Page 95 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
“Tired,” he said dully.
His rigid expression was not encouraging, but she cleared her throat and said to her cousin, “Gilly, I wonder if you could let me have a few moments alone with James.”
She saw James tense. A brief hope flickered in his eyes, then quickly died.
Gilly frowned and then shrugged. “Ah, well, I never have been one for insisting upon the proprieties.” He angled a glance at James. “I suppose it is safe enough, considering the man’s weakened condition.” But there was more of banter in Gilly’s comment than any intended insult.
“I trust your lairdship will call me to fetch away the tray. I am becoming so good at this, I may seek out a post as butler.”
“No one would ever trust you with the keys to the wine cellar,” James retorted.
Gilly merely grinned. On his way past Phaedra, he gave her an encouraging wink and squeezed her arm. After Gilly had gone, an uneasy silence settled over the room.
Phaedra avoided any proximity to the bed. She had no idea how to begin. She sensed a lethargy in James that disturbed her. Even when playing the role of the impassive marquis, a steely tension had always coiled within him, leaving her in no doubt of the passions pulsing beneath. Now he seemed empty. It was as though while his body healed, his soul continued to waste away. Exactly as she’d feared.
And yet it was he who first broke the silence. Slightly raising himself, he said, “Phaedra?”
“Aye?” She tried to keep the nearly breathless eagerness from her voice.
He sank back immediately. “Never mind,” he muttered. “I grow tired of protesting my innocence.” After a pause, he added, “How is your grandfather?”
“I doubt he’ll live to see another winter.”
“I could say I was sorry. But I am tired of lying, as well.”
She studied his face. “Why didn’t you just vanish from the theater that night? Why did you rescue him again?”
“You know damn well I came to save you,” he said. “Just as that time at the supper party, I was only trying to prevent that fool Wilkins from committing a hanging offense.”
“Which he did, anyway.”
“No.” A taut smile of satisfaction pulled at the corners of James’s mouth. “Wilkins was transported. He and his wife are far away from London by now, which we should have been if you—” He broke off the accusation he had been about to make, as if it were not worth the effort.
Phaedra drew nearer in spite of herself. She fidgeted nervously with the end of the counterpane. “What will you do?” she asked “When you are recovered, I mean.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean,” he snapped.
“Your plans for the future.”
“Plans. I haven’t got any. I had no notion that when you persuaded me to let go of the past, you meant to turn your back on me and rob me of my future happiness as well.”
Phaedra’s eyes flashed to his with an expression of reproach.
How dare he accuse her of such a thing! It was he who had kept on with his quest for vengeance, destroying any chance of a happy life together that they might have had. But she swallowed her anger. All recriminations now seemed pointless.”
She drew in a quick breath. “I have something to tell you. Something that will affect whatever you decide to do. I have been talking to my grandfather about his part in what happened seven years ago.”
“That must have been an exercise in futility.”
Ignoring his cynical comment, she continued, “He spoke of your sister. Your suspicions were correct. He took a greater part in her abduction than I ever wanted to believe.”
James said harshly, “That comes as no surprise to me.”
“I am afraid something that he told me will.” She saw no way to ease the shock, but plunged on, revealing to him what her grandfather had said about Julianna. By the time she had done, James’s face was ashen, his eyes burning in a manner that alarmed her.
She tried to mitigate her grandfather’s sins by adding, “He made certain she is being well cared for?—”
But James was no longer listening. He flung aside the counterpane. His lips set into a thin line as he struggled to stand.
