Page 73 of The Nature of a Lady
He’d been sitting here beside her bed for hours, but he’d promised Mrs. Dawe he would get up by seven o’clock and find something to eat. It was seven now. A few minutes past. But his stomach churned at the very thought of putting food in it. Even so, he leaned over to kiss Mamm-wynn’s ever-soft cheek and then stood. He could use a stretch of his legs, anyway. He’d spotted Libby in the garden a few minutes ago. Perhaps he’d go out there with her. Apologize. With Mabena in bed and Mrs. Dawe and him fussing over Mamm-wynn all day, she’d been the one to welcome neighbor after neighbor who’d come as soon as they heard.
It wasn’t fair to her—she was just a guest here. She shouldn’t have to play hostess. And yet she’d done it without question, without any qualm that he could see. And his neighbors, those who had slipped back here to bring a vase of flowers or put an arm around him, hadn’t seemed to think it odd in the slightest. They’d merely said things like, “I’m glad our lady was on Tresco, at least, to be here now.” And “Our lady said I could slip back for a moment, to give you this.”
He stepped out into the hallway, knowing Mrs. Dawe would take his place within a minute or two—she’d said she’d be in at seven to make sure he kept his word, and she wouldn’t grant him more than a few minutes’ grace on that count. But rather than going directly down the stairs and out into the garden, his feet hitched before a closed door at the end of the corridor.
It had been months since he’d opened it. Because for as manygood memories that lived in that room, there were bad ones too that he hadn’t wanted to face. Too many reminders of the last loss to rock their family. Of the years they’d spent fighting an invisible monster eating away at his brother. Of the final battle that Morgan had lost.
His hand found the latch, cool in the shadows of the hallway, and pushed the door open. He didn’t enter, but he leaned into the doorframe. So very weary. In body and mind and soul. So very afraid that soon another room would be empty. First their parents’, then Morgan’s. Mamm-wynn’s next? And what about Beth? Why was she nothere, where she ought to be, instead of hiding somewhere?
His eyes slid shut against the evening light streaming through Morgan’s window. He missed his brother with a bone-deep ache. He wanted to talk to him now. To share the worry about Mamm-wynn. About Beth. To glean some of his wisdom. To introduce him to Libby and confess that he’d kissed her, and that he shouldn’t have, and that he wanted to do it again. That he loved the way their neighbors had claimed her as their own. That he wanted to do the same, even though all wisdom said it was far too soon to know if he should, and not likely he could regardless.
She was an earl’s sister. And he...
“Was this your brother’s room?”
He didn’t jump at her voice. Perhaps he’d heard her step behind him, even though he didn’t recall noticing it. Perhaps he was too tired to react so. Or perhaps he couldn’t be surprised at her appearing at his side because she felt so right there. Oliver opened his eyes and glanced down to find her in the doorway too, leaning a shoulder against the opposite side of the frame. Inches away. Her gaze focused on Morgan’s sanctuary.
“It was, yes.” They’d changed nothing in it. It still had the narrow bed in which he’d spent so much time. The books lining every wall, which had been his window to the rest of the world. The desk whose regular chair had been moved aside so he could wheel himself to it instead. And the wheelchair itself, parked beside the bed.
Her fingers found his and wove through them. “You’re not going to lose her yet.”
He squeezed her fingers, simply because she understood what had brought him here now. “He was sick for so long. It came upon him when he was just a lad, six or seven. I remember him being excited to go to school soon, and then ... then our whole world changed. He was so ill, and the doctors couldn’t determine the cause. Our parents took him to the mainland once, all the way to London. But it didn’t seem to matter. The doctors could only alleviate the symptoms. He’d get better, but never fullybetter. And we always knew that each new illness to go round would find him. Eat at him.”
He shook his head, remembering all too well the gaunt cheeks that did nothing to detract from the brightness of his smile. “They expected he wouldn’t live but a few more years. He surprised them all though. He always fought. Always. Because he knew we needed him.”
