“He left the front door standing wide open.”
Anne flinched as a violent clap of thunder shook the house, as if to remind them all that a storm still raged outside.
“Oh, dear God, the cliffs,” she whispered. She didn’t realize she had swayed on her feet until Dravenwood cupped her elbow to steady her.
Pippa shook her head. “He didn’t head for the cliffs. Dickon is almost positive he saw him running toward the moors during a flash of lightning. He’s getting ready to go looking for him now.”
“Like hell he is,” Dravenwood growled, striding toward the door.
Pippa glared at the earl through her tears. She was crying in earnest now, her chest hitching with ragged sobs, her pretty face splotched with red. “This is all your fault! You’re the one who said you wanted him gone! How could you be so heartless and cruel? Did you think he was deaf as well as daft?”
“You’ll have ample time to berate me for my heartlessness later, child,” Dravenwood said grimly, taking Pippa by the shoulders and setting her gently out of his path. “At the moment we have more important matters to attend to.”
BY THE TIME THE three of them reached the entrance hall, Dickon was fully dressed and seated on the bench of the coat tree. He was tugging on a pair of careworn boots with a jagged hole in one toe, his lean face taut with determination.
The storm had only just begun to unleash the full force of its fury.
The rain had deepened to a torrential downpour while the wind hurtled rattling fistfuls of hail at the arched window above the door.
It made Anne’s heart twist with helpless terror to imagine Hodges out there somewhere, wandering lost and alone.
“Fetch my overcoat and boots,” Dravenwood commanded Betsy when he spotted the white-faced maids and Nana huddled in the doorway of the drawing room. When she hesitated, casting Anne a questioning look, he shouted, “Now!”
Betsy scurried past them and up the stairs to do his bidding.
Dickon rose to face them, squaring his thin shoulders and giving them all a fleeting glimpse of the man he would become. “Don’t blame Pippa for letting him go. He was mine to watch as well. That’s why I’m going to fetch him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Anne rushed to his side. “I can’t bear to lose the both of you. He’s my responsibility. I’ll go.”
Pippa sniffled. “I’m the one who lost him. I should be the one to go.”
Dravenwood’s voice cracked louder than the thunder. “In case all of you have forgotten, I am the master of this house. If anyone is going out in this hell’s spawn of a night to look for Hodges, it’s me.”
“But I know the moors like the back of my own hand,” Dickon protested. “I might even be able to catch one of the wild ponies and—”
“The only thing you’re going to catch in this weather is your death of a cold,” Dravenwood said.
Betsy came rushing back down the stairs with the earl’s boots in hand and his overcoat draped over her arm.
“Dickon is right,” Anne said, her heart swelling with panic. “You don’t know the moors. They can be deadly during a storm.”
Dravenwood sank down on the second stair to tug on his boots. “I survived a cholera outbreak in Burma, a sandstorm in the Tunisian desert, being jilted by my bride for my brother at the altar, and nearly being poisoned and burned to death in my bed by you and your motley little crew of minions. I have no intention of letting a little thunder and lightning or your blasted moor finish me off.”
Dickon said, “But I—”
“You are not setting foot outside this house, young man.” Max rose to yank on his overcoat. “You’re going to stay right here and look after the women. That’s an order.” Max turned to Anne. “If he tries to slip out after I’m gone, use those keys of yours to lock him in the pantry. Or the dungeon.”
Dickon flung himself back down on the bench, returning the earl’s glare with one of his own. Pippa moved to stand beside the boy, placing a hand on his shoulder in a rare show of solidarity.
By the time Max reached the door, Anne was waiting for him there.
Since she didn’t dare touch him in front of the others, all she could do was reach up to correct the angle of his shoulder cape. “Take care, my lord. Please.”
He gazed down at her, the dangerous gleam in his eye warning her he was on the verge of doing something completely mad. Like drawing her into his arms in front of them all for a long, passionate kiss. “I’ll bring him back to you. I swear it.”
Leaving her with that vow, he swept open the door and ducked out into the storm.
