His place in the world was secure. Hers was teetering on a knife-edge.
“It is a mistake I won’t allow again,” she promised herself in a voice that trembled too much to be reassuring.
She knew he couldn’t hear her, though. His soft snore confirmed it.
At that moment, Aidan rolled over in bed but didn’t wake up.
Petal carefully tugged the covers over his bare chest, and quietly left the room. It was best if she just put what they had shared behind her.
Now, if she could only convince herself that he wouldn’t remember any of it, maybe she wouldn’t be a nervous wreck until he rang the bell to summon her.
As she hurried past one of the guest bedrooms she didn’t notice the door open slightly, and the dark shadow within the room step forward to watch her. Once she had disappeared from sight the door closed again just as silently.
Aidan awoke the following morning feeling groggy, tired and confused. His body ached fiercely, but it was more a result of the rather lurid dream he had been having rather than exertion. He had been enthusiastically kissing the delightful Petal. Intriguingly, he wasn’t perturbed by it. He rather wished he could go back to sleep so he could find out what happened next. While he didn’t usually dream about bedding his servants, this dream was so very vivid that it could have been real.
With a yawn, he sat up.
His head ached in a way that he hadn’t felt since he had –
He frowned at that, and stopped to consider the last time he had felt this catalogue of ailments as soon as he awoke. In the cold light of day, his mind worked well enough to think through the events he could remember. The last thing he could vaguely recall was eating breakfast. He glanced around the room. There weren’t any meal trays anywhere. He hadn’t imagined it. He had eaten some of the breakfast that had been left beside his bed.
“Some of it,” he murmured. Strong memories of the rather desperate need to sleep began to return and he cursed angrily. He forced the memories forward. The food had not tasted quite right. It had been laced with Laudanum. By the time he had realised, it had been too late to do anything but sleep.
“Edwards,” he growled in disgust.
Eyeing the bell pull he assessed how far away it was from the bed, but knew that he just had to try to summon Petal. He needed to know who had delivered that food. It didn’t dawn on him once to question Petal’s integrity. He knew it had been Edwards.
Using his anger toward the nurse as his fuel, he pushed his legs off the bed and tossed the covers back defiantly. His legs trembled as he put his weight on them but he locked his knees and stood motionless for a moment while he willed them to remain firm enough to hold him up. There was no pain, just a mild ache here and there. Thankfully, they didn’t buckle beneath him. Confident that they would hold him upright, Aidan began to shuffle somewhat awkwardly across the room.
“If I can’t make it, I will just have to wait for Petal to arrive in light the fire.” He frowned when he realised the room was colder than it usually was; the fire was empty.
“Where are you?” he mused aloud.
He glanced out of the window at the new dawn edging o
ver the horizon. She had usually been in his room by now. It was most unlike her to be so tardy. Why had she not been? Was there a problem?
He frowned as he considered the very vivid dream he had experienced last night. The soft contours of her slightly rounded feminine shape made his palms tingle. It was just a dream – wasn’t it?
He frowned at the bed, but that gave him no answers.
Swearing roundly, he gave the bellpull two firm tugs. Using his hands against the wall to guide himself around, he then began to shuffle all the way back to the bed.
By the time he was back beneath the sheets, his chest was bathed in sweat while the rest of him shook uncontrollably. However, the sense of achievement that swept through him brought forth a smile of self-satisfaction. While those first few steps toward recovery were a precious achievement he so desperately needed, it was imperative that he keep it to himself right now. The only person in the house he felt he could take into his confidence was Petal. He was bursting to tell her about his accomplishments as well as demand some answers, and glared at the room impatiently while he sat back to wait.
While he waited for his elusive maid to appear, he began to plot where he could shuffle off to next.
Petal winced when the bell rang again.
Mrs Kempton threw her a warning look. “You had better go. It sounds like he is getting impatient.”
“I will go,” Edwards announced from the doorway.
Before anybody could protest, she swept across the kitchen, collected the tray, and hurried through the door that led to the main body of the house.
“Where is she going with that?” Rollo demanded with a scowl. “The food goes up the servants’ stairs.”
“She is a rule unto herself that one. You mark my words, having her in the house is going to cause trouble for us all.” It was highly unlike the usually sunny housekeeper to be the voice of doom thus, but Petal could find no argument with her sentiment.