Lionel smiled too and put his head to the pillow beside her. She turned onto her side, stroking a finger down his handsome jaw, marveling at the strength and majesty she saw there. He was god-like in his perfection and beauty. How had she been so lucky that this man had fallen in love with her?
A few minutes later, there came a tap at the door.
“Bring it in!” Lionel barked, rising from the bed.
But it was not just the servant with the tea. Blackwood followed the maid into the room.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace. The Scotsman is downstairs requesting an urgent audience.”
CHAPTER 29
Lionel pushed himself to his feet but Cecilia’s hand caught him, holding onto his. His head swung from Blackwood to his stricken wife. She looked wan and weak, her grip was like the roots of a plant clinging to inches of soil on a cliff face. One good tug would pull it free. But that weak grip anchored him in place like a double-strand chain.
“I must see him. He has been sending me urgent messages since before we left Thornhill.”
“The gentleman is most agitating, fair wearing a groove in the marble of the hall with his pacing,” Blackwood commented.
“Tell him I will be with him momentarily,” Lionel commanded without looking away from his wife.
He saw the wound that those words caused and it cut deep. He knelt on the bed and tried to lift her hand to his lips but she pulled it away, face firming.
“I must hear what he has to say,” he reiterated. “He has been working hard on my behalf.”
“You said you would remain by my side,” she murmured back.
“You would not hold me to that when we are safe within our own walls.”
“Yes, I would,” she responded, languidly pushing herself to her elbows.
“Why?” he frowned, brows furrowing.
He could not understand her resistance. The argument that revenge would consume him was one he understood of course. He was not so lacking in empathy or emotional intelligence that he did not see the monomania that he had developed over the years. And how that monomania must have worried anyone who cared for him. Not that there were many of those beyond Thornhill. But, in those days, he’d had nothing else in his life.
No passion. No great love and no pastimes.
Only the grief of losing a brother, for Arthur had been more of a brother than a friend. The grief of losing a woman he had convinced himself he loved, being betrayed in his time of need. And the anger at an inexplicable act of callous hatred by a despicable individual who he now knew to be his half-brother.
His life was very different now. The grief and anger which had been raw, bleeding wounds, were now healthy. The scar tissue was thin, prone to breaking open—but healed. And he had the greatest of passions in his life. The purest and most powerful form of love… for that’s what it was.
Cecilia was a light that shrank the appeal of revenge, making it appear small and petty by contrast. Lionel did not think there was any danger of his becoming obsessed as he had once been. Of his being consumed, driven to madness or death by the need for vengeance. Cecilia prevented that.
“I merely wish to speak to him. To find out what he has discovered in my service. I owe the man that much, he has given over his entire life to my service these last five years,” Lionel said earnestly.
“So, you will listen to what he has to say and then terminate his employment?” Cecilia asked.
Lionel hesitated. “I cannot think of anything he might say that would prompt me to send him out to probe further. Short of a signed confession.”
“Then I will come with you to this meeting,” Cecilia decided, swinging her legs from the bed.
But she could not stand. As soon as she tried to push herself into a standing position, she fell back, clutching her head and retching loudly. Lionel hurried for the chamber pot but was not much faster than Blackwood.
“That is my job, Your Grace,” he said gruffly. “Your job is to speak to the gentleman downstairs. Over here, girl!”
This last part was directed to the maid who had brought in the tea. Blackwood instructed her to secure her mistress' hair while he held the chamber pot and draped linen over his arm for Cecilia to wipe her mouth on.
Cecilia tried to protest. Tried to stand or speak. But the sickness had her firmly in its grasp. She could not straighten long enough to form words before her body was convulsing once more. Lionel resolved to leave her to the tender ministrations of the servants. He told himself he would be back to tend to her himself in mere moments. Whatever Lennox had to tell him would not be so urgent as her sickness. Even if the sickness was a good thing, a symptom of a wonderful condition.
He strode from the room and made his way downstairs, to find Lennox pacing as Blackwood had told him.
