Page 33 of To Desire a Devil (Legend of the Four Soldiers 4)

Putley returned at that moment with the news that Jeremy would indeed see her, and Beatrice followed the butler’s disapproving back up the two flights of stairs to Jeremy’s room.

“Miss Beatrice Corning to see you, sir,” Putley droned.

Beatrice pushed past the butler and into the room. Enough was enough. She turned a dazzling smile on Putley and said firmly, “That will be all.”

The butler rumbled under his breath but left the room, closing the door behind him.

“He’s getting worse, you know.” Beatrice strode to the window and shoved back one side of the curtains. The light sometimes hurt Jeremy’s eyes, but it couldn’t be good for him to lie in a dark room in the middle of the day, either.

“I try to think of it as a compliment,” Jeremy drawled from the bed.

His voice was weaker than the last time she’d visited. She took a deep breath and pasted on a wide smile before turning back around. The bed dominated the area, surrounded by the debris of a sickroom. Two tables stood within reach of the bed, their surfaces covered with small bottles, boxes of ointment, books, pens and ink, bandages, and glasses. An old wooden chair was to one side, a silk cord wound around the back, the ends tossed on the seat. Sometimes Jeremy found it easier for the footmen to tie him to the chair when they moved him before the fireplace.

“After all,” Jeremy said, “Putley must have some confidence in my ability to ravish you if he disapproves so much of your visits.”

“Or perhaps he’s simply an idiot,” Beatrice said as she pulled a stuffed chair closer to the bed.

There was an acrid smell; this near the bed—a combination of urine and other noxious bodily emissions—but she took care to keep her face pleasant. When Jeremy had first come home from the war on the Continent five years ago, he’d been horrified at the sickroom smells. She wasn’t sure now if he’d become used to the odors and ignored them or if he simply no longer smelled them, but in any case, she wouldn’t hurt his feelings by drawing attention to them.

“I’ve brought you the news sheets and some pamphlets my footman procured for me,” Beatrice began as she drew the papers from a soft bag.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Jeremy said. His voice was teasing, even in his weakened state.

She looked up to meet his clear blue eyes. Jeremy had the most beautiful eyes of anyone she knew, either woman or man. They were a true light blue, the color of the sky in spring. No other color muddied their depths. He was—or had been—a very handsome man. His hair was a golden brown, his face open and cheerful, but the ravages of his illness had incised lines of pain around his mouth and eyes.

Jeremy’s mother had been a lifelong friend of Beatrice’s aunt Mary, so Beatrice and Jeremy had practically grown up in each other’s pockets. He knew her as no one else did—not even Lottie. When she looked into Jeremy’s eyes, sometimes she felt that those blue orbs saw right past the cheerful mask she put on in his presence, straight to the well of sorrow for him at her middle.

She glanced away, down at the coverlet of his bed. To the place, in fact, where his legs should’ve been. “What—?”

“Don’t pretend innocence with me, Beatrice Corning,” he said with the same grin he’d had at eight years of age. “I may be an invalid, but I still have my sources of gossip, and they are abuzz with the news of your viscount’s return.”

Beatrice wrinkled her nose. “He’s not my viscount.”

Jeremy cocked his head against the pillows. Usually he was sitting erect by this time in the afternoon, but today he was lying on his back. Beatrice felt a frisson of fear bolt through her vitals. Was he worse?

“I can’t think who else’s viscount he might be if not yours,” he teased. “Isn’t this the same man as the pretty youth in that portrait in your sitting room? I’ve watched you moon over that thing for years.”

Beatrice twisted her fingers guiltily. “Was I so obvious as all that?”

“Only to me, darling,” Jeremy replied fondly. “Only to me.”

“Oh, Jeremy, I’m such a wigeon!”

“Well, yes, but an adorable one, you must admit.”

Beatrice sighed forlornly. “It’s just that he’s not at all what I thought he’d be like. Well, if I thought about him still being alive, which of course I didn’t, because we all thought him dead.”

“What? He’s ugly?” Jeremy contorted his features into a grotesque scowl.

“Nooo, although he has a beard and terribly long hair at the moment.”

“Beards are disgusting.”

“Not on ship captains,” Beatrice objected.

“Especially on ship captains,” Jeremy said sternly. “There’s no point in trying to make exceptions. One must be firm on the subject.”

“Granted.” Beatrice waved a hand. “But believe me, the beard is the least of it in Viscount Hope’s case. He’s been tattooed.”

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