CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Exhausted from the excitement and success of their ball, and from learning the Marquess of Andover had lived among them for months, Patience’s girls had said goodnight. Shane and their father had gone home and Aunt Harriette went up exacting a promise that Patience would quickly follow.
Grant stood by the mantle and watched Patience pace in agitation while searching his mind for a way to make her understand. Everything. He stepped up behind her and put his hands on her arms. “Patience, please.”
Like a shot, her arms swung out knocking his away. She turned on him like a spitting cat. “Please what? Please forgive you? Forgive you for letting me call a Duke Brian for heaven’s sake? For hiding the fact that you are the Marquess of Andover? Perhaps you’d like me to forgive you for telling me in the middle of a crowded ballroom before hundreds of curious guests.”
“You sound like a fishwife.”
“Perhaps so. But I have every reason to sound this way. What do you wish me to forgive you for, Grant? You want me to accept the deceit and lies, and forget they happened? I’m sorry, my Lord, but there’s too much between us now for anything ever to be the same again.”
Grant lifted Patience in his arms. “Damned right there is. So stop acting the spoiled child!” He’d startled her. Good. He sat down with her, glad she was still too surprised to argue.
“This is what’s between us, Patience,” he said, swooping like a bird of prey seeking sustenance, stealing her breath with a kiss.
Still, she pulled away, gazed at him, groaned, and came back for more. Her cold anger warmed to a glowing ember. Grant knew he’d tamed her when her hand slipped inside his shirt. He nearly lost his breath at the feel of her caressing his chest. Reluctantly, he placed his hand over hers, above the fabric, to stop its wayward journey. “Hear me out, will you?”
Patience wondered how Grant always managed to calm her. A moment ago she was a volcano about to erupt then he kissed her with such tenderness. No matter what happened between them in the future, she’d never be able to forget the tenderness, the caring, and the passion. “All right, I’ll listen.”
He nodded. “As you already know, my mother ran off. Shane was eight and I was ten. I don’t think she ever wanted us. She certainly never wanted to be bothered with us.”
Patience tried not let him see her pity. “Through the eyes of a child, it might have looked that way, Grant. But, I’ve learned that a child’s perception can be distorted. What happened to her?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. But believe me, she didn’t love us.” He took one of her loose curls between his fingers. “Anyway, when we discovered she was gone, Shane and I set out on our ponies in the middle of the night to find her. We were babies really, and we wanted our mother. We didn’t understand that she didn’t return our love.”
Grant shook his head. “The old man.” He sighed. “No. I’ve called him that for too many years. Father found us near morning. He was angry. He told us our mother was no good and we were better off without her. It can be hard on a small boy to hear his mother is no good. But father must have been right, because we never saw her again. I don’t know if she’s dead or alive and I don’t care. Our lives changed, but not as much as you’d imagine. We had one parent, who was a rakehell of the first order. Women, parties, gambling, were everything that mattered to him. He rarely bothered with us. No doubt, we reminded him of her, or more precisely, what he’d lost—my father never took kindly to losing. Anyway, we didn’t see him often and what we saw, we detested.”
Patience kissed his nose.
He kissed hers. “My father’s steward, Hadley, took us under his wing. He showed us people were equal, not upper crust and soggy bottom, that satisfaction could be found in honest labor and pride could come from that. The more Hadley taught us, the less we respected our father, which was not Hadley’s purpose. To be fair, he tried awfully hard to instill respect for Brian in us.”
“He must have been crushed you were so hard-headed.”
“Spitting mad. Not crushed. Not Hadley.” Grant smiled looking far into the past.
Patience was glad he had a few happy childhood memories.
“After Hadley died, I went in service to the crown for a while. That’s how I got the blasted title. Then society opened up to me, and I hated it more up close than from afar. In my mid-twenties, I convinced Shane to join me in a shipping business. Two know-it-all bucks, we went to London to tell our father what we thought of his world. I hated him quite a bit more than you hated your Aunt Harriette. We made our own way after that day, and never contacted him.”
Patience thought her heart would break.
“We built a shipping empire in Boston. Our ships sail all over the world. Shane captains some and I captain others. Sometimes, as on The Knave’s Secret, we take ship together.”
