“Ah, food.” He walked away from her before she could speak.
Hetty eyed the steaming bowl of soup and fresh warm bread. She tried to struggle to a sitting position, only to fall back, biting her lower lip, as the wound in her side sent a ripping pain through her.
“Listen to me, Hetty, you must keep still. I don’t want those stitches to tear. I don’t want you to start bleeding again. Just hold still. No matter what’s between us, for now just let me feed you. All right?” He frowned at her, saw how very near to tears of pain she was. “Please, allow me to help you.”
She was simply too weak to resist. She was also dizzy with hunger. As much as she hated it, she knew she’d have to lie here in his bed like a weak fool and let him feed her. She lay limp as he slipped one arm behind her shoulders and the other under her legs. He carefully eased her to more of a sitting position and plumped the feather pillows behind her head.
“There, you’re ready to dine.”
He pulled out the wooden legs of the bed tray and set it across her lap.
“I hope it isn’t corn soup,” she said, eyeing the steaming bowl warily.
“Corn soup? Why the devil not?”
“Father’s a Tory.”
“Good God, do I ever know that. Your father and my uncle between them would run England if allowed. It’s a frightening idea. You aren’t speaking of the Corn Laws, are you? No, don’t answer. Let’s feed you now.” He sat on the bed beside her. He picked up the spoon and stirred the hot soup.
To have him feeding her was simply too much. Besides now she was sitting up, not lying on her back like a lump. “I don’t need your help now. I’ll feed myself.”
“As you will,” he said, and handed her the spoon.
She couldn’t make her fingers do any more than curl weakly about the handle. She slid her thumb closer to the bowl of the spoon and dipped it into the soup. Her hand was trembling and before the spoon reached her open mouth, her thumb lost its leverage and she grimaced as the hot soup splashed onto her nightshirt, rather his nightshirt sewn for him by his aunt Agnes.
“Damn but you’re stubborn,” he said and pulled her fingers from the spoon. “Now, lie back, open your mouth, and stop trying to prove how invincible you are.”
She did, and opened her mouth.
The bowl was empty and the fresh bread rested comfortably in her stomach and still she felt her mouth watering. She wanted more. She wanted the entire pot of soup. She wanted another loaf of bread, buttered liberally. He stood and removed the tray. As if he read her longing, he said, “No, any more and you’ll get ill. Trust me in this. You can have some more in a couple of hours.”
She turned her face away from him and he saw her fingers bunching at the cover.
“Are you in pain?”
She shook her head, then suddenly turned to face him and whispered, “I know Millie is here. I heard her. I wish to have her, please.”
He said cynically, “Really, Hetty, it is I who have looked after you for the past three days. You have no need of Millie. Come, what is it you want?”
“Damn you, get me my maid.”
Understanding dawned. “Very well, but listen to me, Hetty. Millie will have only fifteen minutes with you. I can’t allow any gossip to start among the servants. As you know, that would be fatal. You’re Lord Harry, don’t forget that.”
He said over his shoulder as he strode to the door, “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Then, Hetty, we must talk, if you feel up to it.”
It seemed an age before Millie’s large, spare figure appeared in the doorway, and Hetty wondered if the marquess had been giving her all sorts of orders. Probably so.
“Oh, Miss Hetty, oh my poor little lamb.”
A poor lamb she was destined to be at least for the next fifteen minutes, for Millie clucked over her like a mother hen finally returned to her lost chick.
Hetty’s more basic needs having been attended to, she nervously eyed the clock. “Quickly, Millie, tell me everything you know before the marquess returns.”
“Well, his grace isn’t a dreadful man as I’d sworn he would be. It’s a tangled state of affairs he’s saved you from, and I’d say he’s taken better care of you better than any doctor. Not, of course, that I approve of an unmarried man being so intimately familiar with a young girl, but I agree with him that it had to be this way. Yes, you must remain Lord Harry, else I shudder to think what might happen.”
“Did his grace tell you it would be all right if you brushed my hair?”
“Now, Miss Hetty, no need to get snippety.” She grinned down at her mistress. “I daresay I’ll have to since his grace hasn’t seen fit to render you this service.”
Millie was gentle, Hetty gave her that, still the pain grew with each gentle stroke of the brush. She sought to distract herself. “What have you been doing the past three days? How did the marquess justify your presence here?”
“Naught of anything, Miss Hetty. His grace said I needed a holiday after all the wild doings you put me through. Of course, Sir Archibald believes I’m attending you here during your visit with the marquess’s sister. As for what he told his servants, they simply think I’m a visitor from his sister, here to see if she would like anything changed when next she visits. I don’t think they believe it, but they’ve kept quiet. I like most of them. That Croft, now, he’s a handful. Careful as a vicar he is while the marquess is here not to fall into drunken stupors. He’s always peering around
