Page 47 of A Rogue's Downfall
She was fully recovered. “I am all right,” she said. “You had better return to Mrs. Hunter. I am sure shedid not enjoy being abandoned at such an interestingmoment. She will, I do not doubt, be growing cold. Inmore ways than one, sir.”
He smiled slowly at her.
“You are going to come to a bad end, you know,” she said. “What if I had been Lady Myron? Or Mrs.Delaney? Or Flossie? Or Nancy?”
He could feel amusement bubbling out of him.
“You think it is funny,” she scolded. “It is not.Someone is going to get hurt. With any luck it will beonly you with a broken head.”
“That’s my little bird,” he said appreciatively. “Tongue sharpened at both edges and pointed at thetip. Take my arm. I am going to take you back tothe house.”
“Mrs. Hunter—” she began.
“—may go hang for all I care,” he said. “I am taking you back home. It can be either on my arm or slung over my shoulder. The choice is yours.”
“Well, if you put it in that gentlemanly way,” she said, “I shall make my free choice. Your arm, I think.”
“Now,” he said, guiding her around overhangingbranches, “let me regale you with my life history, shallI? You told me yours early one morning a week orso ago. I shall return the favor if you think you canbear it.”
And so he did what he had never done with any woman before. He let her into his life.
He did not even fully realize he had done it until he thought about it later, standing at the window ofhis room in unaccustomed solitude, waiting for everyone else to return from the picnic. He talked withoutstopping, knowing that despite her spirited efforts topull herself together, she was in reality very close tocollapse and still to a certain extent in shock. Sheleaned against him as they walked in a manner thatwould have been provocative in any other woman orunder any other circumstances. But he knew that sheleaned because her legs were unsteady and her headdizzy.
And so he talked to her and knew that despite her distress she listened. She even asked him some questions about his mother and about his two married sisters and their children, his nieces and nephews.
He took her up to her room when they reached the house after instructing a footman in the hall to havea hot drink and some laudanum sent up to MissMangan.
“You will throw them into consternation in the kitchen,” she said. “I do not have maid service.”
Fury knifed into him again. “Well, then,” he said, having taken her to her room and into her room, despite her look of surprised inquiry, “I will performone service of a maid for you myself. Hand me abrush. Your hair looks rather like a bush after a severewind storm.”
“What gallantry,” she said, but her eyes looked wary.
“Sit down,” he instructed her, gesturing her to the stool before a dressing table mirror. He drew out theremaining pins from her hair and began to brush it, teasing the brush through the tangles at first. He keptbrushing even when her hair was smooth. He couldremember doing the same for his mother numeroustimes as a boy. She had suffered from bad headachesand had always claimed that it was soothing to havesomeone draw a brush through her hair.
Patricia Mangan had beautiful hair, he noticed. Thick and wavy and shining and waist-length and actually more blond than brown. The style she normallywore it in was doubtless her aunt’s idea. Though perhaps at the parsonage too she had been advised totame its wantonness.
The hot tea and the laudanum were a long time coming. Flossie gawked when she came flouncing inwith them. She left with considerably more respect inher step and with a shiny half guinea in her pocket.
“I really do not need the laudanum,” Patricia said, rising from the stool and turning to him a face thatwas blushing charmingly.
“But you will take it,” he said. “And you will lock your door after I have left and rest. You will refuseto be roused for the rest of the day. Will that giveyou time enough to recover?”
She nodded.
“I shall take my leave of you, then, little bird,” he said.
It was something he did by instinct, without the medium of thought. Something he might have done to a sister who had been hurt and whom he had comforted.He cupped her face with his hands, pushing his fingersinto the silkiness of her hair, and lowered his head totouch his lips to hers.
Except that with a sister he would have raised hishead after the merest touch, not lingered there, feeling the trembling of her lips beneath his own.
Except that a sister would not have looked at him afterward with huge unblinking eyes.
Except that with a sister he would not have stood outside her closed door a few moments later, gulpingair, waiting for his knees to reform themselves beneathhim so that they might assist his legs in getting himto his own room.
A stupid thing to have done, he told himself. Remarkably stupid.
Life for the next week was not as bad as it might have been. Patricia guessed that her aunt was embarrassed by the memory of her outburst at the picnic—it would doubtless appear ungenteel to her. And so shesaid nothing to her niece about it. Patricia was left aloneto sleep for the rest of that day, and in the days to comeshe became her aunt’s quiet shadow once more.