He smiled and touched the tip of his finger to her lips. “One day, on our way to London to enlarge our empire, we took on a hellcat and four spitting kittens. Patience, you taught me to forgive, and to find, buried deep inside, a spark of caring for my father. After you made up with your aunt, I went to him and we talked, much like you and your Aunt did, except we talked louder. Eventually, we formed a wary peace.” He kissed her. “I have a family again, because of you. I think Brian is happy too.”
Patience wiped her eyes. “I’m glad, Grant, and I believe Brian is happy. Shane, too. But, Grant, that doesn’t excuse the fact that you lied to me. Once we got to know each other, I told you I didn’t know the Marquess. It was time for you to speak up. The fact that you let the lie fester so long—”
“Please believe that I stopped thinking of myself as the Marquess of Andover.” He shook his head. “No, it’s deeper than that. I denied who I was, even to myself. It was only after I settled with my father that I found myself willing to admit it. Remember, I wasn’t forced into it tonight. I could have said he left town. But I felt I owed you the truth.”
Patience felt manipulated, but she could not seem to decide how. And it was so late, and she was so tired. “Thank you. I think.” She leaned her head on his shoulder and toyed with his earlobe. “Why then did you tell me you would introduce me to the Marquess as early as on the ship?”
“If he was in England. I had a mind to say he was not.”
“More lies.” Patience straightened. “What about the gossip? The terrible things they say about you? The Hellfire Club?”
“The Hellfire Club has been dead for years. The men who belonged to it were worse than the idle rich. They were, some of them, murderers. That was a falsehood among many, though more damaging than the ones I started myself.”
“You started rumors about yourself?”
“To give me the opportunity to pursue trade, discreetly. It’s frowned upon among the aristocracy.”
“But you prefer commerce to Society.”
He nodded. “I own printing presses here and in Boston. I have investments in several companies. I have a friend, Francis Lowell. We plan to build a textile mill in Massachusetts. There are other businesses—”
“I want to know about the bastard babies.”
He took her hand. “I assure you, no bastard babies of mine run about the streets of London.”
It did feel splendid, his skin against hers. “Boston?”
He chuckled. “No. Nor Boston either.”
“Where?”
“Nowhere! Patience, stop it.” He hugged her.
“Grant, if you never intended to accept your title, why did you bother to start rumors that allowed you to dabble in trade, making people think you traveled instead?”
“Ah. Well, now, you are asking me to admit something to you that I have only recently admitted to myself.” He thought to sample a quick taste of her lips and go on, but her open-mouthed invitation caused a quickening response.
He stopped and struggled to regroup. “I guess I have always, deep down, intended to return and accept my heritage when my father’s title befell me. There are
people who depend on my father for their livelihood, like Hadley’s family and his children’s children. I have a responsibility to them.” He tweaked her nose. “I was not keeping it from you, specifically, Patience, but from the rest of the world, and if truth be told, from myself. Please forgive me.”
She told him with her mouth upon his, with her fingers in the hair at his nape, with her moans at his touch. He stood and carried her toward the settee. She ached to think what might happen. He was about to lay her down when the door opened.
Grace blushed crimson when she saw them.
Grant set her on her feet.
“What is it Grace?”
The normally calm girl wrung her hands. “Rose is crying and packing. She says she’s taking Amy and leaving London. She won’t talk and I can’t change her mind.”
Patience touched Grant’s arm. “I was afraid of this. Will you wait?”
“Of course. Go ahead. I’ll be right here.”
Amy sat in traveling clothes wrapped in a blanket, crying as hard as her mother who was throwing her cape over her shoulders. Several bags stood at the door. Patience lifted Amy and unbuttoned her warm clothing.
Rose sniffed. “Patience, what are you doing? We have to go.”
“You’re not going anywhere until we talk, and I fear Amy will suffocate while we do. Take off your cloak and sit. Grace, dear, go and fetch tea and toast for us, will you? When you return, you may take Amy to your room for a while.”
“Of course.”
“Rose, do sit down, you’re making me dizzy. None of us has had any sleep, and it’s dawn. There now, tell me why you have to flee London.”
Rose wiped her eyes and shook her head.
Patience decided if she ever did marry, she would have only male children. Grace returned and took the baby. Still Rose said nothing.
“I’ve listened to you cry long enough, now drink your tea and listen.” Patience sipped the sweet milk-laden brew and let it calm her. “You’re pregnant with Shane’s child and leaving so he won’t know.”
