speak again.
“Since?” Helia gently prodded when no further words were forthcoming.
