“I’m on my way,” Daisy said. She saw Helena’s face grow pink. She hoped there wouldn’t be another objection to her seeing the viscount in his bedchamber.
But Helena turned to the earl. “May I be excused for a moment?” she asked in embarrassment. “And have you a withdrawing room?”
Daisy suppressed a giggle. No question that good breeding complicated things. Few people in Port Jackson would have known what Helena was talking about; they’d a much simpler way to say they needed a chamber pot. But Daisy had seen how much tea Helena had drunk at breakfast, and the earl was used to good manners.
“It’s just down the hall,” Geoff said, and indicated the direction.
Helena nodded. “I’ll be there soon,” she told Daisy unhappily, because though she clearly didn’t want Daisy to go up alone, she knew she wouldn’t wait.
This time, Leland’s door was open. This time, too, he sat up in a chair by the bed. He wore a robe over a shirt and breeches. His face wasn’t as pale as it had been the day before. His eyes were just as intense and blue, but she thought she saw pain in them.
“Why look at you!” she said. “Out of bed already. That’s very good.”
“So it is,” he said, and sat back, letting out a gusty sigh of relief, as though talking had exerted him. Then he smiled. “And look at you! You’re wearing one of Madame Bertrand’s gowns today. Very lovely, the color suits you. Take a chair, please. If you continue to stand, I’ll feel I must, too.”
She looked around. There was a chair near the window, far from him. And there was one right next to his. Too close, she thought, and too awkward. But how stupid she would look sitting on the other side of the bed! She’d have to shout to talk to him. She sat down, gingerly, next to him.
He saw her hesitation, and she saw amusement in his gaze. But “Tell me about the world outside” was all he said.
“You’ve only been here a few days,” she scoffed. “And you read the newspaper. I don’t know anything that’s happened that you don’t.”
“Oh, do you not?” he asked softly. “I think you know much that I want to know. What do you think of me now, for example?”
She blinked.
“You thought I was a fop and a man milliner, or worse, when we first met. Don’t deny it,” he said, raising a hand. “But now,” he said, watching her intently. “What do you think now? I ask because you are so very wary of me. Surely you know I mean you no harm?”
“Well, of course I know that,” she exclaimed. “You took a knife in your chest in my defense.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Any gentleman would have done that. What is it about me that frightens you, Daisy?”
Well, there was plain speaking, she thought with a little panic. She cleared her throat for time. “You say such flirtatious things, my lord,” she finally said. “And flirtation is a thing I’m out of practice with.”
“It isn’t all flirtation, Daisy,” he said softly. “I mean everything I say. You are beautiful, I do desire you, and I think I could make you very happy. But don’t be afraid. I am a gentleman, and would never do anything you didn’t want me to. That’s a solemn promise.”
“What do you want to do?” she asked without thinking, mesmerized by his soft voice and the intimate mood. Then she squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head. “No, no. Stupid question!” she said, and shot up from her chair. “I know very well what you want.”
He smiled. “Good. I hoped so.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh with him or rail at him, but didn’t have to do either.
“What the devil are you doing up and out of bed?” the earl said as he marched into the room, Helena at his side.
“Recovering,” Leland said gloomily. “Terrorizing Daisy and frightening you. Seeing if I can move at all. Oh bother, I’m sick of lying in bed. In fact, that’s it. I will be sick if I stay there.”
“The doctor said bed rest,” the earl said.
“The doctor also wanted to regale me with leeches,” Leland said on a barely concealed shudder. “And that after he’d let blood. I decided to save some for my veins. There are some things I still do control, you know. And look at me, I’m in fine fettle, and up to all kind of mischief,” he added, with a private smile for Daisy.
She couldn’t help smiling back at him. The dark, erotic mood he’d established was gone. He was Leland Grant, the trifling nobleman, again.
“I promised the doctor,” the earl said, crossing his arms.
“Oh, very well,” Leland said ungraciously. “I’ll do it to please you.” He started to rise, and faltered. His company darted forward. With the earl on one side and Helena on the other, they helped him walk the few steps to his high bed, and into it, so he could lie back on his pillows.
“I confess,” Leland said when he was settled, hand on the bandage over his heart, “This does feel better.”
“There’s a concession!” the earl said. “Do you want us to leave?”
“Never,” Leland said, and sounded as if he meant it. “I’m really feeling much better and I enjoy the company, believe me.”
“Good,” the earl said, “because you’ve another visitor coming. A lady who asked special permission to see you even if you were in bed.”
Leland’s eyebrows went up. “And you agreed? I must be corrupting you, Geoff.”
“Not that kind of visitor,” the earl said. “It’s your mama.”
Leland’s smile faded. “Unfair,” he said softly. “You ought to have asked me first.”
“No, I couldn’t and wouldn’t,” the earl said. “Because refusing wasn’t an option for you or me.”
Both men fell still.
“Would you like us to leave?” Daisy asked.
“Good God, no!” Leland exclaimed. “Finding me with a room full of young beauties may well speed her on her way. So please stay. You brighten my day. I’m a most unnatural son,” he added because of the shocked look on Helena’s face. “And she, a most indifferent mother. Still, if I greeted her with exclamations of profound joy, she’d believe me about to depart this life. We haven’t the warmest relationship,” he explained. “And everyone knows it.”
“Well, I can understand that sort of thing,” Daisy said with a shrug. “I loved my father, but I always knew he didn’t feel the same about me. He didn’t dislike me,” she added hastily. “Or treat me badly. He just didn’t think of me at all, is what it was.”
Leland narrowed his eyes against the blaze of color that surrounded her where she sat, in a pool of sunlight at the side of his bed. Or was she the light that dazzled him? he wondered. She was radiant; her hair, her gown, her frequent smile, her laughter.
Again, he wondered why she was attaching herself to a middle-aged recluse and his wounded friend, when she could have all London at her feet. It was true that with her past she might not attract a man who was a stickler for propriety. But this was the nineteenth century, after all. She was wellborn and well funded. Her wit and beauty, the novelty of her, could lure any normal male to ask for her hand and yearn for the sumptuous rest of her to follow as soon as possible.
Dangerous things to be thinking while lounging in bed, Leland realized, feeling his body stirring in reaction to his thoughts. He struggled to sit up straighter, but the high featherbed defeated him, embracing him and sinking him deeper every time he tried to move. “My lord,” he pleaded when he couldn’t manage it, punching one of the pillows behind him. “See how helpless I am. At least let me sit in a chair again.”
The earl lifted an eyebrow. Leland subsided.
“I don’t want your blood on my hands, literally or figuratively,” the earl said.
“At least tell the viscountess that I’ll see her another day,” Leland said. “I feel far too vulnerable this way. She hasn’t seen me in bed since the day I was born.”