Rose’s teacup split the saucer as it landed. “I’m sorry,” she said wiping her wet hand. “It was very shocking to hear it that way. Of course, you would realize my suspicions are confirmed. But Patience, he doesn’t want to marry me and I can’t stay and get big and round with no husband. I won’t go through that again. I’ll go to the country. I’ll take in sewing and washing and say I’m a widow. I have money. Papa gave it to me when he left. He said I’d need it to get away and he was right, though he meant away from mother.”
“How do you know Shane won’t marry you?”
“He hasn’t asked me.”
“Did you tell him about the babe?”
“Of course not! I don’t want to trap Shane. I love him.”
“Certainly, and he loves you. You have only to look at him to know.”
“As to that, the Captain—or the Marquess—looks at you in exactly the same way.”
“He does not! And we are not speaking of me, so let’s leave the scoundrel out of this. I think you should speak to Shane. He’s a warm, caring man who loves you and Amy and would be bereft to lose you, not to mention the child you carry, if he knew of it. Get into your nightrail, climb between those sheets and sleep. I will send someone to wake you at ten. Then you will tell Shane he is about to become a father and shortly after that, I predict you will become a bride.”
Rose smiled. “When you say it that way, it makes such sense.” She hugged Patience. “Thank you. You are the sister I can always count on.”
Patience hugged her back. “I have always wanted a sister.”
“Me too,” Rose said. “And now we have four.”
Patience went back to the library where she found Grant sleeping on the settee. He looked as if he’d tried to stay sitting but fell over. Funny, she thought as she slipped his shoes off and lifted his legs to the cushions, she never noticed him looking at her the way Shane looks at Rose.
She pushed a curl from his brow. She should let him sleep and go upstairs. Instead, she locked the library door and snuggled against him. He opened sleepy eyes and smiled at her.
“Go back to sleep,” she whispered. “The house will be quiet for hours yet and I’ve locked the door.”
He kissed her, pulled her against him with one arm and settled her head in his neck. “A man could get used to this,” he said in a sleepy voice and drifted off.
So could a woman.
Someone tried the library door at dawn to light the fire. Patience ignored the knob’s rattle and drifted back to sleep. Someone tried again at nine, probably to clean. Still locked. Patience closed her eyes in contentment.
“Bother,” someone in the hall said. “Dusting can wait ‘till tomorrow.” And so it could, Patience thought.
At noon Aunt Harriette’s voice brought her full awake. Grant too. But they ignored the sounds. Patience felt Grant’s arousal against her middle and smiled into coal black eyes. Ah those crinkle lines.
He kissed her and held her warm willing body tight. “Mmm.” His kisses trailed to her breast where he nibbled through her gown.
Exploring and teasing became a lovely early-morning pastime. Patience slid her hand to that mysterious hard ridge. His groan shot fire through her. She was about to explore further when the sound of a key in the lock moved them like lightening.
Grant, on the inside, was quicker, however, and knocked Patience to the floor. He picked her up, kissed her on the brow, and pulled her to the chairs facing the hearth. He sat her in one, himself in the other, and crossed his legs of necessity. Patience looked like she was going to giggle. He gave her a warning look as the lock gave. She looked as if she’d been sleeping, he thought, a good thing, but he wished she wasn’t breathing so rapidly. He feigned sleep because, for the life of him, he could not stand as Aunt Harriette entered the room. He hoped Patience would be smart and drag the woman away. He wondered if the powers of mental thought could be transferred as some scientists seemed to think, so he tried. Get her the devil out of here!
Aunt Harriette seemed to accept that he slept because she whispered. “Dear, did you stay up all night?”
“Oh, no,” Patience whispered back. “I fell asleep. It certainly looks as if Grant did. Come along, Aunt, and talk to me while I bathe and dress. I feel decidedly uncomfortable. Let ‘The Saint’ sleep a while longer.”
Grant barely held his chuckle until the door shut.
He sent a note to his house and had fresh clothes brought. Utilizing one of the guest rooms, he bathed, shaved and changed before Patience returned to the library.
“Oh, good. Food,” Patience said when she saw the tray waiting. She bit into a warm fruited scone. “Mmm. It may be two in the afternoon, but I want breakfast.”
Grant raised a brow and leaned over the small table between them. “I’m famished for what we started when your darling Aunt interrupted.”
