Page 93 of The Rebellious Countess
“Blasted. Do you always have to bring attention to yourself?” she cursed.
“Caillen, may I come in?” her sister asked.
“Just a moment!” Caillen ran across the room and grabbed another blanket and tossed it over the earl’s midsection. “Control that damned thing, Astley,” she whispered. She stood back and looked at her handiwork. Now only an experienced woman would know what the rise in the blanket meant, and she prayed Iseabail had not explained everything to her younger siblings yet.
She grabbed the cloth and said, “You can come in now.”
Her younger sister Robina entered the room with a bowl of broth. “I thought you’d never let me in. How is the earl today?”
“The same.” Lie. He was worse.
“Do you think he’s going to live?”
No. “I don’t know.” She rinsed the cloth out in the basin and wondered if a man’s appendage became hard when they were about to die.
“Are you ever going to talk to us again?” Robina whispered.
“What would make you ask that?” Caillen wrung out the cloth and folded it.
“Because you don’t engage in conversation with us. You just spout out answers that are meaningless.”
“I’m just preoccupied with Astley.” And I have nothing to say, except… “What can you tell me about Viscount Pembrock?”
Robina put the tray down next to the bed and folded her arms across her chest. “Why do you ask?”
She bit her lip before she said something that would start an argument. “One of Astley’s sisters is interested in him. I wanted to make sure he was a good person.”
Robina snorted. “He’s the last person you would want your sister to be around.”
Caillen thought about the day her husband was killed. “Probably not the last person.”
“Oh, most definitely the last. Don’t you readWhispers of the Ton?”
“No.” She didn’t care about gossip.
Robina sighed then crossed over to the chair and plopped down.
Blast. That was the last thing she wanted her little sister to do. She wanted a quick report, and then she wanted Robina to leave her in peace.
“He is said to be a bigger rake than Astley.”
“Not possible.”
Robina shrugged and looked at her fingernails. “He’s vastly wealthy, owns much of the land that the canal is being built upon, and he’s said to keep a mistress at each one of his estates. Can you imagine how expensive that would be?”
She was going to scream. Robina had to be the nosiest, most talkative sister in the bunch, but she was telling her nothing of import. “Are there any rumors about his involvement with the underworld?”
Robina laughed, her gaiety so loud the earl flinched.
“Shhh,” she admonished.
“Thetonmight consider dabbling in trade as theunderworld, but if you’re talking about criminals, no. Unless…did the earl implicate him? Is Pembrock a French spy?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she hissed as she leaned over the earl’s body toward her far-too-intelligent little sister.
Robina’s eyes widened. “It’s true! Wait until —”
“Say one word and I’ll box your ears so hard, you’ll never be able to listen in on another conversation.”
