Page 100 of Blame It on the Earl (The Duke's Estates 3)

And so the next day, they reversed their move. This time when they arrived at Poldene, they were immediately conducted to the state suite. Sarah saw that all the belongings they’d left behind had been shifted there, and the maid sent to wait on her was a young girl, not Cranston. Sarah wished she could see these gestures as olive branches and signs of a change. She suspected they were more in the nature of smoke screens, however.

But Kenver’s fatherwasvery ill. Sarah saw that as soon as they visited his chamber to offer her good wishes for his recovery. He was flushed with fever and sweating, with a deep hacking cough and shallow, panting breaths. He seemed barely able to raise his arm when he responded to her greeting. Kenver took his father’s trembling hand and pressed it. “We’ve come back to Poldene, Papa,” he said. “I’ll sit with you a while.”

The earl started to respond but fell into a fit of coughing that shook his whole frame.

“It’s best to keep him quiet,” said the nurse the doctor had sent over. “The coughing wears him out.” She brought a glass vial and teaspoon and gave the earl a dose of something. “Laudanum,” she said, following this with what looked like barley water. The combination soothed the paroxysm.

“Thank you, Mrs. Dillon,” said Kenver.

Sarah thought she looked calmly competent. A woman of forty or so, neatly dressed and polite, Mrs. Dillon seemed efficient. She had established herself in one corner of the room with the supplies she needed and a pile of knitting. “I’d be glad to help,” Sarah told her.

“Keeping him quiet is the main thing,” the nurse repeated. “He gets restless and agitated, and that makes him worse.”

“I expect he is bored,” Sarah said. “As well as anxious, of course.”

The other two looked at her. Mrs. Dillon gave her a respectful nod.

“We must think what we can do,” Sarah said to Kenver.

He squeezed her hand.

At dinner that evening, Sarah told Lady Trestan she was sorry to see the earl so depleted.

“It is a mistake to give in to these maladies,” Kenver’s mother replied. “Coddling oneself simply encourages them to take root.”

Sarah couldn’t quite believe her ears. “It is hardly Lord Trestan’s fault that he is ailing.”

The older woman made an impatient gesture. “A ride or two in the rain should not lay a man so low.”

“Was he caught in one of those storms?” Sarah asked sympathetically. They’d had bouts of wild weather in the last two weeks.

“For a brief time.” Lady Trestan seemed impatient with the topic. “Not enough to matter, I would think. But then I am never ill.” She turned to Kenver. “You must ride over to Glen Farm. Wellings is complaining about the roof again.”

“We should replace that thatching,” Kenver replied absently, his mind clearly elsewhere.

“You will tell him it is perfectly adequate,” snapped his mother.

Sarah found her tone grating, as was her attitude. If Kenver had fallen ill, she would be camped at his bedside in an agony of worry. Lady Trestan spoke of her husband’s condition in the same annoyed tone she used for the tenant’s complaint. And she clearly intended to leave the nursing to Mrs. Dillon. Perhaps she was well acquainted with the nurse and her capabilities, but still… How could she bear to do that? Sarah had known that the countess didn’t likeher. She had even understood that. She had been foisted on the Pendrennons willy-nilly, and she was not the sort of daughter-in-law they wanted. But she had thought Lady Trestan cared for her husband and son. Now, she wondered.

That night, as she and Kenver nestled together in the great four-poster bed of the state suite, Sarah searched for a way to inquire. “How did your parents meet?” she asked finally.

“Hmm?” He sounded surprised. “In London, during the season.”

“At a ball? Or an evening party?” Perhaps they’d been drawn together dancing.

“I think my grandmother Pendrennon introduced them. She was distantly connected to Mama’s family.”

It sounded as if Lady Trestan had been picked out as a proper match, just as she had wished to do for her children.

“I’ve never heard them talk about it,” Kenver added. “Why do you wish to know?”

“I just wondered,” Sarah replied. Had theywantedto marry? Or simply been told to do so?

Kenver shifted uneasily. “Papa seems very bad, doesn’t he?”

Not wanting to just agree, she said, “It may take him some time to recover.”

“Yes. Recover. Yes.”

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