Patience smiled sweetly. “Don’t forget who insisted I bring her to London.”
He scowled. “Can we send her back now?”
“No. But listen, we have other problems.”
“Patience, I hate it when you say we have problems. They are, inevitably, incomprehensible and insurmountable.”
“You told me you’d stay and help with the girls.”
“More fool, me.”
“All I need is someone to talk to. There isn’t much you can do about this. I’ve handled it and I need you to say I did fine.”
“And if you didn’t?”
“I don’t want to know.”
He nodded and sipped his tea. “I understand your rules. Now tell me and don’t run in circles. Plain speaking if you please. My brain is fogged from lack of sleep.”
“Rose is pregnant.”
Grant’s eyes widened as he put his cup down with a clatter. “I must say, Patience, when you get it into your head to do as I ask, you are quite good at it!” After a minute of shock, he smiled. “So, I’m to be an uncle. Does Shane know?” r />
“I hadn’t thought about you being an uncle. Do you think you can act like one?”
“What? Bounce the little tiger on my knee? Of course I can. I think I would be quite fond of Shane’s children. I’m happy for them. Is Rose well?”
Patience jumped from her chair. “No, dolt, Rose is not well. She is not married to your brother, and furthermore he hasn’t asked her.”
“A mere technicality.”
“Not to Rose. She was packing to leave this morning when I stopped her. I’ve convinced her to speak with Shane, and I certainly hope he offers for her. She’s more than four months along. It must have happened at the beginning of our voyage.”
Grant was startled by that. “Of course, I don’t know a great deal about these matters, but shouldn’t it, I mean wouldn’t she be . . .larger by now?”
“Look at this dress Grant. What does it look like?”
Grant studied her small but perfect breasts and the lavender high-waisted dress that lifted them quite nicely. He watched how one lone curl barely touched the peak and longed to lift it and place his lips on the spot. “You look as if you need to be kissed.”
Patience groaned. “Grant, does it look as if I’m pregnant?”
“No. Well, yes, actually. Are you wearing your bosom inserts?”
She rolled her eyes and prayed for patience. “You need to get some rest. I’m trying to tell you that a woman can hide her delicate condition in this style dress. I’m sure many women do.”
Grant went to her. “I’m sorry to babble like an idiot. My lack of sleep is beginning to take its toll.” He took her into his arms, put a hand below her breast, and slid it to her waist, then her abdomen where he made lazy circles. “You’d be beautiful if you were, Patience. You should reconsider your dreams for the future and think of marriage.”
Patience had closed her eyes with the slow strokes. Now she opened them wide. “Should I? Who should I marry?”
Grant remembered his mother and dropped his hand as if he’d been burned. “You’d make someone a wonderful wife, I’m sure.”
She faced the Captain again, which made her angry, at herself for the seed of hope she’d allowed. “I think few men have the sensitivity to be husbands, so I’ll keep my dream if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly. It would be best. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be off. Don’t worry about Rose and Shane. They’ll work it out.”
After Grant left, Patience attempted to speak with Angel about her unexplained absences, but she was on her way out to visit the lending library with Sophie. She promised Patience they would talk later.
Later, as they finally began that talk, angry shouts reverberated through the house and drew Patience to the top of the stairs. The girls followed.
Shane shouted, calling Grant interfering and unfeeling. Then the mild-mannered first-mate planted his brother a facer.
Grant fell back and hit the stair rail.
The girls gasped.
Patience screamed, not knowing if the resounding crack was from the rail splitting or Grant’s thick skull.
Shane ran half-way up the stairs then stopped to look up in fury. “Dammit, Rose, why in hell didn’t you tell me you’re pregnant?”
Rose wailed.
Patience grabbed Amy.
Rose fled in tears.
Set in motion again, Shane followed.
Grant rose on a moan, rubbing his jaw, and watched Patience soothe the crying babe. His afternoon’s anguish returned. Patience with a babe. Agony filled him at the sight. A passionate battle warred in him. She looked absolutely perfect cradling an infant. Would that the child belonged to them. No. He sighed at the pain all around. His needs and fears engaged in combat at a pace too fierce for him to command. And he hated not being in command, especially of himself.
He wanted Patience. He did not.
