PENNY JORDAN - Orphans from the Storm - Bride at Bellfield Mill / A Family for Hawthorn Farm / Tilly of Tap House

‘I…I have a little nursing experience through my aunt, and if you will allow me, sir, I will bathe your wound and place a bandage around it until the nurse arrives. She is to bring a draught with her that will assist you to sleep.’

‘Assist me to sleep—finish me, off you mean, with an unhealthy dose of laudanum.’ He moved on the bed and then blenched, and Marianne guessed that his wound was causing him more pain than he was ready to admit.

‘The bed will need to be changed when the nurse arrives, and that will, I’m afraid, cause you some discomfort,’ she told him tactfully. ‘I suggested to the doctor that maybe a medicinal tot of brandy would help. However, he said that it was unlikely that I would find any, so I have taken the liberty of ordering some from Mr Postlethwaite, to be brought up with some other necessary provisions.’

He stared at her. ‘The devil you have! Well, Hollingshead was wrong! You’ll find a bottle in the library. Bottom cupboard on the left of the fireplace. Keys are in my coat pocket, and mind you bring them back. Oh, and when young Charlie gets here, tell him he’s to go to the mill and tell Archie Gledhill to get himself up here. I want to talk to him.’

‘You should be resting. The sickroom is not a place from which to conduct business,’ Marianne reproved him, earning herself another biting look of wonder.

‘For a charity case who only last night was begging at my door, you’re taking one hell of a lot of liberties.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘And if you’re thinking to take advantage of a sick man, then let me tell you—’ He winced and fell back against the pillows his face suddenly tense with pain. ‘Go and get that brandy.’

‘I really don’t think—’ Marianne began, but he didn’t let her continue, struggling to get up out of the bed instead.

Worried that he might cause his wound to bleed again, Marianne told him hurriedly, ‘Very well—I will fetch it. But only if you promise me that you will lie still whilst I am gone.’

‘Take the keys,’ he told her, ‘and look sharp.’

Marianne had to try two sets of doors before she found those that opened into the library—a dull, cold room that smelled of damp, with heavy velvet curtains at the window that shut out the light. There was a darker rectangle of wallpaper above the fireplace, as though a portrait had hung there at some time.

She found the brandy where she had been told it would be. The bottle was unopened, suggesting that the Master of Bellfield was normally an abstemious man. Marianne knew that here in the mill valleys the Methodist religion, with its abhorrence of alcohol and the decadent ways of the rich, held sway.

There were some dusty glasses in the cupboard with the brandy so she snatched one up to take back to the master bedroom with her.

When she reached the landing she hesitated, suddenly unwilling to return to the master bedroom now that the master had come to himself, wishing heartily that the nurse might have arrived, and that she could leave the master in her hands.

She heard a sudden sound from the room—a heavy thud followed by a ripe curse. Forgetting her qualms, she rushed to the room, staring in disbelief at the man now standing beside the bed, swaying as he clung to the bedstead, his face drained of colour and his muscles corded with pain.

‘What are you doing?’ she protested. ‘You should not have left the bed.’

‘I hate to offend your womanly sensibilities, but I’m afraid I had to answer a call of nature,’ he said, glancing towards a now half-open door Marianne had not seen before, which led, she realised, to a bathroom. ‘And now, since I am up, and you, it seems, are intent on usurping the role of my housekeeper, perhaps you would be kind enough to change the bedlinen?’

He was far too weak to be standing up, and indeed looked as though he was about to collapse at any moment. On the other hand the bloodstained sheet did need to be removed.

Marianne glanced around the room, and then ran to drag a chair over to him, urging him to sit on it.

‘I’m afraid Mrs Micklehead has neglected the care of the linen cupboard,’ she told him. ‘I have, however, put some fresh sheets to warm. I shall go down and get them.’ She looked at him and added, ‘Would you like me to pour you a measure of brandy?’

‘Measure?’ He gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Much good that will do. But, aye—go on, then.’

Very carefully Marianne poured a small amount of the liquid into a glass, and then went over to him with it. When he tried to take it from her she shook her head firmly and told him strictly, ‘I shall hold it for you, sir. You have lost a great deal of blood and are likely to be weakened by it.’

‘Too weakened to hold a glass? Don’t think I haven’t guessed why you’re fussing around me,’ he warned her.

Immediately Marianne stiffened. Was it possible that he had discerned her secret?

‘You think to make yourself indispensable to me so that I will keep you on,’ he continued.

Relief leaked from her heart and into her veins.

‘That is not true,’ she told him, avoiding looking at him. ‘I am simply doing my Christian duty, that is all.’

‘Your Christian duty.’ His mouth twisted as though he had tasted something bitter. ‘Aye, well, I have had my craw stuffed full of that in my time. Cold charity that starves the flesh and the soul.’

Marianne’s hand trembled as she held the glass to his lips. His words had touched a raw nerve within her. She too had experienced that same cold charity, and still bore in her heart its scars. It would be so easy now to open that heart to him, but she must not.

So much that she had learned since coming to Bellfield was confusing and conflicting, and then there were her own unexpected and unwanted feelings. Feelings that a woman in her position, newly widowed and with a child had no right to have. She had felt them the first time he had looked at her.

Like an echo she could hear inside her heart she heard her own voice asking, ‘But how does one know that it is love?’ and another voice, sweet and faint, answering her softly.

Her body trembled. Her life had been filled with so much loss and pain that there had not been room for her to wonder about love.

And she must not think about it now either. Not here, or with this man above all men.

There was, after all, no need for her hands to tremble, she told herself sternly. What she was doing was no more than she had done for others many times over.

But they had not been like this man, an inner voice told her.

Engrossed in her thoughts, she gave a small gasp when suddenly his hand closed over hers, hard flesh, with calluses and strong fingers, tipping the glass so that he could drain its contents in one swallow.

Marianne tried not to let her hand shake beneath his, nor wrench it away before he had released her.

Already she could see a flush of colour seeping up along his jaw from the warmth of the brandy.

‘You must promise me that you will not move from here,’ she told him. ‘If you were to fall on that injury…’

‘Such concern for a stranger,’ he mocked her. ‘I do not trust you, Mrs Brown, and that is a fact. You are too good to be true.’

Fresh colour stormed Marianne’s face. She did not dare risk saying anything. Instead, she headed for the door and the kitchen.

The baby was sleeping peacefully. He would need feeding again soon. She might try him on a little oatmeal this time, now that his poor little stomach was no longer so shrunken.

Taking the sheets from the maiden she had set up in front of the range, she set off back for the master bedroom, thinking as she did so that surely the nurse and Charlie Postlethwaite should both arrive soon.