Page 30 of A Spinster to Reform the Duke
“Lady Eliza, what is it?” Alexander’s voice urged them both to look away. “Eliza!”
“Oh god,” Lady Rebecca gasped beside Timothy as Lady Eliza swooned up ahead. She fell to the floor, scarcely missing it, only saved by Alexander as he caught her midair.
Chapter Ten
“Eliza!” Rebecca abandoned the Duke’s arm and ran forward, reaching her mother’s side as Lord Herberton lifted an unconscious Eliza into his arms. “What happened?”
“I do not know,” Amelia said shakily. “She started to complain of feeling a little woozy. Then all of a sudden, she just…”
“You have her?” the Duke asked, appearing on Lord Herberton’s other side.
“I do. Not a flutter of her eyelids,” Lord Herberton said, nodding his head down at Eliza. Rebecca moved forward, feeling her sister’s forehead. She wasn’t hot, so there could be no fever, perhaps no sickness. “Has she eaten well this morning?” Lord Herberton asked, his voice betraying his panic.
That note to his tone made Rebecca look up to him in surprise. There was care there, and the flustered way in which he looked between Eliza and their mother for an answer betrayed just how scared he was.
He truly does care for her.
“A little,” Amelia said quickly.
“She ate poorly,” Rebecca murmured, thinking back to breakfast. “She was too excited about seeing you, my Lord. She barely looked at her breakfast, let alone touched it.”
“Then it could be from hunger,” the Duke said quickly. “My house is the closest. Alexander, bring her to the carriage, we’ll take her there at once. When she comes round, we can give her some food and we can call for a physician too.”
“Yes, of course.” Lord Herberton evidently never once considered putting Eliza down; he merely took a firmer hold of her and hurried toward the exit of the park, making strangers and acquaintances in the park look their way in curiosity.
“Come, there is enough space in my carriage for all of us,” the Duke said, taking command of the situation and urging Rebecca and Amelia forward. When he took Rebecca’s arm, she was startled, even more so when he placed his hand over hers, across the crook of his elbow. “Fear not for her, she will be well.”
“Hunger, that is all, yes,” she murmured, hoping to believe it. “My mind will be settled once a physician is called for.”
“As will all our minds.” His comforting tone made her look up to him. He must have felt her gaze for he returned that look and offered a smile. “Trust me. She will be well.”
“You keep asking me to trust you,” she whispered, aware of her mother hurrying ahead, eager to be with her younger daughter.
“And I will keep asking until you can do it.”
In some ways, I can.
The thought cut hard as they reached the carriage. She found she trusted this man in many ways, the only way she couldn’t trust him was the way in which she wanted to trust him. What would she give to tell him how she cared for him? That these witty conversations they shared were the highlight of her days, and she would stay up at night replaying them in her mind. She couldn’t. She trusted her heart once with a man who turned out to care for her no more than he did a stranger. She couldn’t trust her heart with a known rake too.
Yet as they climbed into the carriage, the two of them sat side by side as Eliza was laid down on the other bench, her head resting in Amelia’s lap. As she began to come round, Rebecca felt how close the Duke had come to her. He had still not let go of her arm.
* * *
Rebecca was pacing up and down the sitting room, unable to settle as she listened to the voices in another corridor. The housekeeper had brought her a tray of tea to drink from, then retreated to the corner of the room, in case she needed anything else. The kind woman kept bestowing comforting smiles on Rebecca, whenever she looked her way.
Elsewhere in the house, Rebecca knew Eliza was being seen to by a physician, with her mother close by, and from the mutterings she could here through the open door, it seemed Lord Herberton was reluctant to leave his station outside that chamber door, in case he was needed. The Duke could not persuade him away to take refreshment himself.
Soon, the mutterings subsided, and the Duke appeared in the doorway, smiling at his housekeeper, before he turned his focus to Rebecca.
“Has the physician spoken to you?” she asked, stepping toward him.
“Have no fear, my Lady.” He moved to her, softly placing his hands on her arms. It was such a delicate touch, one that she had not expected him capable of, it softened her worry, making her breathe a little deeper. “The physician agrees with you that it is a lack of food. It seems her lady’s maid may have been a little eager in the tightening of her stays too this morning.”
Rebecca covered her face, feeling the embarrassment grow. The Duke had overheard some rather detailed particulars of her sister’s state!
“You shouldn’t have to hear such things.”
“Think nothing of it,” he assured her with a smile. “I am simply relieved your sister is well. She is taking some food now with your mother, and soon, we will arrange for the carriage to take you all home.”