“I can’t believe you went to your brother with this, you . . .Never mind what you are; Amy’s too young to hear it.” Patience fled and left him standing at the bottom of the stairs. The outer door opened behind him as Harriette and Brian came in from the rain.
“What’s wrong?” they asked, looking from the girls to Grant.
“Damned if I know, but I’m bloody well going to find out.” He took the stairs two at a time. Moments later, he found Patience in her room rocking a sleepy Amy, a look of fury on her face.
He knelt in front of her. “Why are you angry with me?”
Amy opened her eyes and held her arms out to him.
Surprised, he took the baby girl and let Patience show him how to hold her so her head rested on his shoulder. Amy sighed in contentment and closed her eyes.
Patience frowned. “You do charm the ladies.”
He scowled.
Patience shook her head. “Do you want to sit in the rocker?”
“No,” he whispered. “Come with me. When she’s asleep, we’ll put her down so we can talk.”
Patience followed him down the hall to the last door and into a room with children’s furniture. “What a lovely room, but how did you know it was here?”
“Now that you know I’m the Marquess, you may as well know this was my grandmother’s house. She left it to me, but I haven’t lived in it since I was seventeen and she was alive.” Patience watched him rub Amy’s back. “After my mother abandoned us, when my father came to town, he left us here with my grandmother, Lady Briarleigh. She was an old dear. We spent hours in this room, Shane and I. He loves this place. I’m going to give it to him and Rose as a wedding present. I have other houses.”
Patience pursed her lips. “I wish you would not do anything admirable while I am so angry with you.”
Grant put Amy on the counterpane of the little bed and placed a coverlet over her. “Do you think she’s warm enough?”
“Yes,” Patience said grudgingly.
He took her hand and led her through a connecting door into a lovely sitting room, leaving the door open a crack so they’d hear Amy if she woke. Urging her toward two chairs facing a large bay window at the far end of the room, he sighed. “Tell me why you’re angry.”
“Furious. I’m absolutely furious with you. Rose should have been the one to tell Shane about the baby. Not you. I told you in confidence, Grant. How could you be so callous?”
She got up to pace and stopped almost immediately. “Nothing you do should surprise me, not where the heart is concerned. Your shameless disregard of Rose’s feelings in this instance is proof you know nothing of love. And Shane was right; you do not possess an ounce of feeling in you. Do you realize how emotional Rose is right now? Shane charged into this house as if you were forcing him to marry her. She may never get over it.”
Grant wondered for a minute why he felt so betrayed by Patience’s words. Everyone had always assumed he knew nothing of love. He liked it that way. Most of his life, he’d cultivated an attitude of hard-shelled invulnerability, so he should be pleased at his success.
Yet, Patience’s charge was like to bring him to his knees. Why?
Because he knew of love. He loved her.
Did he? Dear God, no.
As if a stone pillar fell on his chest, Grant began to fight for air. He turned toward Patience, turned away, the light in the room dim. Gazing out at the dark streets, an occasional carriage-lamp bobbing along like a beacon in the mist, Grant almost wished he rode safely away.
He wanted to say something, but no words would come. He couldn’t bear to look at Patience, yet he ached to feast his eyes on her. Her face was too . . .dear, a peril if ever he’d known one. He couldn’t love her. He couldn’t. He would not allow himself to.
Shane and Rose came in, breaking his web of panic, saving him as surely as if they wielded swords. Grant took a breath, another, until the room came, once again, into focus.
“Where’s Amy?” Shane asked.
Grant breathed easier, forced a smile. “Sleeping like a kitten in her new papa’s old room.”
Rose smiled as Shane pu
t his arm around her waist. He looked at Grant and Patience. “I want you to know why I didn’t ask Rose to marry me the day I brought Amy back. It broke Rose’s heart that Amy was attached to me and not her. I wanted to give them time alone, for Amy to know her mama, again. Otherwise, I feared they’d never have that special connection. The covenant between a mother and child is powerful, but if it’s broken....” He looked at his brother. “Well we know how that can be, don’t we? I didn’t want to come between them, so I waited. It was the longest wait of my life.” He smiled, then. “Father’s gone to arrange for a special license. We’ll be married tomorrow. I’d like you to stand with me, Grant.”
“And you with me, Patience.”
Patience rose to congratulate them. It would be the only time she and Grant would ever stand together at the front of a church.
