Then the irrepressible Sylvia tiptoed out of the kitchen and essayed a brief exploratory tour of the lower floor.
"He must make a good bit of money tickling ivories while his canaries sing."
"Shush, Syl, he'll hear you."
"Nah!" Then she looked at her watch. "Ooops. I've got to dash."
"Wait! What will you tell the kids?"
Sylvia raised her eyebrows in mock innocence. "The truth! You're sitting up with a sick friend!" She drew her features into an exaggerated expression of noble piety.
"Who's that?" They could barely hear Howell's croak.
The pharmacy truck pulled in just as Sylvia sneaked out the door.
"Your medicine is here," Mirelle answered truthfully, taking the package from the boy.
"These'd choke a horse," Howell said, examining the tablets with suspicion. He sniffed the cough medicine and turned his nose away in revulsion.
"It's not how it smells, but how effective it is in relieving that cough," Mirelle said and poured him a spoonful. "Or are you that fond of hacking up your throat lining?" His teeth connected audibly with the spoon. "Don't eat it!"
"It smelled vile and tasted viler!" Jamie gave a histrionic shudder, then pointed a finger at her chest. "I heard females cackling in my kitchen."
Mirelle laid a quick hand on his forehead. "You're delirious!"
"I must be or I'd have you in bed with me." Mirelle laughed, as much at the thought of anyone wanting her in bed, other than Steve, as at Jamie's rakishness in his present circumstances.
"It's no laughing matter to be invited to bed with me, young lady," he said, in a grand manner at variance with his unkempt appearance.
"Doubtless, but not prudent in your infectious state. I'd court respirating disaster as well as a scarlet letter."
Jamie gave her an odd glance and then flopped over onto his back, coughing at the slight exertion. He punched the pillow under his head to prop him up sufficiently to glower at her.
"Just what did that sawbones say was the matter with me?"
"A touch of bronchial pneumonia."
"A touch?" Howell was indignant. "I've sustained a knockout."
"So you admit that you're sick? Enjoy it while you may: you're due to recover with proper rest and nursing."
"Nursing? From Margaret? She's a baby herself."
Mirelle cocked her head at him. "So you'd prefer to go to the hospital?"
"No!" His explosive negative made him hack painfully.
"I have the feeling that Margaret will be quite capable of looking after your basic needs."
He glowered, plucking at the covers with petulant fingers as she left to check on the beef tea.
"What'n'hell's this?" he asked suspiciously as she returned with the steaming cup.
"It's good for you. Drink it. Slowly. It's hot."
He hadn't quite waited for her advice and must have burned his mouth with the first sip. Before he could complain, a look of pleasurable surprise crossed his face. "Hmm, it tastes good." He sipped more judiciously and with evident relish. "When is my junior Nightingale arriving?"
"About 4:30. Plane gets in at 3:15."
"Did she have enough money for the taxi?"
"Now that you mention it, no."
Howell chuckled. "I always buy a round-trip ticket for her. That way I know she'll be able to get home. But I've never known Mags to have cabfare. God knows she gets enough of an allowance from me."
"She'll earn it this time."
Howell started to snort in agreement but was seized with a violent spate of hard coughing. Mirelle handed him a box of Kleenex just as the phone rang. It was Dave Andorri.
"Does he need anything?" the agent asked solicitously when Mirelle had told him the diagnosis.
"Hmmm. Have you got a blonde," asked Mirelle, all innocence as she noticed Howell's fierce glare, "about 24, size 10?" She neatly ducked the pillow which was flung in her direction.
"He'll live then," Dave said with a chuckle. "But will he be well enough to play on the 18th? I've got a mighty particular primadonna who will raise an unholy stink if Howell isn't at the keyboard."
"I've told him that if he's a real good boy and obeys her, Margaret will let him up for that concert." She sidestepped the box of Kleenex which Jamie lobbed at her. The effort restarted the cough so she was saved his snide commentary.
"Is that him coughing like that? He is sick. But Margaret's a good kid. They've got a nice relationship."
"Even if he doesn't give her a decent allowance."
"I beg your pardon? Well, tell him I'll call tomorrow."
She hung up and gave Howell Dave's message.
"Mirelle…" Jamie began when he got his breath back, "you're a…"
"Managing female," she said, staring him down.
His glare dissolved unexpectedly into a smile. "A quality which I didn't suspect in you and which I appreciate, despite snide remarks to the contrary. What have you done with your children, oh devoted mother?"
"Sylvia's baby-sitting."
"Does she know you're holding the hand of a sick friend?"
"It was her suggestion, and her beef tea recipe." She reached for the empty cup, lying on the spread.
His hand, strong-fingered, closed about her wrist, jerking her off her feet and forcing her down to his level.
"Jamie!"
He held her eyes in an unfathomable gaze before he smiled oddly and deliberately rubbed the hand he held across his stubbly beard.
"Hey, your face is like sandpaper."
"I'll see to you another time, me proud beauty!" he said with one last baleful leer and then turned away from her.
Disturbed by the intensity of his expression and the unexpected strength in a man weakened by fever and coughing, Mirelle hurried down to the kitchen. His grip, angrily strong, had left white marks on her wrist. And why had he turned so abruptly violent? She had only been trying to lighten his illness with her teasing. Restless, she emptied the dried meat cubes out of the double boiler and put them into a sack to bring home to Tasso: that is, if he'd consider them fit to eat. She washed and tidied up the kitchen, delaying the time when she might be called up to HowelPs room again. She was relieved to hear the noise of a car in the drive and opened the front door to see Margaret hurrying up the walk.
"I owe him a fortune," she told Mirelle breathlessly.
"Come and get it," called Howell from above and Margaret, with an apologetic smile at Mirelle, rushed up the stairs.
Mirelle could hear the obbligato of her greeting and questioning against his rasping counterbass. Then Margaret was clattering down the stairs again with a wallet in her hand. She paid the cabbie, retrieved a small case from the back seat and came flying back to the house, looking exceedingly pretty with her flushed cheeks and windblown hair. She looked not a bit like her father except for the jawline.
"I can't thank you enough, Mrs. Martin. Dad's said how you've browbeaten him with old maid nurses and beef teas, whatever they are, and he promises he'll behave for me."
Mirelle laughed and gave Margaret the doctor's instructions, adding that she'd be happy to do any shopping or fetching that might be necessary.
"Dad also said I'd better send you home now. Your children will be missing you."
"I'd better go, truly. Call me."
As Mirelle drove home, the hand which Jamie had rubbed against his unshaven cheek still tingled from that pressure. She could almost feel the strong fingers tightening again.
That night, at dinner, wondering why, she told the family all about Howell's distress call and waiting until his daughter arrived from college.