ANNE PERCHED ON THE sill of the attic window, straining to see through the inky curtain of rain lashing the windowpanes. She had retreated to her bedchamber when she could no longer bear the stillness of the longcase clock in the entrance hall or the way everyone looked at her expectantly at every brief lull in the storm or noise from outside the manor. Noises that inevitably turned out to be the banging of a loose shutter or a splintered branch slamming into the side of the house.
The storm’s rage was even more virulent up here. The attic shuddered and groaned beneath the battering fists of the wind. Anne could clearly hear each time a slate tile gave up the fight and went skittering off the roof.
But her window also provided the best view of the moor. As she watched, a jagged bolt of lightning rent the sky, illuminating the landscape for a precious fraction of a second. She pressed her nose to the glass, her pulse quickening with excitement. She would almost have sworn she had seen two figures in the far distance, grappling against the storm. But by the next flicker of lightning they were gone, leaving only the gnarled corpse of a tree and a standing stone where they had been.
Anne sank back against the window frame and gazed down at the candle flickering on the windowsill. Her eyelids were growing heavier, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw Dravenwood or Hodges lying facedown in some overflowing brook or flooded gully. She had ordered the maids to set a lamp in every window of the manor to serve as beacons, all the while knowing that anyone bold or foolish enough to brave the moor on a night such as this probably couldn’t see more than a hand’s length in front of their face.
She had briefly occupied her trembling hands by exchanging her soot-streaked nightdress for a plain gray gown and pinning up her hair, almost as if those commonplace rituals could help to temper the capricious nature of the storm. She lifted a hand to her throat, instinctively seeking comfort from her locket. She almost wished she had pressed it into Lord Dravenwood’s hand before he had disappeared into the storm. He could have carried it as a knight would carry his lady’s favor, using it as a talisman to guide him and Hodges back to Cadgwyck.
And back to her.
ANNE AWOKE WITH A guilty start and a painful crick in her neck. She must have dozed off without meaning to. The candle on the windowsill next to her had burned down to a stub. Its wick was on the verge of drowning in a pool of melted wax.
It took her a dazed moment to recognize the sound that had awakened her—silence.
Rubbing the crook between her neck and shoulder, she lifted her gaze to the window. The rain had departed with the night, taking the howling winds with it, but not the towering banks of clouds. Her mouth opened in a silent gasp. The destruction the storm had left behind was almost more terrifying than the storm itself. The somber dawn light revealed that one of the crumbling gateposts had tumbled the rest of the way over to block the drive. The drive itself was almost completely washed away, reduced to muddy ruts overflowing with rushing water. Roof tiles were scattered everywhere she looked, and a window shutter torn clean away from the house lay splintered on the ground. Even the veils of ivy had been ripped away from the tower windows.
It was hard to imagine how anything—or anyone—could have survived such a night.
Refusing to surrender to such grim thoughts, Anne scrambled off the windowsill to fetch her cloak so she could go out hunting for Hodges and the earl herself. If she had
to, she would throw herself on the mercy of the villagers and beg them to send out a search party. But then she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye.
She turned slowly back to the window, afraid to breathe, afraid to hope.
At first she thought it was a lone figure staggering toward the house. But then she realized it wasn’t one man, but two. The taller of the pair had his arm braced beneath the shoulders of the second man and was all but carrying him. The taller man’s tousled dark head hung between his broad shoulders. The visible effort it was taking for him to plant one foot in front of the other warned that any step could be his last.
Anne’s heart leapt into her throat. Casting a silent yet fervent prayer of thanksgiving heavenward, she blew out the candle and headed down the stairs.
THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE attic and the entrance hall had never seemed so great. By the time Anne reached the front door, Dickon was already sweeping it open. They all poured down the portico steps, through the courtyard, and onto the front lawn. Even a beaming Nana joined them, Bess supporting the old woman’s lumbering steps.
The thick mud sucked at Anne’s half boots as she lifted the hem of her gown and went sprinting past Dickon, reaching the two men lurching their way up the remains of the drive before anyone else.