Several hours later when sleep would not come, Patience found her room too small. And when she heard what could only be the sound of Shane opening the door to Rose’s room, it became stifling. Why?
Because she wanted Grant in here. She missed him.
How could she be angry with him and miss him at the same time? “Damn you, Grant St. Benedict. Damn. Damn. Damn.” Yes she was furious, and haunted by the look in his eyes when he left. She couldn’t let this chasm of anger grow wider. Their friendship meant too much to her. He meant too much to her. She dressed quickly, and ran down the stairs and out before anyone could warn her against going. She hailed a hack just outside the door. Midnight wasn’t the least late in London.
At Grant’s front door, Patience wondered if she should have come and almost left. Then she peered through the long, side window, just to see if perhaps Grant was around, and something caught her eye. A glowing light, moving, weaving in and out, like . . .fire.
Patience tried the unlocked door, rushed in, a blast of heat slapping her in the face. She gasped; smoke licking her throat and bringing tears to her eyes. Oh God. Oh God. The acrid smell turned her stomach, fear trebled her heart. “Grant!” She screamed above the crackling roar of flames. “Grant? Where are you? Answer me, blast you. Grant!”
She brought her skirt up over her mouth and nose as a barrier, removing it to call Grant at intervals, then protecting herself again. Making her way blindly, she knocked over a small round table. When it rolled toward the flames and became engulfed, she realized she’d unintentionally added fuel to the fire and she sobbed.
She ran up the stairs calling Grant, though her throat was raw and the smoke she swallowed burned her lungs.
From the little she could see, the fire centered the upper hall. She stood foolishly still, looking into doorways, and thought she spied a form in a small salon. “Is someone there?” she called. If there were someone in that corner chair—and she could not be certain, for the flame glowed so strongly before her that it made everything the blacker behind—and difficult to enter the room. Though smoke hazed the air and crackling heat hissed a warning, she made an aborted attempt.
In all likelihood, the room had another doorway that opened off a side hall near the servant’s stairs, which she must reach, for it did look as if someone slumped there.
Patience made her precarious way to where she expected to find the servant’s hall, but a wall of flame danced in her path. With no intention of giving up, she covered her head with her skirt so she could jump the flames without fire catching her hair. Once done, she leapt through the blazing rampart. Fast. Blind. Screaming.
On the other side, she smothered the fire licking at her petticoat. Afterward, praise be, she found that second door.
“Grant, oh Grant. It is you.” She locked her arms around his waist and tried to pull his unconscious form from the chair. A dead weight, she fell instead. The paper in his hand feathered away, flamed. The picture Rose had drawn of her blackened and shriveled, its extinction snapping Patience to action.
She slid Grant to the floor, the sound of him landing making her wince. Then she got behind him and dragged him by his wrists toward the servant’s stairs, her arms pulling from their sockets, God alone knowing where she found the strength.
She dragged him down the stairs, the thud, thud, thud, of him hitting gruesome accompaniment to the conflagration hissing at the top of the stairs.
An enormous welling of emotion assailed her. Laughter threatened, teetered, and became tears. Hysteria took root.
When she got him to the scullery, she left him on the floor and ran to slam the door behind them, cutting off the smoke and flames chasing them. She flexed her arms and rolled her shoulders, crying out with pain then she dragged him the last few feet and out the service door.
A maid with her beau in the outside doorway screeched when they appeared. “Help me,” Patience begged, her voice a husky rasp, the pain in her throat intense. The maid’s young man dragged Grant clear of the house.
Patience followed, taking in drafts of cool air, afraid she’d never breathe free again, sick with worry that Grant would never regain consciousness. “Anybody else inside?” she asked the maid, refusing to consider the worst.
The girl shook her head and gazed with horror at Grant.
“The house is aflame!” Patience said. “Don’t just stand there. Get help!”
The maid wailed and ran. After the young man dragged Grant to the farthest reach of the property, he went to fetch a doctor.
Patience slapped Grant’s face.Gritty voiced, she ordered him awake.Tears blurred her burning eyes and scored painful trails on the painful flesh of her cheeks. “Wake up,” she sobbed. “Wake up you snarly Captain.”
She pushed at his chest and cursed. “Don’t you die on me, Grant St. Benedict. Don’t you dare die.”
