me if I’ve let you do yourself a harm, but you were right. You couldn’t rest with that dirt on you!”
Kathryn chuckled weakly. “Bless you, Bennet! Just get me dry and covered up—and we’ll neither of us breathe a word of this.”
Bennet acknowledged the feeble joke with a smile. This girl had spirit and courage too. She was glad she hadn’t permitted the other servants to gossip in her presence. There was something terribly wrong with Master John, she’d realized it two days ago when she arrived in London for her annual visit to the town house. She’d been ready to dislike the young wife who was apparently causing him so much trouble. But this forlorn child with the wide, frightened eyes—! Bennet thought surely there had been some terrible mistake. In spite of her attitude, she’d heard rumors, but this girl was no wanton, no virago. Bennet, feeling partisan, leaned over and tucked a fresh sheet carefully around the lovely body.
Kathryn looked up at her.
“Pray for me, Bennet,” she whispered.
“Aye, that I will,” Bennet said, much moved. “I’ll just be a minute more, milady. I’ll take the jewels and ribbons out of your hair and those silly wires, and then I’ll give you the laudanum water Dr. Anders sent over. That’ll put you to sleep—”
“A drug? Oh, no!”
“I’ll be staying the whole night right here beside you, milady,” Bennet promised. “Now take your medicine like a good child.”
Smiling faintly, Kathryn drifted obediently into sleep, watching the glow of the firelight on the plump kindly face of Master John’s nurse.
Three
Kathryn came slowly up out of the drugged sleep. She became aware of unfamiliar odors: the acrid tang of woodsmoke and the heavy sweetness of hothouse flowers. And then comfortable sounds: somewhere near, an open fire crackled cheerily, and a woman’s voice was humming softly a familiar lullaby. Eyes firmly closed to retain as long as possible this unaccustomed sense of luxury and ease, Kathryn stretched drowsily. She felt a fullness and a warm immediacy of life in her body. Even in this unusual relaxation, she was richly aware. Usually when she woke to the shrill of the alarm, it was with a sense of pressure and tension. Get up, wash, dress, eat, catch the bus to the Library—don’t be late, don’t catch cold, you can’t afford to miss work . . .
As the accustomed fears and tensions took over, depression like a groping gray fog sent its tendrils into her waking consciousness. There was something unpleasant she had to face—
Her growing unease was checked by the sound of a door opening and a deep voice speaking quietly.
“Good morning, Bennet. Still at your post, I see. This is not the pleasant vacation I had hoped to give you.”
“No matter, my lord. I was pleased to be here with her ladyship.”
There was a rustling of skirts, then the woman’s voice, closer, subdued. “She’s still sleeping. Isn’t she the bonny one? The pain’s been bad, I think. Her ladyship has been very restless in spite of the laudanum.”
The deep voice showed concern. “Poor Bennet! You’ve had no rest at all, have you?”
“Master John, she touches my heart, the poor bairn. She’s that fearful and thrawn—”
“Don’t go all mystical Scot on me, Bennet,” the man said with a teasing note in his voice.
“I mean it, sir. She’s that terrified of something, she pleaded with me not to leave her. Like a child she sounded, frightened and alone. And she sent that Irish woman dresser of hers packing last night, and that artist fellow too. I know a little of what’s been said, Master John, but her ladyship is not what they hint! She’s—innocent!”
The man’s voice hardened, became a little remote even with this trusted servant. “I wish you were right.”
There was a brief silence. Kathryn waited in the comfortable lethargy of laudanum, hearing, yet not completely involved. This was a very interesting dream! She really ought to be up and getting ready for the cold bus ride to the Library, but surely just a few minutes more wouldn’t hurt . . . She had never had a dream so vivid—!
The man’s voice, so deep it set up a little quiver of resonance in her body, was saying quietly, “Did her ladyship seem—rational to you, Bennet?”
There was a longer pause. A tiny needle of alarm thrust itself into Kathryn’s calm. ‘Rational’? Whose rationality was being questioned?
The woman’s voice came slowly, delightful with its hint of Scots’ burr. “As to that, sir, ye’ll ken I’m no