Dravenwood lifted his head to give her a weary but triumphant smile. Mud smudged his face, and a rapidly purpling bruise marred his temple. “I couldn’t catch a pony but I did manage to catch a butler.”
“Where in the name of God was he?” Anne asked, torn between laughter and tears.
“I searched for most of the night and finally found him near dawn curled up in a hollow tree less than a stone’s throw from here, none the worse for wear.”
Hodges was half-asleep on his feet and mumbling beneath his breath. As Dravenwood staggered beneath the butler’s weight, Anne rushed forward to relieve him of his burden. She cradled Hodges in her arms while the rest of the servants gathered around them, laughing and chattering and slapping the bewildered butler on his shoulders and back.
All but forgotten by the others, Dravenwood stood there, still swaying on his feet. Anne hadn’t realized just how much he had been depending on Hodges’s stout form to balance him. Handing Hodges off into the waiting arms of Lizzie and Lisbeth, Anne gave Dickon a frantic hand signal. To her surprise, the earl didn’t even protest when Dickon wrapped one lanky arm around him, supporting Dravenwood’s weight much as Dravenwood had supported Hodges’s.
Hodges might be none the worse for wear, but she couldn’t say the same for the earl. He was soaked through to the skin. His hair was curled into sooty ringlets by the rainwater still dripping from its ends. The expensive doeskin of his trousers was torn to reveal a nasty gash on one shin. Although he was doing his best not to shiver in the dawn chill, the blue cast of his lips matched the shadows beneath his eyes.
Anne wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and tuck him into a warm, dry bed herself, but instead she forced herself to briskly say, “Betsy, Beth, help Lord Dravenwood up to his bedchamber immediately. See that he gets a hot bath and some dry things before retiring.”
“No,” Dickon said resolutely, standing even taller than usual. “His lordship needs a manservant right now. I’ll look after him.”
Anne nodded. She had never before been quite so proud of the boy.
As he guided Dravenwood past her, she could not resist reaching out and catching the earl’s hand in hers. His usually heated flesh felt cold and clammy to the touch. “Thank you for everything . . . my lord.”
He nodded down at her, the ghost of a mocking smile playing around his lips. “Happy to be of service . . . Mrs. Spencer.”
As the others drifted back toward the house, she stood there gazing after him. Her every breath seemed to draw her deeper into his debt. It was growing more and more difficult to convince herself the emotion she felt swelling in her heart every time she looked at him was simply gratitude.
SINCE THEY WERE ALL exhausted by the excitement of the fire and the storm and from keeping vigil through the long hours of the night, Anne gave the rest of the servants leave to sleep the morning away. As soon as Hodges and the earl were safely tucked in their beds, she stumbled up to her attic to do the same.
By afternoon, all of them except Lord Dravenwood were up and gathered around the table in the kitchen to enjoy some warm cocoa and discuss the storm. Humbled by his misadventure, Hodges seemed perfectly content to sit with Nana beside the fire, holding a skein of yarn wrapped around his hands while the old woman added another foot to her knitting.
Darkness was falling when Anne ordered Bess to take a tray of sandwiches up to Lord Dravenwood’s bedchamber. When Bess returned to report that her knock on the earl’s door had received no answer, Anne felt a wave of tenderness wash over her. “Leave him be, then,” she told the girl. “It won’t do any harm to let him sleep through the night.”
Taking his new duties as the earl’s manservant seriously, Dickon marched up the stairs first thing the next morning to see if his master would require any assistance with bathing and dressing.
He returned to the kitchen a short while later, looking somewhat nonplussed. “I knocked and knocked and he didn’t answer for the longest time, but then he finally groaned and shouted at me to go away.”
Anne frowned, her concern growing. She was tempted to look in on him herself, but ever since the night when she had stormed into his chamber only to end up in his arms, she had done all she could to avoid being alone with him in any room that contained a bed. “Perhaps he just needs a bit more time to recover. I’m sure he’ll ring when he’s ready to rejoin the world.”