She rolled him to his side and slapped his back hoping to knock some breath into him. “Breathe. Breathe, damn you!” Nothing seemed to work. Kneeling with her hands between her knees, she let her tears fall. “Oh, please, no.”
Covered with soot, sick with despair, Patience placed Grant’s head in her lap and wiped her eyes to see him better. Holding his head to her breast, she rubbed his chest. “You make me so bloody mad. If you . . .if you leave me....” Her voice broke. “I’ll never forgive you.”
She touched his cheek. “I won’t, you know.” She sat him up and knelt behind him, pounding his back while keeping one arm about his waist.
“Yell at me.”
THUMP.
“Call me Lady Patience.”
THUMP.
“Swear, damn you.”
THUMP.
“But, don’t leave me.”
THUMP.
“If you do . . .If you do....” Patience lay her head against his back and let her tears fall.
Grant was dead.
She had failed him. Something sharp and caustic, like hot lightening, struck her heart, ripped through it, and she knew the wound would never heal. If her life were to end now, she would welcome the decision.
Sagging against the lifeless body of the man who had become her other half, silent tears began to fall, until an outward tremor shook her.
She raised her head. Another tremor, the barest rumble.
She pulled away from Grant and pressed her hand against his back. “Oh, please. Oh, please.” A quivering against her palm set her to rubbing his back with brutal force, and then she began to pound it, again.
The tremor grew to a great heaving gasp. A horrendous cough—which at any other time would have frightened her senseless, but it drew from her a delighted whoop.
Patience pounded mercilessly, while Grant struggled for each and every breath.
He might have said, “Stop!” She wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t taking any chances, so she continued, until his large muscled arm swung around and grabbed her mid-slap. He pulled her around and against him. “Stop it you bastard.”
He coughed, then caught his breath and looked, really looked at her. “Patience?” He peered closer, unfocused, and bleary-eyed. “Jesus, you look like hell.”
She la
ughed, or more precisely, gasped. “Those are the most beautiful words I have ever heard.”
“Why the devil were you beating me? And what in bloody hell are you doing here?” He took several deep breaths and closed his eyes, as if he were in pain. “It took two bottles of Brandy to blot you from my mind and here you are again?”
“Brandy?” Patience wanted to beat him bloody now, maybe use a few of Sophie’s techniques, but she was still too grateful he was alive. Almost. “Grant St. Benedict, have you been drinking?”
The dull-minded oaf nodded and smiled.
Just like Papa. Patience denied a crippling surge of despair and chose rage, instead. “You bastard! You get drunk as a sailor—”
“Am a sailor.”
She ignored that. “You let your house burn around you—and you along with it. If I hadn’t come along....” Trembling overtook her.
“Wha’d’ya mean burn?”
“Fire, fool. Your house is aflame as we speak.”
Patience’s words did for Grant’s foggy brain what the air had not accomplished. He looked at his house. “Shane.” He tried to rise. “I’ve got to get Shane.”
She pulled him back down; it didn’t take much effort, the dolt was sotted. “Shane’s at Briarleigh with Rose. Safe. I sent your maid for help. She said no one else was inside.”
Men were yelling orders now in the street out front.
Grant stood, unsteadily, and pulled Patience up with him.
Her choking frightened him. He tried to soothe her. What must have happened finally registered in his mind. Her voice was hoarse, more so than his. It cost her dearly to speak. He examined her more closely, her smudged face, filthy gown, scorched and torn. A puckered, leaking burn striped her arm from wrist to elbow. Tears lay sooty trails on her red, dry face.
She had run into a burning building to save him. The thought overpowered. She had risked her life. For him. “Oh, God.” Mindful of her wounds, he pulled her against him, his heart hammering a wild beat. He kissed her beloved face, her red-rimmed eyes, and her cracked, parched lips. “I could have lost you,” he said on a shudder.
“I thought I had lost you.”
Her tears tasted of salt, and sadness.
Blind panic slowed and Grant’s brain began to take over. Why hadn’t she gone for help instead of risking her foolish neck? Why had she put herself in danger?
He turned her toward the moonlight so he could see her clearly. Such an adorable, dirty face. “You little idiot! That was a bloody stupid thing to do. Downright half-witted, running into a fire and injuring yourself.” He lifted her arm to examine the burn. “Will you tell me why a woman, as practical as you are, would rush into a house afire?”
