finished with my work.” She brushed a loose curl from her forehead in disgust.
“Londringham is in need of her. I shall have to report to him that she has flown the coop with the French rooster,” Kilkennen remarked flippantly.
“Now that you have accomplished your mission for information, perhaps you might find the door?” Colette petitioned him. This man disturbed her, and she could not afford to be distracted by him. For surely that is all she would be to him, a distraction. His startling green eyes and sharp, chiseled features in a tan-worn face had diverted many a maiden from her tasks, of which Colette had no doubt.
“I don’t believe you like me. Why is that?” Kilkennen asked in a boyish voice.
Colette rolled her eyes in annoyance. “You cannot dally with me as you seem want to do. I work for the countess and those are the only services I offer.”
Kilkennen sighed before rising from his chair and walking over to Colette. He shook his head. “Don’t you realize the harder you fight, the more challenge you become to me?” Before she had realized what he did, Kilkennen softly kissed her cheek, brushed the errant curl from her forehead, and strolled out the door.
When Patience next awoke, night had drawn its shades on the day. She had slept undisturbed, awakened only by pangs of hunger. Groggily pulling herself up, she glanced at the tray Colette had left hours ago. The food looked even more repellent than it had earlier. While considering a search for food, she noticed the new dresses hanging in the cupboard. Gray. They were all gray. That would certainly make what to wear an easy decision.
A quick knock broke her reverie and blew Lem through the door.
“Livin’ a life of ease, I ’ear tell. Cook swears you’re only tryin’ to avoid work.” He jumped on the edge of her bed, sat, crossed his legs, and cocked his head, first one way and then the other. “Ye don’t look ill to me. What ’appened? Ye was foine, yestiday. ’ow comes yore ’n bed?”
Patience held up a hand to halt the boy’s runaway tongue. “I actually feel fine, except for my arm.” She pointed to it for his inspection.
Eyes widened in surprise, Lem gaped at Patience. “You ’ave a wound, just like a soldier. Were you shot at by one of those Frenchies? Can I see? I want me a wound too. I’ll show everyone ’ow brave I am with me wound.” Lem leaned toward Patience and gently took her arm in his little hands. “Gore, that bandage is a beauty.” He looked at it from all angles, then pronounced it a piece of work.
“’ow did you come by that? Ye ain’t a soldier, like me.” Suspicion mocked his inquiry.
Patience tried not to smile at his inquisitiveness, and diverted his attention. “Lem, I need you for a special mission. I have not eaten anything all day. Could you possibly see if there might be something to eat in the larder? And try not to let anyone see you.”
Such a request had Lem beaming ear to ear. He smartly saluted Patience and hurried out the door.
A while later, the two enjoyed cheese and bread and a little whiskey. Lem had found it on the sideboard in the dining room and decided that all wounded soldiers needed whiskey to “fortify their spirits.”
Patience coughed down a few draughts, to the delight of the little footboy. He regaled her with stories of Gulliver, who was healing quite well due to her and Lucky’s administrations, so said his lordship. Melenroy absentmindedly had just baked bread with sugar instead of yeast. Lem told Patience they wondered whether the cook might be batty.
“And Mr. Gibbs? He has not been too unkind to you? I worry that he has given you too much work to do.” When she saw the pain in his eyes, she wanted to bite her lip. Something was just not right between Mr. Gibbs and Lem. The butler acted cruelly toward him, and Patience would discover why.
“I am sorry, I did not think…”
A sharp rap on the door froze the friends. Patience did not know whom to expect. Her bedroom was proving to be quite a popular place. Lem leapt into action by throwing her cap and spectacles at her, which Patience awkwardly pulled on. Then the little boy grabbed the tray and stuck it under the bed. Finally, he pulled the covers up to her shoulders with a serious look on his face and, motioning a tree, escaped out the window.
The heat in the room grew oppressive as she fought for air and courage. She managed a squeaky “Enter” and waited with hands clasping the sheets.
Bryce strolled in the door, placed a tray on the bed, kicked the door shut, and turned to examine his patient. He paused, then threw back his head to laugh. She obviously had not been expecting him with the mobcap covering most of her countenance, pushing her spectacles down her nose. Patience looked adorable even as she glared at him with an icy-green blast and higher-than-thou nose for, he assumed, his uninvited presence.
“What do you find so amusing, my lord?” A chill froze her words.
“You were obviously not expecting any guests, and I must say, you will need to find a smaller cap in the future.” So saying, he popped the cap from her head and threw it on a chair.
She pursed her lips, in anger or fear, he could not decide. With hands on his hips, he looked around the small room, his study missed nothing. The opened window, dirt on the wooden floor, and a half-hidden whiskey bottle in the folds of Patience’s sheets. She had had a recent visitor, but who? His examination took only seconds before he pulled a chair next to her bed and sat down, her narrow cot much too small and close for them both.
Bryce leaned back in his chair, placed his right ankle on his left knee, and folded his arms. He had quite a few questions to ask the young woman but something halted his tongue. He would learn the truth, all of it. But not tonight. For some reason, he found it difficult to remember his purpose here.
The warmth of the room brought a pretty pink flush to her cheeks and her lips were red from biting them as she did now. He noted her small, even white teeth as she chewed her lower lip. And when her tongue darted out to lick her lips, he placed both feet on the floor and admonished himself not to notice her charms and the scent of her rosewater soap.
She was a woman. Hence, untrustworthy, disloyal, and exceedingly dangerous to his well-being.
Her coyness and innocence and unpainted beauty were all part of a calculated game she would use to manipulate him. But perhaps he could seduce her to get the truth? A pleasure he intended for them both.
“Are you planning to guard me all night? Ensure I do not escape into the darkness with the silver?”
Her sarcasm made him smile. Plucky little thing, considering he held all the cards.
“Actually, I am here on a nobler mission. I wanted to rebind your wound to help prevent infection. Is it still paining you?” He kept his tone easy, friendly.
“What? Oh, my arm. Well, I have been sleeping a good part of the day, but now it is throbbing a bit.” She too adopted a casual manner, of surgeon and patient.
“The whiskey has not relieved the pain in any way?” He pointed to the bottle peeping out from the bedclothes, near her leg.
“Ah, I…I only had a few swallows, perhaps not enough for medicinal purposes or to cause a drunken stupor,” she replied defensively.
A cool April breeze tickled the air with honeysuckle and lilacs. Time for work. He studied