Libby lifted his hand, wrapped her other around it, and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, knotting him up inside. And unknotting him too. “My father died of consumption,” she said. “It was a long process. Terrible. Some days I wished it would just happen quickly, so he wouldn’t be in such pain. Other days, I was so very thankful for the extra time with him. The quiet moments at his bedside, when we could whisper together. I think I got to know him better in those two years of illness than in all the years before.”
Oliver nodded. “I’ve wondered if I would have been as close to Morgan if he had been healthy. If we would have been such friends if he’d been able to go his own way. I can never know, of course. This was the only Morgan we really knew. The one who was so very aware of how big a gift each day was. The one who loved us so fully, because we were his whole life.” He shook his head. “We didn’t have to be. He was the eldest, the heir. And for a few years there, he was stronger than he’d been before. He could have married—there was a girl who was sweet on him. She’d have said yes in a heartbeat. But he said it would be unfair to her. To give her only a year or two and then loneliness. And to risk ... to risk having a child with the same infirmities.”
Her fingers tightened around his. “I daresay this girl would have disagreed.”
“Probably, had he ever given her the choice. I could never convince him to approach her. It was while I was at university, and I wasn’t home often. Had I been...” Another shake of his head. “She left for the mainland right after his funeral. I see her parents still. They tell me she’s married, is happy. So perhaps Morgan was wise in his stubbornness.”
Or perhaps he’d chosen loneliness not just for Daisy’s sake, but for Oliver’s. He’d always suspected it. “Honestly, I think he felt guilty for all the money we’d spent on treatments over the years. After our parents died, he refused any more, anything beyond routine. He said he didn’t want to squander my inheritance on quacks hawking medicine that wouldn’t work.Myinheritance.” He squeezed his eyes shut again, though it only made Morgan’s image all the clearer in his mind. Looking at him with that love. That selflessness. “As if any of that mattered more than having him for one more day, one more week, one more month. I’d have given it all for him. And he should have let me. It was his, not mine.”
“I can understand his thoughts though. He wanted to provide for his family in whatever way he could. He wanted to leave you with a legacy, not debt or resentments. My father—he apologized over and again for his illness’s taking over our lives. As if I would have traded those days with him for a debut Season at the prearranged time.”
She had the right of it. Morgan had been that very way. He tugged their joined hands over so he could take a turn at kissing her knuckles. “I don’t want to lose her, Libby. Not yet. I’m not ready. And I know I’ll never be ready, but ... but now I’mreallynot.”
“I’m not either.” A smile trembled its way onto her lips. “I’ve only just found her. I know I haven’t the claim on her that you or your family or the islanders do, but ... but I want the chance to.”
A corner of his own mouth tugged up in response. And his free hand lifted to rest on her neck, under her ear, without his being aware of giving it the command. “She’s certainly claimed you. I think that gives you every right to claim her back.”
He really ought to drop his hand and step away. But she leaned toward him, and he was helpless to do anything but meet her, lips to lips. Heart to heart. Their fingers untangled, giving him the freedom to slide an arm around her waist, hers wrapping around him.
For those few glorious moments, there was only her and them and this—a primal need to know and be known and belong there with another. There was the simmer in his veins that no one else had ever ignited and the thudding of his heart that said this was right. There was the fog of pleasure that masked, just for a minute, the pain of the last twenty-four hours.
Then there was the aching certainty that it was only that. A minute. A moment stolen from time that it would demand back. An impossibility. He broke away with a sigh and rested his forehead against hers. “You should make me stop doing that.” Or better still, he should stop of his own volition.
If he could make himself want to.
“Should I?” Her voice sounded a bit fogged-up still. And made him want to kiss her again, and again.
He resisted, though his fingers protested by flexing against her back. “Libby ... they’d never approve of me. Your family, I mean. I’m not wealthy enough or titled. I could supply your needs, but nothing more. Not with all we spent on Morgan.” And what was he doing, speaking of such things when he barely knew her?
But no, he knew her. Not in terms of time, perhaps, but in terms of heart. He knew her. At least as well as any society gentleman did after a Season of balls and soirees, and no one would have batted an eye at one ofthemproposing.
Not that he was proposing. Not that he dared to.
