Lucy Ashford - One Night with a Regency Lord

‘Miss Wendover, can you come quickly, please?’

She hurried out of bed and hastily donned her travelling clothes from yesterday. At the door Mr Skinner looked apologetic, but very worried.

‘Sorry to wake you betimes, miss, but Mr Wendover do seem bad. He’s feverish for sure and don’t respond. Will and me have tried to give him the doctor’s medicine, but he won’t let us near.’

She forgot her resolution to leave the inn as soon as possible and ran down the stairs to Gareth’s bedroom. The scene before her struck her with dismay. A smoky candle still spluttered on the bedside table, but the curtains remained drawn. In the half-light she could see the bedcovers in disarray, half of them trailing on the floor and the other half heaped untidily on the bed. As for the patient, he was tossing and turning constantly, unable to get comfortable, first throwing off the sheets and then grabbing at them with hot dry hands while all the time muttering incoherently. She went forwards to the bed and laid her hand fleetingly on his forehead. It was burning to the touch and his eyes, glancing unrecognisingly at her, were blurred with fever.

‘Have you sent for the doctor?’ Amelie questioned, thoroughly alarmed.

‘Not yet, miss, we weren’t sure to do it, without your say so.’

‘Why ever didn’t you call me earlier?’

‘We did think to,’ Mr Skinner conceded, ‘but he weren’t too bad seemingly.’

‘He’s certainly bad now.’ Her voice was sharp with anxiety.

‘Ah, mortal bad.’ The landlord looked gloomily down at the threshing figure and shook his head.

She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. It looked as though she would need all the help she could get.

‘Please send Will for the doctor immediately and ask Mrs Skinner to bring a sponge and some lavender water.’

‘T’would be best if I get it for you, miss.’

‘I really don’t care who gets it, just bring it please,’ she snapped, her nerves frayed by this frightening turn of events.

There was no help for it—she would have to stay. The Skinners believed her to be Gareth’s sister and there was no way she could simply up and leave. And seeing him lying ill and alone, she knew that she wouldn’t abandon him. When Mr Skinner returned with the bowl of lavender water, she asked him to raise the patient up while she attempted to plump the lumpy pillows into a more comfortable resting place. Then she sat down by the bedside and gently sponged his face. This seemed to soothe the fretting man and for a while he became calmer. But when she rose to move away from the bed, his hand, which had been aimlessly brushing the sheet, shot out and grasped her wrist.

‘Don’t leave me,’ he muttered fiercely.

The doctor was not long in coming and did not seem overly surprised that his patient had developed a fever. He had, after all, been lying in a wet ditch for a number of hours and, by the look of him, Dr Fennimore thought, he’d probably already travelled a considerable distance and spent much of his strength. But his agitation appeared extreme.

The doctor rose from the bedside and looked thoughtfully at Amelie, his face shrewd and enquiring. ‘His fever is unusually severe. Apart from his physical ills, he seems unquiet in his mind. You wouldn’t know, I suppose, if there is something disturbing him?’

She avoided his question. She could not imagine that the events of the previous day had seriously bothered such a cool, audacious man. But Gareth Wendover was certainly a mystery and she sensed that there were dark shadows in his life which might complicate his recovery. She sat down by the rickety table, troubled and very pale.

The doctor clasped her hand warmly. ‘Don’t worry, Miss Wendover. I’m sure this fever is only temporary. Your brother looks a tough man, certainly not one that a few hours in a ditch will finish off.’

He continued bluffly, ‘I’ll leave you with a stronger remedy. Give it to him every three hours. If his condition worsens, send for me immediately. Hopefully, he should be back to his normal strength within a few days. His ankle is already showing signs of improvement.’

As Gareth’s supposed sister, Amelie had also to be his nurse. Pitchforked into intimacy with a man she hardly knew, she could not protest without drawing attention to their false relationship. Fanny’s horror would know no bounds, she reflected, but this was no time to be missish. Gareth needed her constant attention.

Throughout the next two days she bathed his forehead, administered medicine and kept his bedclothes as comfortable as possible. All the time his fevered ramblings punctuated the endless routine. He seemed greatly exercised about escaping from a room and needing to find a boat, but none of it made any sense to Amelie and she was too busy to worry over his words.

Mrs Skinner was invariably difficult, grumbling incessantly about the additional work Gareth occasioned. At times Amelie nearly came to blows with her. Fortunately, her husband was of a different disposition. He took Amelie’s place by the bedside at nuncheon and dinner to allow her to eat and to stretch her limbs; at night he insisted on taking over Gareth’s care and sent her to bed in the early hours of each morning. By then she was too tired to protest and retired gratefully to her little attic room, not caring that Betsy beside her was snoring heavily. She was so weary that she could have slept in Gareth’s ditch.

On the third morning Mr Skinner reported that the fever had broken around dawn and that the patient was at last sleeping peacefully. After a hasty breakfast, she tiptoed quietly into Gareth’s room with a bowl of chicken broth that the formidable Mrs Skinner had been persuaded to make. He lay supine, a still-powerful figure, but the days fighting fever had taken their toll. She felt a sudden surge of tenderness as she saw the leanness of his face and the pallor beneath the tanned skin.

At her approach, he opened his eyes and a puzzled look flitted across his face. He appeared to be in a bedroom, but it was certainly nowhere he recognised. He felt amazingly tired and cursed himself for his weakness. The events of recent days slowly began to filter through his brain—a nightmarish ride, exquisite pain and a pair of gentle, soothing hands in the midst of the threatened inferno. He recalled some kind of accident an age ago, or so it seemed; this ravishing girl had been there, she’d ridden away on his horse. So what was she doing in this room? For a while he considered the matter dispassionately but it remained inexplicable.

‘You’re still here,’ he murmured.

She bent over him, gently arranging the pillows to support his shoulders. He was sharply aware of her soft warmth so close to him and her fragrance drifting on the air.

‘Take some of this excellent broth Mrs Skinner has made for you. You haven’t eaten for days.’

He gave up the challenge of trying to make sense of the world and meekly sipped from the spoon she held out to him.

A few days later he was well enough to leave the stuffy bedchamber and make his way with Will’s help down the stairs to the inn garden. Amelie brought up the rear of the procession with a stool and blankets in case it was chilly. But the sun shone blithely from a cloudless blue sky and Gareth, his ankle supported by the stool, lay back in his chair and gratefully soaked up the warmth. Beside him Amelie savoured the perfume of apple blossom and the rich smell of new grass.

He looked disparagingly at the glass she handed him.

‘The doctor said you should drink as much milk as you can,’ she chided. ‘It will help you regain your strength.’

‘You need strength to drink the stuff,’ he protested. ‘I think I’ll settle for my present state of health.’