So it was a great surprise, though not a pleasant one, when Emeline heard a voice above the splashing of her bath water, and snapped her eyes open in a hurry.
Nicholas said, “Very pretty, my lady,” and she blushed, quickly submerging herself up to her neck. Nurse Martha stopped mid scrub, sponge and dripping arm raised, and hurriedly curtsied.
He was leaning against the door jam, supported on the other side by a sturdy wooden crutch. His pageboy hovered behind him, but Nicholas grinned, and with a word over his shoulder sent the boy away. Then he staggered in, discovered the chair, sat as though he might never again be able to rise, and stretched both one leg and the crutch out before him with a sigh.
Martha said, “My lord, shall I continue, my lord, or shall I leave you with my lady?”
“You have to stay,” said Emeline, trying to squash down further into the soapy water.
“You can leave,” said Nicholas. “I’ll call for you once I’ve finished here. I shouldn’t be long.”
Emeline gazed disconsolate as her servant swiftly obeyed her husband and scurried off, busily drying her arms as she closed the door behind her. Emeline, now invisible up to her chin and trying not to blow bubbles, glared at her husband and said, “For someone who is supposed to be near death, you manage to hobble around surprisingly well.”
“I do, don’t I?” grinned Nicholas. “Courage and fortitude, of course. But actually it’s the bed. An inferior palliasse with inferior covers and a miserable set of damp flat pillows. I crawl out of it at every available excuse. The latest excuse happened to be you.”
“How delightful,” sniffed Emeline.
“Sarcasm,” smiled the invalid, “is entirely lost on me, madam. I am too simple a soul for that. But I agree, delightful is an appropriate word, or it was when I first saw you. You have now disappeared into scum. A shame.”
The steam was beginning to evaporate and Emeline wondered how long she would be kept there. She managed to speak without sniffing. “If you would say whatever you came to say, my lord, perhaps I can then continue my bath before I catch a cold,” although it was difficult to keep one’s dignity while hiding underwater, knees scrunched, in considerable discomfort. And he was right about the scum.
“As it happens,” continued Nicholas without noticeable interest in her request, “I can now state without doubt that one of the things Peter frequently described about you was, in fact, completely inaccurate. I can also confirm that what you yourself told me this morning is equally inaccurate. You are not pregnant, madam.”
“If you just came here to embarrass me –”
“I had no idea you were in the bath,” Nicholas pointed out, “though I suppose I might have guessed. You certainly needed one. I was actually spoiling the habit of a lifetime by behaving quite altruistically. I’m told you had no supper. You certainly missed dinner. And I doubt you were present for breakfast since I gather you were still asleep in the Keep. So I came to invite you to a small private supper in my bedchamber before retiring. Rather nice of me, I thought, since all you do is keep running away and getting excessively dirty.”
Emeline blushed. “If that was all – you could have sent a message.”
“I told you,” Nicholas explained, “I wanted any excuse to get out of bed. It’s now four days trapped and tortured by doctors. I’ve had enough. So come for supper and cheer me up by insulting me and telling me how sorry you are to have married me. That cheers me up no end. Besides, the supper’s already been ordered and you must be starving.”
“You have your cousins to keep you company,” Emeline mumbled.
He shook his head. “Adrian’s a loose knucklebone, and Sissy’s a baby. Besides, after travelling backwards and forwards for days, they’ve both gone to bed. They left here after the wedding feast and just managed to return home before hearing about the fire and deciding to travel back here to make sure I was well and truly dead. But they gave me a good idea before they went to bed, and it’s something I’d like to discuss with you as soon as possible. So do you want some cold pork, apple codlings in treacle, sugared raisins and cold salmon stuffed with spiced leeks and onions? Or not?”
The wave of unsurmountable hunger swept immediately and painfully from her throat to her toes. She muttered, “I am a little – that is, it is a whole day since I ate anything at all.”
“That decides it,” decided Nicholas. “I can’t help you out of the bath, I’m afraid, but you should come and eat at once. Having my wife expire of starvation in my own home and practically at my feet would be too much of a scandal even for my father to contend with.”
The baroness entered at the appropriate moment, tottering beneath an armful of materials, and her two maids followed closely, each clutching towels, combs, hairpins, stockings and garters. “Oh, Nicholas,” her ladyship noticed in surprise, “I would not have expected – nor do I think it wise, sir – and during the late evening chill too. Not that I wish to interrupt you, naturally.”
“You’re not,” said Nicholas. “I would be leaving, except that I need my page in order to get back to my own room. Perhaps you’ll be good enough to call him for me. Your daughter, once dressed I presume, will then be joining me for a late supper.”
In a neat combination of her mother’s stockings and little starched headdress, Martha’s best linen shift, which was far too large, and her oldest plain dun blue gown without secondary sleeves or any trimmings, Emeline entered her husband’s bedchamber and felt immediately reconciled by the glorious perfumes of food. She sat at the little table which had been set before the hearth, and was already laid with platters, folded napkins, polished cutlery, and a dented candelabra. At least a dozen other candles had been lit and the small hearth was bright with fire. The flickering brilliance was lurid across Nicholas’s face where the previous scars combined with the oozing blisters of burned flesh, many small massed scabs and the partially healed welts. The sheen of medicinal goose fat was, however, no longer evident. He lounged at the table, propped in a heavy backed chair opposite her own. He smiled and said, “You’ll have to serve, my dear. I’m incapable and I sent the boys away. I need to talk to you.”
This sounded ominous, and the endearment made her suspicious. Emeline began to serve, saying, “There are so many candles, sir. Do you need the light brighter because of your – that is – if sight is a problem? My father is very thrifty with good wax candles.”
Nicholas tapped his cup. “The wine, if you wouldn’t mind,” and then drained what she poured for him. “Now, my lady. You eat, and I shall talk. First, no I’m not blind as well as burned, mutilated and mistreated. You’ve been politely controlling your curiosity regarding my fascinating disfigurements, I presume? But my sight is fairly good, all things considered. Certainly good enough to notice that your father’s equally parsimonious with his daughters’ clothing. What has happened to status and fashion in Gloucestershire, may I ask? I know most of your clothes were destroyed, but surely you still had a trunk of clothes remaining in the guest wing.”
Emeline stared resolutely at the flagon and poured her own wine. It was hippocras, and the steam rose in a spiced spiral. Deciding she could not now ask any further explanations regarding her husband’s unusual appearance, she said instead, “Do you know how to be nice? Or are you rude to everyone? Yes, Papa is very careful about waste, and he doesn’t believe in extravagance except sometimes for formal occasions. For instance, my wedding gown cost a great deal, and I’m very sad it’s gone. And yesterday Avice lent me her best shift, and I sort of ruined it, so today I only have my very oldest clothes left. But I thought you had something important to discuss, not just being horrid about my family and what I’m wearing.”