“Gypsy Lady?”
She nodded. “You did not have to des—” She broke off, unable to bear the notion that the horse might have had to be put down due to her damned inexperience as a rider.
“She is as feisty and fit as ever she was, although I daresay she appeared as concerned for your welfare as I did. Instead of bolting once you had been thrown, she stood still, waiting for me to come and fetch you. When I no longer heard the sound of hoofbeats behind me, I knew something was dreadfully wrong.”
C.J. beckoned Darlington closer, then clasped her arms around his neck and clung to him. “Then I have both of you to thank for saving my life,” she whispered.
“You wonderful, wonderful girl. Miss Welles has awakened!” he shouted toward the door.
With another jubilant cry, Darlington greeted Mary, who entered the blue room a few minutes later bearing a steaming cup of chicken broth, followed by Lady Dalrymple carrying a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers. “Look! She is sitting up!” He retired from the room, leaving C.J. to the ladies’ ministrations.
Mary arranged the bed tray across C.J.’s lap, laying a pretty serviette across its woven wicker surface. “Now you must take some nourishment, Miss Welles,” she said sagely. “If not for yourself, you’ve got the babe to consider.”
“Am I . . . still . . . ?” C.J. feared giving voice to the thought that had just clouded her mind. Mary, who had seen no sign of blood on Miss Welles’s linen undergarments following her brutal accident, or any stains on the bedsheets during Miss Welles’s recuperation, nodded her head. “For aught I can tell, your son . . . or daughter . . . is unharmed.” Availing herself of one of Lady Dalrymple’s flowers, Mary filled a graceful silver bud vase with one perfect rose in a shade of palest apricot. “I’d been thinkin’ myself that you might like to have somethin’ pretty to wake up to, but seein’ as you are quite awake, you can enjoy it all the sooner,” Mary added, dropping an efficient curtsy.
“With your ladyship’s permission,” she said, turning to the countess, “I have been asked to assist at the birth of Mrs. Jordan’s babe. Dr. Musgrove has arranged for me to apprentice to Mrs. Goodwin, the midwife. Imagine me, your ladyship—at the bedside of such a great lady! She’s lyin’ in at the town house the Duke of Clarence gave her in Sydney Place.”
Lady Dalrymple waved a jeweled hand. “Heavens! How could I possibly deny such a request. What prestige, Mary!” The countess dabbed away a falling tear. “How soon they leave the nest!”
“Bless you, your ladyship, for your great kindness,” Mary gushed, practically dropping to her knees in genuflection before retiring from the room.
Hardly a moment later there was a knock on the door, and Mary reappeared with a calling card on a silver salver. “Your ladyship, Captain Keats has come to call again,” she whispered. “Shall I admit him?”
Darlington appeared in the doorway. “Now that Miss Welles is awake, I am certain that she would care to thank the captain for his assistance following her nasty spill the other day.”
The officer entered quietly, took a chair beside Darlington, and inquired after the invalid’s health. C.J. gave him a puzzled look; then a glimmer of recognition dawned, and a smile crept across her pale features. “Captain Keats. The very man I have meant to speak to,” she said weakly. “Kindly convey my good thoughts to the Fairfax family, with particular commendation to Miss Susanne. I am quite fond of the girl.”
“In point of fact, Miss Welles, I was on my way to pay a call upon the Fairfaxes when I encountered you in such danger. I shall pass on your felicitations to the family, and to Mrs. MacKenzie upon her return from Scotland.”
“Mrs. MacKenzie?” C.J. was completely baffled.
“Four days ago, Miss Welles—the day of your dreadful accident—Miss Susanne Fairfax eloped to Gretna Green with Major Kenneth MacKenzie of the Seaforth Highlanders. I had just heard the news and was on the way to see the family when I saw Lord Darlington kneeling by something in the center of the road, and stopped my carriage.”
C.J. was dimly aware of the journey she had taken in the officer’s coach, lying across as much of the cordovan leather seat as possible, with her head resting in Darlington’s hands, drifting in and out of consciousness. “I cannot thank you enough for your chivalry, Captain Keats. Were it not for your assistance, I dare not think where I might be today. You have indeed been our knight in shining armor.”
The officer smiled proudly. “I am the third son of a baronet, who bought my colors for me, despite Mrs. Fairfax’s confidence that I am nothing but a poor churchmouse, or a scurvy fortune hunter.”
C.J. brightened. “See. And I knew you to be a gentleman.”
The captain bowed. “I am pleased that my brief visit has been able to cheer the patient. My heartiest congratulations on your recovery, Miss Welles,” he said before leaving her chamber.
A plan was forming in Darlington’s mind. If the decidedly parvenu Miss Susanne Fairfax could flout convention and risk the ostracism of her family’s acquaintances to marry the man of her choice, why then could not a peer of the realm wed the woman who was his heart’s desire? Perhaps he would have to sell off a portion of his property—even lose Delamere and need to retrench—but events of the past week had forced him to face his future. He would formally offer for her not to extricate her from the situation in which he had placed her, but because he could not imagine living out the rest of his days without her, a lifetime plagued with regret and recriminations. His happiness,
