Page 40 of Snowy and the Seven Doves
Ned was exhausted after the redressing and slept away the afternoon. It was the best thing for him, in Margaret’s opinion. Her mother had always claimed that sleep was necessary for healing.
Snowy went off about some errands. While Pauline watched Ned, Margaret had a brief sleep on a pallet Snowy had had made up in the next room. She then took the opportunity to deal with some correspondence. At one point, a message came from her house that Lord Snowden had demanded to speak to her and had threatened to come back with constables if he was not admitted. “He said he was looking for his ward, Mr. Deffew, my lady,” her butler had written.
She sent a return message, telling him to cooperate with the constables and allow a search of the house. So Dickon Deffew had got away. Good for him. She hoped he had the sense to choose somewhere his guardian would not find him.
Interesting that Snowden was looking for his ward, but not for his son. Could they hope he had wiped his hands of the boy?
Snowy arrived back just as Lord Lechton appeared and came up with him to see the patient. Ned had woken from his afternoon sleep more alert than he’d been since the rescue, and Margaret was keeping him amused by reading aloud from a book Pauline had brought with her.
“I am pleased to see you awake, young man,” said the physician. “How are you feeling?”
“As if I have gone three rounds with a tiger,” Ned replied, which drew a chuckle from Lechton.
After examining the patient, Lechton agreed that Ned was recovering quickly, and could safely be moved. “He’ll still need checking on during the night, and his dressings should be changed once a day, but he no longer needs round-the-clock nursing,” he said.
“I can take him to the House of Blossoms,” Snowy suggested, after he and Margaret had seen the physician out. “I have imposed on you for long enough, Margaret. Or I could bring in servants to see to him here.”
“I will take him to my house in the morning,” Margaret insisted. “I do not want to put my patient into anyone else’s hands, Snowy. And there has been no imposition. I am a willing volunteer.” She chuckled. “Besides, it is probably the last place in London that Snowden will look for him. He brought constables today to search the house because he thought Dickon Deffew might be there.”
That diverted the conversation, since Snowy wanted to hear all about the reports from her butler. Snowden had, as threatened, come back with people to search the house, and search it they had, from the attics to the cellars—with respect for Margaret’s property, after the butler reminded them that the owner was a peer and assigned a footman to accompany each searcher.
“You should go home tonight,” Snowy said, once he’d read the notes and speculated about Snowden’s state of mind and Deffew’s hiding place. “You’ve proved his suspicions groundless, but if he has someone watching the house and you do not return home, he will focus his attention on you again.”
In the end, Margaret and Pauline returned to Margaret’s townhouse. “Promise to call me at any time in the night if you are concerned about Ned, and to bring him to me in the morning,” Margaret insisted.
“I promise,” Snowy agreed. The warmth in his eyes and the press of his hand said more than his words.
*
Snowy was disappointedthat Margaret did not stay another night. Not that he could have sought a repeat of that kiss with Pauline hovering so diligently and not that he wanted to put Margaret at risk in any way. With so many more people in the house, his increasing regard for her was sure to draw comment, whether he was seen kissing her or not.
He was also convinced that the risk from Snowden was real and would only escalate when Snowden found out what Snowy planned next.
He glanced again through Her Grace’s list of names. He had been close to discarding legal measures of revenge for lack of evidence, but Her Grace had given him the key to finding that evidence.
He took his dinner on a tray in Ned’s room and sat with his brother for a while afterwards, pumping Ned for memories of the Snowden country estate where they had both lived as small children. When Ned’s yawns became too frequent to ignore, Snowy cited his own fatigue, and helped his brother prepare for sleep.
Speaking of his tiredness brought it to the surface. After two days and nights of cat naps caught when he could, Snowy was exhausted. He set a footman to check on the patient at regular intervals and took himself off to the pallet on which Margaret had rested for a while that afternoon.
The pillows carried the perfume of her hair and followed him into dreams in which kissing was only the start of what they did together.
In the morning, Snowy took a bath downstairs in the scullery, to save the borrowed footman the task of running buckets of hot water up and down the stairs. He put on a pair of pantaloons and a banyan to go back to the bedroom floor, so as not to embarrass the maids.
His valet must have arrived while he was in the bath, for the man had set out clean clothes and Snowy’s shaving tackle in the room where he had slept. This man was a replacement—a cousin of the first man, who had recommended him in a note that explained his mother was ill, and he had to go into the country. The new valet was even more snooty and intrusive than the first.
“I will not finish getting dressed until I have seen to washing my brother and helping him dress,” Snowy told the valet. “But I’ll start with my shave.”
“If you will allow me to do it, sir,” the valet said. “I see you have been missing some bits.”
Snowy leaned close to the little mirror the valet had brought. Sure enough, the usual morning stubble was thicker in a couple of places he must’ve missed during his shave the day before. Even so, he’d never allowed anyone else to get near him with a cutthroat razor, and he wasn’t about to start now.
“Thank you. I will do it, but I will take more care. You just take the clothes I want to wear through to my brother’s room next door and let him know I will be there shortly.”
The man’s sour expression deepened but he did as he was told. Snowy was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he was going to be a viscount. If a valet went with the position, he was going to have to find one who suited him better. Someone who could manage a bit of cheer. Someone who could serve without looking down his long nose at the very man who paid his wages.
Satisfied he was as smooth as he was going to get, he went through to Ned, who was sitting up in the bed. “How are you this morning, brother?”
“Weak as a kitten,” Ned responded, cheerfully.
