28, December 1822
Loughton Manor, Leicestershire
Mel opened her eyes to a garden of blue and pink flowers, curling and bursting on the underside of the bed canopy.
Her neck ached, and when she turned her pounding head to the side, it felt like a rattling dried gourd. Across the room, a stream of bright light sliced through a gap in the window curtains.
She sat up and looked around. The bed was large, the chamber well furnished with a sofa and chairs, and this elegant tester bed with its crisp white sheets. A carved wooden mantel framed a hearth and the bright fire casting warmth into the room. An armchair had been drawn up to the bedside.
She fell back, remembering. Hermione had tricked her. They were at Loughton Manor, and though she’d informed Fitz that he was a free man, he’d held her, undressed her, put her to bed, and then hovered in that very chair.
For how long? She pressed her hands to her face. What time was it? Had it been only an hour or two since she’d fallen asleep, or was that morning light? They’d arrived here in a gloomy midafternoon that threatened more snow, but perhaps the skies had cleared and the sun was setting, and…
Dinner. We’ll have dinner together.
He’d murmured the words in her ear, and then she’d felt the touch of his lips.
Warmth uncurled in her, and this time it wasn’t her stomach rebelling. She pushed down the sudden desire, just as she’d fought the nausea for the last few days. The last several days.
Oh, very well, the last many weeks.
It wasn’t what Hermione suspected, dropping broad hints about Fitzhenry Lovelace, their scandalous afternoon at the inn, and her courses. Surely it couldn’t be that. Mother had managed only once to… No. She and Hermione had returned to Hampshire and some spoiled cheese. Or perhaps it had been the oysters they’d eaten at the inn on the way home that started everything. In any case, Hermione had recovered, but Mel’s own more sensitive stomach had not.
A distant thump reminded her that there’d been other noises the night before: voices at her bedside, Hermione’s, and another lady’s gentle tones. The pixie, Fitz’s mother, most likely. There’d been knocks on the door, footsteps across the room, whispers, and now that she thought about it, even some shouting and giggling and running feet in the corridor.
She rubbed her eyes and sat up, pressing a hand to her stomach. Hunger gnawed at her insides, blessedly unaccompanied by nausea. She must find something to eat.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she spotted a glass of water on the bedside table and took a deep swallow. The pain between her eyebrows eased.
A teapot sat on the table near the fire. She tossed aside the covers and reached for her robe—which someone had unpacked from her trunk and placed at the foot of the bed.
He was pampering her, or his mother was. Or perhaps they were this kind to all their guests, especially those who were ill. Though she doubted Fitz served anyone else as lady’s maid, at least not in his mother’s home.
Remembering the housekeeper’s shock made her chuckle.
Nevertheless, she must be firm with Fitz—and with herself. Fitz’s abandonment and her mother’s expected arrival had forced her to make a new plan, and she would see it through. His solicitousness wouldn’t change her mind, and she would tell him that when next they spoke.
She must end things with him and be on her way. Mother had left the reading of Papa’s will in a huff and a flurry, torn between badgering Mel for money and rushing the slippery Lord Starling to the altar. It was entirely possible that Mother didn’t know about the cottage in Durham. With luck, when she found Mel missing from Hampshire, she would retreat to her husband’s manor in Kent until spring.
The tea had gone cold, but Mel poured a cup anyway, and helped herself to a cake from the tray. When everything stayed down, and her stomach didn’t rebel, she set herself to searching for her things. No clothes press graced this room, but there’d been a washstand behind a screen and a dressing table.
The scene at the washstand had been a humiliating moment, but never mind. Surely no man wanted to see a lady engaged in tossing up all of her insides. If it put him off her, so much the better.
Someone had carefully placed her comb and brush. She gazed into the small mirror, remembering his face looking back at her with kindness and concern. He had been altogether unbearably handsome. And, considering his neglect, false. Certainly that.
An ornamental dish held her pins. He’d taken her hair down, scattering pins, as was his wont. Someone had kindly gathered them from the carpet.
Despite the wisps of remembered voices and noises, she’d slept through all of the unpacking and tidying-up. Papa always said she slumbered far too soundly to make a good soldier. An enemy could take her unawares.
She shrugged off the ghost of Fitz’s face in the mirror and put a hand to her hair. Straight as a stick it might be, but it was the devil to untangle when it was like this. With a sigh, she picked up the comb and crossed the room to the chair by the fire and began combing out knots.