The Duchess (Montgomery/Taggert 16)

Chapter Nine

By the time they reached the hidden door of the west wing of the house, Trevelyan was shaking so hard Claire could barely hold him upright. Once inside the door, she called for Oman to help her. The tall man appeared almost instantly, put his arm under Trevelyan’s, and half carried him up the stairs.

Claire stood to one side as she watched Oman put Trevelyan into the bed. She had never seen anyone shake as he was shaking, had never seen anyone quite as ill as he was. Trevelyan curled into a ball and Oman pulled the cover over him.

“Will he be all right?” she asked. “He doesn’t look as though he’s going to live.”

Oman shrugged. “It is the will of Allah.” With that he left the room. Claire assumed the man was going for medicine or for something to give Trevelyan comfort, but when the man did not return, she went to the sitti

ng room and there Oman stood, calmly eating a piece of fruit and looking out the window at the moon.

Claire knew she could not leave Trevelyan alone. “I want you to go to my sister,” she said as calmly as she could. She was fed up with servants who did not serve. “Do you know who my sister is? The young girl?”

Oman looked at her and nodded once in acknowledgment.

“I want you to go to her and have her tell the family that I am ill. I don’t want anyone to know I’m not in my room tonight. Get her to tell Harry I’m too sick to see him and—” She looked away. What should she do about horrid Miss Rogers? Brat could figure out what to do. “Tell my sister that no one is to know where I am. I will pay her well.”

Oman nodded once before he slipped from the room. Claire went back to Trevelyan. “What can I do?” she asked him.

“I am cold. So very cold.”

She didn’t hesitate before she climbed in bed with him and held him in her arms to try to get him warm. His shaking was so violent that it shook her too; she couldn’t imagine how it felt to him.

Claire held him to her, stroked his damp hair, and murmured soothing words to him as though he were a child. It felt strange and familiar at the same time to have a man’s body so near hers. He clung to her, holding her, clutching, almost as though he were afraid she would leave him.

“Sssh, my love,” she whispered. “Sleep now. Go to sleep.”

She didn’t know if he heard her or not but the words seemed to have an effect as he relaxed in her arms as she stroked his broad back.

He buried his face in her neck, his chin on her shoulder, and after a long time, the awful shaking stopped. She caressed his temple, smoothing his hair back, and smiled at him. He didn’t seem so large now, so infuriating, with his cynicism and his belief that the world was a bad place. Right now he seemed like a sweet, lonely little boy who needed her. She smiled again and kissed the top of his head as he nestled closer to her.

It was an hour before Oman returned. “It is done,” he said.

Claire, holding Trevelyan to her, barely glanced up at him, but when she did, she looked back, startled. There was something different about Oman. Since he’d seen her little sister, she could guess at what had transpired.

“Where is your emerald?” she asked, for the big emerald in his turban was gone.

Oman merely shrugged.

“Did you lend it to her or give it to her?”

“A mere three days have I lent it to her. The lowly jewel will benefit from the wearing by one so young and so beautiful.”

“Brat,” Claire said under her breath, then looked back at Trevelyan’s sleeping form. No matter that her sister charged for her services, Claire knew she’d do a good job. No doubt Brat would delight in the melodrama of whatever lies she had to create to keep people from knowing Claire was not in her room.

Claire thought that it was possible that you never knew a person until you’d nursed him when he was ill. Toward midnight Trevelyan was deep enough asleep that she was able to ease out from under him. For a moment she stood at the side of the bed and looked at him. She was beyond tired. Between the dancing, the two long walks, and the fear she’d felt at being near an illness as strong as Trevelyan’s, she wanted to sink into a feather bed and never get out of it.

He was on his back, asleep at last. And those eyes of his were closed. Those black, intense, seen-everything, done-everything, bored-by-it-all eyes of his were at last closed. She bent over him and smoothed his hair off his forehead. His hair was too long but somehow it suited him. Oman had lit candles in the room and as she touched Trevelyan’s face she looked at him. Earlier she’d said he’d lost the greenish cast to his skin, and he had. Now his skin was a healthy tan and there was even some fat under his skin so he didn’t look skeletal, as he had when she’d first seen him. She put her fingertip on the long scar on his left cheek, then on the scar on his right cheek, and wondered how they had been made. Curious, she sat on the edge of the bed and began to touch his face. High cheekbones. A strong, square jaw covered with bristly black whiskers. His thick, drooping mustache was soft and she could see that it half concealed a very sensuous mouth.

“My goodness, Trevelyan, you’re quite a handsome man,” she whispered. He didn’t have Harry’s blond, healthy good looks but he had—the devil’s looks, she thought. If there were a play, Trevelyan would make a perfect devil and Harry could play an angel. Perhaps she should suggest it to Brat’s friend who staged his one-man plays.

“Is he well again?”

Claire jumped, guilty at being caught touching Trevelyan. She turned to Oman. “I think the worst is over. Does he have these spells often?” Claire wanted to know if Trevelyan’s illness was permanent or temporary. But at the same time she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know if these shaking spells would eventually lead to his death.

Oman didn’t answer, but merely shrugged in a way that could mean that he didn’t know, didn’t care, or that it was all up to Allah.

“Would you get me some hot water? I want to wash him.”