Married By Morning (The Hathaways #4)(23)

As he had expected, the opiate sent him into nightmares, filled with creatures rising from the earth to claw and pull at him, tugging him down below the surface where red glowing eyes blinked at him in the dark. Trapped in a narcotic daze, Leo couldn’t fully awaken from the dreams, only struggled in the heat and misery, and subsided into more hallucinations. The only respite was when a cool cloth was applied to his forehead, and a gentle, comforting presence hovered beside him.

“Amelia? Win?” he mumbled in confusion.

“Shhhh…”

“Hot,” he said with an aching sigh.

“Lie still.”

He was vaguely aware of two or three other times when the cloth was changed … merciful coolness applied to his brow … a light hand curving against his cheek.

When he awoke in the morning, he was tired, feverish, and in the grip of a profound gloom. It was the usual aftermath of opium, of course, but the knowledge hardly helped to alleviate the overwhelming dreariness.

“You have a mild fever,” Cam told him in the morning. “You’ll need to drink more yarrow tea to bring it down. But there’s no sign of festering. Rest today, and I expect you’ll feel much better by tomorrow.”

“That tea tastes like ditch water,” Leo muttered. “And I’m not going to stay in bed all day.”

Cam looked sympathetic. “I understand, phral. You don’t feel ill enough to rest, but you’re not well enough to do anything. All the same, you have to give yourself a chance to heal, or—”

“I’m going downstairs for a proper breakfast.”

“Breakfast is done. They’ve already cleared the sideboard.”

Leo scowled and rubbed his face, wincing at the fiery pull of his shoulder. “Have Merripen come up here. I want to talk to him.”

“He is out with the tenants, drilling turnip seed.”

“Where is Amelia?”

“Taking care of the baby. He’s teething.”

“What about Win?”

“She’s with the housekeeper, taking inventory and ordering supplies. Beatrix is carrying baskets to elderly cottagers in town. And I have to visit a tenant who’s two months lacking in his rent. I’m afraid there is no one available to entertain you.”

Leo greeted this statement with surly silence. And then he brought himself to ask for the person he truly wanted. The person who hadn’t bothered to look in on him or ask after his welfare even after she’d promised to safeguard him. “Where’s Marks?”

“The last time I saw her, she was busy with needlework. It seems the mending has piled up, and—”

“She can do it here.”

Cam’s face was carefully blank. “You want Miss Marks to do the mending in your room?”

“Yes, send her up here.”

“I’ll ask if she’s willing,” Cam said, looking doubtful.

After Leo had washed and dragged on a dressing robe, he went back to bed. He was sore and infuriatingly unsteady. A housemaid brought a small tray with a solitary piece of toast and a cup of tea. Leo ate his breakfast while staring morosely at the empty doorway.

Where was Marks? Had Cam even bothered to tell her that she was wanted? If so, she had evidently decided to ignore the summons.

Callous, coldhearted harpy. And this after she had promised to be responsible for him. She had persuaded him to take the laudanum, and then she had deserted him.

Well, Leo didn’t want her now. If she decided to appear after all, he would send her away. He would laugh scornfully and tell her that no company at all was better than having her there. He would’

“My lord?”

His heart gave a leap as he saw her at the doorway, dressed in a dark blue gown, her light golden hair caught up and pinned in its usual stern confinement.

She held a book in one hand and a glass of pale liquid in the other. “How are you this morning?”

“Bored out of my wits,” Leo said with a scowl. “Why did you take so long to see me?”

“I thought you were still asleep.” Entering the room, Catherine left the door wide open. The long, furry form of Dodger the ferret came loping in after her. After standing tall to view his surroundings, Dodger scurried beneath the dresser. Catherine watched the ferret suspiciously. “Probably one of his new hiding places,” she said, and sighed. She brought Leo a glass of cloudy liquid, and gave it to him. “Drink this, please.”

“What is it?”

“Willowbark, for your fever. I stirred in some lemon and sugar to improve the flavor.”

Leo drank the bitter brew, watching as Catherine moved about the room. She opened a second window to admit more of the outside breeze. Taking his breakfast tray out to the hallway, she gave it to a passing housemaid. When she returned to Leo, she laid her fingers on his forehead to test his temperature.

Leo caught her wrist, staying the motion. He stared at her in dawning recognition. “It was you,” he said. “You came to me last night.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You changed the cloth on my forehead. More than once.”

Catherine’s fingers curled lightly around his. Her voice was very soft. “As if I would enter a man’s bedroom in the middle of the night.”

But they both knew she had. The weight of melancholy lifted considerably, especially as Leo saw the concern in her eyes.