Patient wasn’t certain. She gazed from the bloody gash on her arm to his angry, handsome face. Why had she rushed into a house ablaze?
For him, of course. Didn’t he realize that? She’d done it to save the man she loved.
“No,” she whispered. Please God, no. Don’t let me love the drunken sot.
Footsteps grew loud, too loud. The pounding of them hurt her head, expanding it at each thud, like great heaving waves in her brain.
She tried to maintain her dignity as she fought dizziness. Thump, thump. “I’ll thank you to . . . ” Thump. She held her head. “Stop calling . . .me . . .names. I’ve . . .Oh.” She blinked to clear her vision. Thump, thump, thump. Why wouldn’t the pounding stop? “I’ve never been foolish a day in my....”
“She fainted dead away,” a man said.
“Too much smoke,” another replied.
“Will she make it?”
Patience did not recognize any of the voices coming from a distance. If only her head would stop spinning, she could open her eyes. She tried to raise her leaden lids, but couldn’t.
“Thank the Lord.” That was Aunt Harriette.
“Amen.” Grant’s voice.
She managed, finally, to open her eyes. Dear concerned faces bent over her, Sophie, Rose, Grace and Angel. Aunt Harriette with tears in her eyes. Grant scowled down—or was he the Captain just now?—and yes, as she suspected, his hand held hers. “Why is everyone watching me?”
Grant’s scowl cracked as he raised her hand to his lips, to hide the chink in his armor, Patience imagined.
“You’ve been unconscious since I brought you home,” he whispered. “You pulled me out of the fire and saved my life. Then you fainted.”
Her turn to scowl. “I never faint. I was tired. I must have fallen asleep.”
“And a long sleep it was,” a weasel of a man with beady eyes said, stepping near. “Six hours. I feared the smoke had filled your lungs and you wouldn’t be long with us.”
Grant squeezed her hand, again, his own shaking. The Weasel packed his bag, giving Aunt Harriette a set of dubious instructions. After bending to kiss her cheek, Rose shooed everyone out and followed.
Grant sat on her bed, his half-smile-half-frown a sign the Captain might return. Patience hoped not; she liked Grant’s protective demeanor, but she knew from experience that vulnerability usually brought the Captain.
“Aunt Harriette let you stay in my bedroom alone with me. Is she ill?”
Grant looked rueful. “When the doctor wanted me to leave so he could examine you, I tried to plant him a facer. I expect no one dares tangle with me right now.”
Patience hid her wonder, lest he note her perception. If he’d been Grant and fit to kill, his motives bore consideration. But if he’d been the Captain, he ran true to form.
Still, with her unconscious and unable to draw out the Captain, he was likely Grant.
Patience touched her head, which hurt for thinking, the answer so far out of reach as to be unattainable. She sighed and brought on a fit of coughing.
Grant raised and offered her a drink with a shaking hand.
Sipping helped. After a second, she calmed, closing her eyes and swallowed painfully.
Grant moved her hair from her eyes. “Throat better?” he whispered.
She nodded.
“Good. That drink will also help you sleep so your throat and lungs can heal.” He raised her pillows so she could sit up a bit, to make it easier for her to breathe. Then he gave her a chaste kiss. Though barely a touch, it spoke more of emotion than he’d ever expressed. She wished she had the strength to examine his contradictory actions.
Grant opened a jar of balm, the spearmint scent alone soothing. She closed her eyes as he smoothed the cool ointment on her cracked lips. He must have thought she’d fallen asleep, for as he touched the balm to several sore spots on her face and neck, he swore a colorful oath beneath his breath, as if he were cursing himself.
Patience hid her smile as contentment seeped into her bones and she began to drift.
Grant smoothed her brow with a touch light as butterfly wings. “Sleep, my love,” he said. “Heal. And perhaps someday you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”
Was she his love? She wished she wasn’t too sore and sleepy to ask.
Grant examined her parchment dry skin, her burns wounding him anew, and swallowed hard. His fault for turning to drink.
Patience’s eyes opened.
“Close your eyes, Sweetheart. I’ll wake you in time for Shane and Rose’s wedding, and not a moment before.” Through his own selfish actions, he might have lost her. Forever. A thought not to be borne.
There was much for him to consider as he kept vigil, for he would not be sent away. If Aunt Harriette had it in her mind to sit by Patience, well, then she’d met her match in him.