Lady Smithfield and Lydia came into the room together, Lydia still appearing greatly subdued and Lady Smithfield more than compensating for her daughter’s lack of animation. She could barely keep from shouting in triumph, “A duke at my breakfast table!” She managed to contain herself, however, and instead asked the duke if he had enjoyed a good night’s rest.
“Yes, thank you. I was exceedingly comfortable.”
“Good, good. Have you and your son any plans for the day?” Lady Smithfield asked.
“What’s that? Alexander? No, we have no plans to do anything together. I believe he plans to keep to his room. He is still suffering from his illness.”
“Such a shame. I understand just how he feels. My constitution is rather delicate as well. I do hope, however, that he will permit us to entertain him. Lydia has a very soothing voice in a sickroom, and she would be more than willing to read to him.”
Lydia looked less than willing, but did not object, and the duke hurried to assure Lady Smithfield that would be the very thing. “For Alexander is bound to get restless, staring at the walls all day, and if I had to hazard a guess, I would say he’s going to be laid up with his malady for at least a week.”
“Really? Does he usually contract the grippe for a week at a time?”
“Practically to the minute. And at the end of the week, he is so improved you would not even recognize him. He is a different person altogether,” the duke stated in such an odd tone that Emily looked suspiciously at him. He noticed her observing him, and she could have sworn he winked.
“Well, then, Lydia will entertain Lord Wesleigh, but that leaves you at loose ends, Your Grace. ’Tis a pity Sir John is no longer with us. However, if you would like, Emily and I would be more than happy to show you the local sights.”
“My dear lady, do not trouble yourself. I believe Lord Abernathy lives in the vicinity, does he not?” At Lady Smithfield’s assurance that he did, he continued, “There is a bill up for debate in the House that I’d like to discuss with him, so I arranged to call on him today. I will have plenty to keep me occupied the next week, I assure you.”
“And you will want to visit with your son, as well, I expect.”
“Of course, of course. However, with such a charming young lady seeing to it that he is well entertained,” the duke said, smiling in Lydia’s direction, “I doubt he’ll want my grizzled old visage in his sickroom.”
Lydia smiled wanly in response to the compliment, but when Lady Smithfield cleared her throat, she hurried to remark, “I am pleased to be of assistance, Your Grace.”
Emily thought her sister looked about as pleased as if she’d been told she was going to the guillotine, and wondered what she was portraying at the moment. Noble martyrdom, it appeared. Apparently Lydia felt there was no point in trying to resist their mother’s efforts at matchmaking and was playing this new role to the hilt. Emily herself felt that neither she nor Lydia should be forced to marry Lord Wesleigh, but found herself more preoccupied with the mystery of Alexander Williams.
It was for that reason that she accompanied Lydia to Lord Wesleigh’s chamber later that morning. Alexander had admitted to a close friendship with Lord Wesleigh in one of their earlier conversations; this was Emily’s chance to discover more about the gentleman. Also, poor Lydia needed a chaperone, and moral support.
So it was Emily who tapped on Lord Wesleigh’s door and opened it in response to his feeble, “Yes?”
“Good morning, Lord Wesleigh. Your father mentioned that you may be in need of a diversion, so Lydia and I have come to pay you a visit.”
“My father mentioned that, did he?” Wesleigh drawled, and reached with one hand under the covers.
If he pulls out his quizzing glass I shall scream, Emily thought. Sure enough, the quizzing glass was found and retrieved.
“Well, come in, come in. Mustn’t stand in the doorway. You are liable to create a draft. Drafts are very damaging to someone in my condition.”
Emily walked calmly into the room, but Lydia eyed the man in the bed with trepidation and entered the room most reluctantly. “He is not going to eat you, you know,” Emily whispered to her sister, who gave her a look of reproach and schooled her features into a travesty of a smile that Emily felt made her usually beautiful sister look downright ugly. The man in the bed apparently shared Emily’s sentiments, for he dropped his quizzing glass abruptly and turned with a look of impatience toward Emily.
“How are you feeling today, Lord Wesleigh?” she asked.
“Ghastly. I am sure I shan’t be able to leave this chamber for a sennight, at least.”
“Your father mentioned the same at breakfast this morning. Lydia thought to entertain you by reading to you. Would you enjoy that, Lord Wesleigh?” Emily thought to annoy him by speaking in the hearty tones of a governess to an unruly charge, and was rewarded by seeing his lips twitch into a semblance of a smile.
“I am not deaf, you know, just afflicted with a bad case of the grippe,” he confided to her, neglecting to use the foppish drawl that had so annoyed her previously.
“I am relieved to discover you are neither deaf nor dumb, Lord Wesleigh,” Emily replied, and smiled her first genuine smile at him.
The sight of that impish smile sent him reaching for his quizzing glass again, as if in protection, but before he was able to raise it to his face the young lady shocked him by removing it from his grasp.
“See here, Miss Smithfield—” he sputtered.
“I am sorry, my lord, but it is for your own good. I have just recently discovered that you are neither deaf nor dumb, and it is my suspicion you are not blind, either. However, if you persist in distorting your eyesight, you will find yourself wearing spectacles prematurely. I will just set your weapon, excuse me, quizzing glass, here on the table, where you can retrieve it when you are feeling more the thing.”
“You, my girl, are a minx,” he told her, looking much like a spoiled boy denied his favorite toy.
“And you, my lord, are a fraud. Now, I will leave Lydia here to read to you, and send Bess up to chaperone, as I feel I do not have the type of soothing presence that is desirable in a sickroom, as you would no doubt agree, my lord.” She ignored the look of reproach from both parties in the room and slipped out. She would quiz Lord Wesleigh about his friend on another day. All of a sudden, her suspicions had seemed quite absurd. Such a foppish young man as Lord Wesleigh could not be the friend of a hardened criminal.
She peeked in the room an hour later to find Lydia gone and Lord Wesleigh in conversation with Alexander Williams.
“Oh, excuse me, I did not realize you had a guest.” She turned to leave but was stopped by Williams, who had risen from his seat at her entrance.
“Please stay. We would welcome your company. Lord Wesleigh was just telling me how much he admires your sister.” Alexander grinned down at Sir Marcus, who returned the look with a grimace. He had said nothing of the sort. In actuality, he had spent the ten minutes of Alexander’s visit complaining about the girl.
“She reads with as much animation as a dashed corpse,” he had told Alexander. “Which was bad enough, as I had the deuce of a time trying to stay awake, but, when I finally gave up the struggle and dozed off, I awoke to find her standing above me, her eyes welled up with tears. It was demmed embarrassing. I didn’t know which way to look. ’Pon my word, Wesleigh, the girl walks around like a deuced martyr.”
Alexander had laughed at the scene his friend had described, but he knew something had to be done about the situation. Apparently Lydia was as opposed to the match as he. The sooner this tangle was unraveled, the better.
At the moment, however, Emily was looking at him and his friend with suspicion writ large in her beautiful brown eyes. She had noticed the look they had exchanged and thought the gentlemen might be sharing a joke at her or her sister’s expense. “My sister has many admirable qualities,” she said, in response to Alexander’s comment.