“No need to worry, you know nothing can kill me.” He gave her an affectionate squeeze and kissed her cheek. “Though, promise me, you will not tell the others I am better.”
“I won’t, dear, I swear. Graeme already warned me they’d all be in here bothering you if they knew you were on the mend.” She looked at him searchingly. “Oh, lovie, how thin you are.” Mirabelle steered him toward the bed. “Come, sit down.”
She fussed over him as the dowager countess took a seat on the chair and Graeme came over to shake his cousin’s hand. “You look well, James.”
James gave him a sardonic look. “No need to lie, coz. I look like I have one foot in the grave, but fortunately I’m pulling it out now, I think. Thanks to Laura.”
“I knew she was the perfect wife for you,” Mirabelle told him, patting his hand. “I’m so happy for you.”
“I must say I was surprised when I heard you’d married her,” Lady Eugenia said. “But I agree, she will make you an excellent wife.”
“That’s not what you said when I wanted to marry her!” Graeme protested.
James cast a jaundiced eye at his cousin. Graeme obviously was the sort of man Laura did want.
“Of course not. She wouldn’t have been a suitable wife for the Earl of Montclair.”
“But of course I,” James drawled, “am lowly enough in station to make it perfectly acceptable.”
“Don’t be impertinent.” Lady Eugenia fixed him with a gimlet eye. “The fact that you are ill does not give you license to be rude.”
“Of course not.” James bowed his head, properly chastened. “I beg your pardon.”
“As for Laura’s worthiness,” Lady Eugenia went on. “She is of good family and quite unexceptionable in manner. We all know where her lack lay, and since James is swimming in money, it will not signify. She’s a sensible girl. No doubt she has come to realize that marriage is a contract, and security is a far more important consideration than love.”
Her words, James reflected, were frighteningly similar to the argument James himself had made to Laura. He wondered why it sounded so irritating when Lady Eugenia said it.
“I feel sure she will be an admirable influence on you, James,” Lady Eugenia went on.
“No doubt.”
“She already has been a wonderful influence,” Mirabelle said, patting James’s hand. “She saved his life.”
“Indeed. I owe her a great deal.”
Mirabelle smiled and gave him another pat. “I’ll leave you to talk to the countess now, as I’ll have many other opportunities to visit you, but Lady Eugenia will be here only a short while.” From the look on his aunt’s face, James suspected that the brevity of the dowager countess’s stay was more a wish than a fact.
“Where is Laura?” James asked, looking toward the door.
“I am sure, quite properly, Laura is giving us the opportunity of a private conversation with you,” Lady Eugenia told him.
“Yes, no doubt that’s it,” Graeme agreed in a hearty voice.
“For pity’s sake, Graeme, sit down and stop fidgeting about,” Lady Eugenia said. “You don’t need to pretend all’s well in front of me. I’m fully aware that someone is trying to kill James.”
Ignoring Graeme’s pained expression, she turned back to James. “I suppose it’s Claude who wants you dead.”
“Grandmother . . .” Graeme groaned.
“Don’t be so missish, Montclair,” his grandmother retorted.
“Yes, Claude is my first choice,” James agreed.
“I always thought he was a sly boy,” Lady Eugenia went on. “But handling it will be a delicate situation. You won’t want any scandal.”
“Naturally. I’ve thought of simply slipping a knife between his ribs one night.”
“James . . .” Graeme rolled his eyes. “This is scarcely a time for jests.”
“Who says I’m jesting?”
“That wouldn’t do,” the dowager countess put in. “It would still be a dreadful scandal. And you wouldn’t want to be sent to the gallows.”
“That is a consideration.”
Graeme looked pained, but the dowager countess appeared pleased with their exchange. She stood up, reaching over to lay her hand on James’s shoulder. “I’m glad you didn’t leave us.” She gave him a little pat, completing James’s astonishment, and stepped back. “I am sure you two would prefer to talk in private.” She let out a martyred sigh. “So I shall visit with Tessa and Mirabelle.”