James fully recognized what a fine whap that was to the head. He flushed, color rising over his cheek to his hairline. She was grinning at him, knowing she’d bested him, a grin so wicked she should go up in smoke.
It was hard, but he got hold of himself. “Corrie, why don’t you come here and help me drink a bit of water?”
She kept that big wicked grin even as she shook her head at him. “So you can pour the water over my head? No thank you, James. Now, I see that you can do nothing but ignore my insults, a rather pathetic ploy, don’t you think? You’re waiting to dish an insult right back at me. You’ve just got to think of one, and that’s a problem since your brain is still lying in your head, doing nothing helpful. So, admit that this time I’ve left you sprawled in the dirt. Hmm, sprawled. What a lovely word.” Then she poured him a glass of water, sat on the bed beside him, automatically slid her arm beneath his neck, and raised his head to drink. His face was nearly touching her breasts.
He breathed in deeply. “Ah, enough. That’s good. Thank you, Corrie.”
She set down the glass and arched her own eyebrow at him. “What is this? You’re still too weak to tend to your own thirst?”
“No, I like you doing it for me. I like to smell you when you’re so close.”
Without thinking, she caressed her hand down his face, cupping his chin for a moment. “Did I smell interesting enough? Enough complexity in my scent?”
“Yes, enough.”
She snorted, and he said, “You know, that snort, as distinctive and expressive as it may be, simply doesn’t go well with your gown that makes your waist look no larger than a doorknob. As for the top of you, your damned neckline is much too low. You’re supposed to be a modest young lady in her first season, not a seasoned nearly on-the-shelf lady who needs blatant advertising to lure in the unwary male.
“Ah, now look at you, ready to hurl the water carafe at me. You’re taking my well-meant words in the wrong spirit, Corrie. I mean it only as a very small observation on the goods you shouldn’t be presenting to the world in such remarkable detail, at least yet.”
That was quite fluent; both of them knew it. James waited, feeling his brain spark. She stared off into space as she said, “I remember how my hands nearly cramped I washed you so many times, to bring your fever down, you know. Each time my hands went lower and lower.” She looked at him straight on now and grinned like a witch. “Ah, James, I can say without hesitation that your goods don’t need any advertising at all. But look at me, I’m such a pedestrian peahen, I need all the advertising I can do.”
He flushed. Damnation, he flushed again and she saw it, and so he said, “For God’s sake, Corrie, have your gown hoisted up a good two inches.”
She smiled at him. “All right.”
He couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“Close your mouth, James, you look too much like Willie Marker after I told him no girl would ever marry him because he was such a lamebrained bully.”
“I doubt Willie Marker has ever thought of marriage,” James said.
“That’s what he yelled at me,” she said, and sighed deeply. “And then he tried to kiss me again. Isn’t that odd? After I’d insulted him but good?”
“I suppose some males are aroused when a girl beats them over the head, metaphorically speaking.”
She looked down at him, her fingers itching to touch him again, but naturally she didn’t. He was no longer helpless. And so she said, “Enough about my gown. Tell me, how do you feel this beautiful morning?”
“My pillows have slipped down. I need you to raise them back up. My head hurts.”
She rose to lean over him and fluff up his pillows. She straightened and looked down at him. “Shall I also rub some rose water on your brow?”
“Yes, that would be good.”
She began humming, one of his favorite ditties actually, as she dampened her handkerchief in the water carafe and leaned over to dab his forehead. She wasn’t wearing a wicked grin now, rather a look of utter concentration. “I’m sorry that I don’t have any rose water, James. Do you think the water from the carafe is helping?”
“Keep rubbing, ah, yes, that feels very good.”
She did, a slow easy motion, one that his body recognized. “The oddest thing happened this morning, James. I was walking with my maid to visit you and I saw Mrs. Cutter and Lady Brisbett. I’d met them both last week at some sort of dance and they’d been quite charming to me. Both of them cut me, looked at me like I wasn’t there, and walked by, noses in the air. Isn’t that amazing?” She paused a moment. “Or perhaps they are both shortsighted, but I did smile and speak to them again. It was very odd, don’t you think? Not as odd as a boy wanting to kiss a girl when she’s blasted him, but still odd.”
There was a gasp from the doorway. It wasn’t Petrie nor was it his mother with more food. It was Miss Juliette Lorimer, her mother in her wake.
Juliette drew herself up, advertising her lovely goods even more prominently than Corrie did, and to, admittedly, better effect, and said in a voice cold enough to chill the lemonade, “May I inquire what is going on here?”
James said easily, “Hello, Juliette. Corrie is kindly dabbing my forehead with carafe water, since we have no rose water. My head aches.”
“You need softer hands to attend you, my lord,” said Mrs. Lorimer. “Juliette, here is my handkerchief. You caress his lordship’s forehead. Miss Tybourne-Barrett should not even be in here. She is alone, unlike you, who is with your mother. It is not at all the done thing. I should probably give Maybella a hint.”
Corrie said, an eyebrow hoisted up, “Why ever not, ma’am? I have been nearly one of the family all my life.”
“That makes no difference at all, missy, and so you should know it. You need to go home now. That’s right, it’s time for you to leave.”
“But what about James’s headache?”
“Be quiet, Corrie,” he said, and closed his eyes against the battlefield that was now gathering cannon in his bedchamber.
“James,” said Juliette, her voice sweet and clear, all of her being focused on him, “you are looking splendid. I swear you look nearly ready to dance. I am so relieved. I was so dreadfully worried when you disappeared. No one could explain it. Then, of course someone remarked that Miss Tybourne-Barrett had also disappeared. It wasn’t remarked upon nearly as much as your disappearance, needless to say, and what a strange thing it was to have the two of you return to London together.”
A deep male throat cleared at the doorway. The earl of Northcliffe himself said, “Ladies, I am here to invite all of you down for tea and some of Cook’s excellent lemon seed cakes. Corrie, you will join us after you’ve finished bathing James’s forehead. Ladies?”
Saved by his father.
There was no choice. Juliette looked longingly back at James, whose eyes were closed at the moment, gave Corrie a stare to scorch her eyebrows, then turned to follow the earl from the bedchamber.
“She’s right, Corrie,” he said, eyes closed.
“That your disappearance was more remarked upon than mine? Well, that’s surely a fact. Who would begin to care about me other than Aunt Maybella and Uncle Simon? It’s quite likely that Uncle Simon wouldn’t even notice unless he wanted me to hold down a leaf so he could glue it.”
That was quite true, and it made James very angry, for some reason he didn’t want to examine.
“He told me this morning that he’d found an unidentifiable leaf lying there unremarked by the side of one of the paths in Hyde Park. He was quite excited about it, determined to locate the plant from which it had detached itself, and he could enjoy his excitement without remark from Aunt Maybella since I was again home safe and sound.
“Naturally Jason missed me. And perhaps Willicombe. How I wish Buxted was here. You remember Buxted, our butler at Twyley Grange, don’t you, James?”