That evening, after a long day spent helping the maids scrub the ash from the drawing-room walls and supervising Dickon and Pippa while they cleaned up the debris from the yard, she sent Betsy up with another tray, this one topped with the one thing she knew Dravenwood couldn’t resist—a steaming loaf of her freshly baked bread.
Anne turned around a short while later to find Betsy standing in the kitchen doorway, still holding the untouched tray. The look on the girl’s kind, broad face made Anne’s heart cringe with dread. “It’s the master, ma’am,” Betsy said reluctantly. “When he didn’t answer my knock, I looked in on him to see if he’d be wantin’ any supper, just like you said, but I couldn’t rouse him.”
“What do you mean you couldn’t rouse him? Was he still sleeping?”
“At first I thought he was just sleepin’. But he was moanin’ something fierce. And when I touched his arm, it was burnin’ up.”
Before Betsy could even finish speaking, Anne was through the doorway. She didn’t even realize she had knocked the tray from the girl’s hands until she heard it clatter to the floor behind her.
ANNE YANKED BACK THE bed curtains of Lord Dravenwood’s bed to find him caught in the grips of a full-blown chill. She touched the back of her hand to his brow. Despite the audible chattering of his teeth, her worst fears were confirmed. He was burning with fever.
His breathing had deepened to a painful rasp. He’d probably inhaled far more of the smoke than he’d realized when rescuing her from the attic, then compounded that insult to his lungs by spending the night in the cold, pouring rain.
Betsy hovered in the doorway, anxiously wringing her apron in her hands and looking nearly as helpless as Anne felt. “What should I do, ma’am? Should I run to the village and fetch someone?”
“Who would you fetch?” Anne asked grimly. “There’s no doctor there, and even if there were, you’d never be able to convince him to come here.” She glanced out the window at the gathering shadows, fighting a bitter surge of despair. “Especially not after nightfall.”
Eyeing the earl’s shivering form, Betsy asked, “Shall I fetch some more blankets, then?”
“No.” Shaking away the paralysis of her fear, Anne briskly tore the bed curtains clean from their moorings, then whipped away his down comforter, leaving only the thin she
et draped across his waist. “He doesn’t need to be warmed. He needs to be cooled.” She marched over to the French windows and swept them open, welcoming in a rush of chill evening air, before returning to the bed. “Go to the kitchen and tell Nana to brew me up a pot of yarrow tea. Then find Lisbeth and Bess and bring me as much cool water as the three of you can carry.”
“Should I fetch Dickon to tend to him?”
Anne shook her head, her heart contracting with helpless tenderness as she gazed down upon the earl’s violently trembling form. “Not this time. This time I’ll be the one tending to him.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
ANNE DID NOT HAVE to keep her vigil alone. As night melted into day and day into night and one day into another, the other servants took turns finding some excuse to join her at Lord Dravenwood’s bedside.
Dickon was there to brace his shoulders while Anne tried to spoon some warm broth between his lips, spilling more of the stuff down his chest than down his throat. Bess and Lisbeth were there to lend their efforts to hers when his delirium deepened and Anne had to throw herself across his chest to keep him from harming himself as he thrashed about, shouting in a language none of them recognized until both his strength and his voice gave out. Lizzie was there to witness Anne’s relieved tears at finding him alive after she’d woken from a brief nap in the chair beside his bed to discover him so still and waxen she’d thought he had died while she slept. Beth and Betsy were there to painstakingly arrange the sheets to protect Anne’s modesty as she bathed him, her hands tenderly trailing the soapy cloth over the muscled planes of his chest.
On the third day of her vigil, Anne looked up from reading the same passage from Pilgrim’s Progress for the tenth time to find Nana hobbling into the room.
Secretly relieved to be rescued from her own Slough of Despond, Anne leapt up from her chair, dislodging a disgruntled Sir Fluffytoes from her lap. She rushed over to assist the old woman, speaking directly into her ear. “Nana! However did you manage the stairs?”