Page 78 of Lady Daring
“God’s teeth, she looks like him,” Freddy said in amazement.
Clarinda laughed. “Babies look like no one but themselves, Lord Alfred.”
“No, she really does—especially that scowl.” He raised his eyes to Henrietta’s face. “Is it true you’re to wed him?”
“He has done me the honor of making an offer,” Henrietta said. She tamped down the butterflies at the thought of Darien as her husband. Hers in law if not in spirit. “I am not certain yet what will come of it.”
“He’s going to be furious that Perry served him such a turn,” Freddy said. “I don’t suppose—” He gave Henrietta a look of appeal, and despite herself, she laughed. It was easy to forget his high station given how young and brash he was.
“Yes, I can deliver that bad news, if I must.”
“I don’t doubt it’ll fall on me to go after them,” Freddy said, jamming his hat on his head. “I’ll have a word or two for m’sister when I find them, you can be certain. And Perry, too.”
“I cannot think they mean to stay in France,” Henrietta said. “Things there are getting more dangerous by the day.”
After Freddy had been shown out, still muttering to himself, Henrietta glanced at the mantle clock. “Aunt Althea and Marsibel will be here soon. Do you want me to take the girls upstairs?”
“No, leave them,” Clarinda said. “Your aunt will go on as if Marsibel’s wedding is the most important event of the Season, and I would like her to remember that we all have our own worlds.” She looked at the bundle in Henrietta’s arms. “Does she know yet?”
“Of my quondam marriage proposal, or Darien getting shot? I wonder which will give her more pleasure.” Henrietta snuggled the sleeping baby upon her shoulder. “What a lecture she will read about me ruining myself with Lord Daring, when she can’t say I wasn’t warned.”
The room wasdim from the drawn curtains and the small fire banked in the hearth. Henrietta pushed the curtains wide and considered throwing up the sash, a habit the nurse at Miss Gregoire’s approved despite the known dangers of bad air. In the bed, Darien moaned and thrashed.
“No,” he muttered, and then, a hoarse shout of agony. “No! Open it!” he shouted again, raking his hands through the air. “Get him out of there, by God!”
“Darien.” When her voice didn’t rouse him, Henrietta leaned over and gently pressed his unhurt shoulder. “Darling! You must wake up.”
His eyes flew open, and the horror in them pierced her gut. “He’s—” He stopped when he recognized her and grasped her shoulders. “Henry. Was it a dream? Thank God. Lucien was locked in the tomb with Horace, but he was alive, and I couldn’t get him out.”
Her heart twisted. His grief haunted his dreams. She knew that feeling. “It was a nightmare. Your fears speaking to you.”
The lines of pain around his mouth and eyes were not purely from his wound. But his color was healthy, and his smile brilliant.
“Did you call me darling?”
“Of course not. Part of your dream.” She placed the bowl of warm water next to his bed. “I’ve come to minister to your wound and, if you feel able, bring you down to dinner.”
“Only if I may sit next to you.” He grimaced as he struggled to lift himself in the bed, and she leaned forward to pile the pillows behind his back. He wore a shadow of stubble along his face, his hair was mussed, his shirt rumpled, and he smelled of old sweat, a trace of blood, and the acrid whiff of gunpowder. Yet when he turned his face and his breath fell on her cheek, a warm, pleasurable bolt went through her middle. She turned to the bowl.
“Is it a great scandal that I am here? I don’t want to trouble Clarinda.”
“Pooh. She won’t turn you out, unless Jasper insists on it. Aunt Althea raised a fine breeze, though.”
She drew his shirt away from his shoulder, focusing on the bandaged wound instead of the broad, smooth expanse of skin revealed to her gaze. “But she railed at Charley for bringing you here drunk as an emperor, so I don’t think you’ll be arrested for dueling. Charley will say he brought you to sing under my window and you fell ill.”
“A time-honored way of wooing,” Darien said. “How clever of me.”
She frowned as the bandage stuck to his skin. Gently, she dampened the cloth and then peeled the stained strips away. The wound gave her something to concentrate on besides his breadth, his nearness, his scent, his distracting heat.
“Lord Alfred called. He saw the baby.”
Darien stilled. “And?”
“I gather that he will accept whatever decision you make about her. He’s terribly embarrassed that he shot you after you deloped.”
The dratted man grinned. “If you fall in love with me while nursing me back to health, I’ll buy him his own set of dueling pistols for a reward.” Then he winced as she sponged his wound. “Did he find out anything about Celeste?”
“She left for Calais on a packet late last evening.” Henrietta paused. “With your friend Perry. The duke has already sent a man after them.”
