* * *
The sound of a female weeping penetrated his drugged sleep. Ivy? He ordered his body to act. He preferred the agony of hell to this helpless oblivion. He summoned all his energy to shove the counterpane to the floor. His right arm jerked upward into the air. He swept his hand across the bedside table.
An enemy in the night. Where in God’s name were his weapons? A soldier had cried for help. Curtis. He thought of his brother in battle. Goddamn Curtis’s wife for betraying her family. How could she abandon those beautiful children? He would hunt down her lover and take revenge to satisfy his brother’s honor.
He hated this weakness, this fog in which unrecognizable figures loomed and disappeared before he could work out where they stood. He must fight it. Fight. Pain jolted him into a twilight clarity. He’d rather suffer then sleep.
He wrapped his reliable arm around the bedpost and pulled himself upright. The poultice on his shoulder slithered down his chest. The drug was still strong in his blood, beckoning him back under black waves of oblivion. He released the post and reached back for the water on the table, taking a deep swallow before he realized it was morphine. Where the hell was his pistol? Not that he could pull the trigger. He grabbed something sharp.
Did he still hear crying? Had he been weeping in his sleep? He staggered from the bed but made it no farther than to the clothes chest before he had to rest.
“Damn, damn, damn.” He grasped another post, struggling to remain upright.
From his viewpoint he could look through the window to the garden. Was a deer running through the park? A maid? Was he hallucinating? Why was he clutching a pair of scissors? He glanced up again. He saw nothing in the garden but the familiar blur of hedges laid out beneath the moonlit trees.
His hand loosened from the post.
The crying had stopped, but he heard soft voices in the hall. His instincts told him that his sanctuary had been invaded. He had ruined a young woman and failed as her protector in one single night.
* * *
Ivy went to Mary without a moment’s hesitation. She had only an inkling of what the child had witnessed in her past, but she vowed it would not happen again. “What is it? Walker again?”
“N-no.”
Sweet mercy. “Then what is it, my dear? Why are you crying so?”
“Papa might be killed. Uncle James is sick. And I peeped in on Walker. He’s wet the bed, my lady, and I don’t know how to tell him that our mother is never coming home.”
Ivy was ashamed at how relieved she felt that Mary’s distress did not stem from catching her governess in an indiscretion. “Tomorrow we shall make other arrangements. Perhaps I shall sleep in the dressing closet between you and Walker. Come here. I have a handkerchief to dry those tears. I know how sad you must be.”
“Have you been sad before?”
“Oh, very.”
Mary trailed her to the wardrobe, whispering, “Is the maid still in your room?”
Ivy closed the drawer and then the wardrobe door. “The maid?” she said, turning around woodenly.
“The one I saw you talking to before I came in. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Ladies like to talk to each other. She had a funny voice. Was she angry with you?”
Ivy dabbed gently at Mary’s face. Was this how it started? A small untruth meant to protect an innocent person? What if Mary mentioned the “maid” to James? Would Ivy lie again to prevent James from challenging Oliver to a duel? A little lie that grew into a circle of deceit like a serpent consuming its own tail and ensuing self-destruction? Better to say nothing than to deceive.
“You may always interrupt me when you are upset, Mary. That is why I am here. Calm yourself. Sleep in my bed tonight. I’ll ring for another maid to change Walker’s sheets.” And she would peep in on James on the way, allowing the moron in the maid’s cap to escape before a servant on the estate sighted him and roused the duke from his bed.
* * *
But the duke was not in his bed. And it was Ivy who almost panicked, not Mary, when she encountered James lumbering down the hall toward them in his nightshirt, dripping the poultice she had applied and brandishing a pair of scissors. To be fair, he did look like a mythological monster and her frayed nerves could not be expected to withstand another shock tonight. As soon as she realized he was in a feverish state and had no idea what he was about, she returned to her practical self—she who mopped up messes, tended the ill, called out instructions, and promised herself she could have brandy and a private bellow when it was all over.
Mary came to her senses as most young women eventually do in a crisis. She ran back to her room to ring for help and settle down to read Walker stories in his bed when he woke, while Carstairs and three able young footmen guided the duke back into his chamber. Ivy nearly fainted when she discovered the chaos he had wreaked. The bronze-gold bed tester shimmered against the parquetry floor. Side tables and chairs had been overturned as if swept by a dragon’s tail. Whatever had caused him to go into this frenzy?