Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,242

but nothing more than small irritants—well, they seemed very small and insignificant next to this.

“Eloise!”

It was Benedict, not Sophie, who came down the stairs. He looked haggard, his eyes red-rimmed, his skin pale and pasty. Eloise knew better than to ask him how long it had been since he’d slept; the question would be beyond annoying, and besides, the answer was right there on his face—he hadn’t closed his eyes for days.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I came for a visit,” she said. “Just to say hello. I had no idea. What is wrong? How is Charles? I saw him just last week. He looked fine. He— What is wrong?”

Benedict required several seconds to muster the energy to speak. “He has a fever. I don’t know why. On Saturday, he woke up fine, but by luncheon he was—” He sagged against the wall, closing his eyes in agony. “He was burning up,” he whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What did the doctor say?” Eloise asked.

“Nothing,” Benedict said in a hollow voice. “Nothing of use, anyway.”

“May I see him?”

Benedict nodded, his eyes still closed.

“You need to rest,” Eloise said.

“I can’t,” he said.

“You must. You’re no good to anyone like this, and I’d wager Sophie is no better.”

“I made her sleep an hour ago,” he said. “She looked like death.”

“Well, you don’t look any better,” Eloise told him, keeping her tone purposefully brisk and businesslike. Sometimes that was what people needed at times like this—to be ordered about, told what to do. Compassion would only make her brother cry, and neither of them wanted to be witness to that.

“You must go to bed,” Eloise ordered. “Now. I’ll care for Charles. Even if you sleep only an hour, you’ll feel so much better.”

He didn’t reply; he’d fallen asleep standing up.

Eloise quickly took charge. She directed Graves to put Benedict to bed, and she took over the sickroom, trying not to gasp when she first stepped in and saw her small nephew.

He looked tiny and frail in the large bed; Benedict and Sophie had had him moved to their bedchamber, where there was more room for people to tend to him. His skin was flushed, but his eyes, when he opened them, were glassy and unfocused, and when he wasn’t lying unnaturally still, he was thrashing about, mumbling incoherently about ponies and treehouses and marzipan candy.

It made Eloise wonder what she would mumble incoherently about, were she ever to be gripped by a fever.

She mopped his brow, and she turned him and helped the maids change his sheets, and she didn’t notice as the sun slipped below the horizon. She just thanked the heavens that Charles did not worsen under her care, because according to the servants, Benedict and Sophie had been at his side for two days straight, and Eloise did not want to have to wake either of them up with bad news.

She sat in the chair by the bed, and she read to him from his favorite book of children’s tales, and she told him stories of when his father was young. And she doubted that he heard a word, but it all made her feel better, because she couldn’t just sit there and do nothing.

And it wasn’t until eight in the evening, when Sophie finally rose from her stupor and asked after Phillip, that it occurred to her that she ought to send a note, that he might be growing worried.

So she scrawled something short and hasty and resumed her vigil. Phillip would understand.

By eight in the evening, Phillip realized that one of two things had happened to his wife. She had either perished in a carriage accident, or she had left him.

Neither prospect was terribly appealing.

He didn’t think she would have left him; she seemed mostly happy in their marriage, despite their quarrel that afternoon. And besides, she hadn’t taken any of her belongings with her, although that didn’t mean much; most of her belongings had yet to arrive from her home in London. It wasn’t as if she’d be leaving much behind here at Romney Hall.

Just a husband and two children.

Good God, and he’d just said to them this afternoon— I do believe she’s here to stay.

No, he thought savagely, Eloise would not leave him. She would never do such a thing. She didn’t have a cowardly bone in her body, and she would never slink off and abandon their marriage. If she was displeased in some way, she’d tell him so, right to his face