Phelps’ attention was elsewhere. “Mebbe that be the trouble,” he said, moving to the small fire-place. He took a bottle from the mantel and brought it to Dain. “As I recollect, laudynum didn’t set right with you, neither. Nuss give it to you when your ma run off, ’n you was sick some’at fierce from it.”
Dain, however, had not been half-starved at the time and had not been dragged through a Dartmoor drenching as well. He had been safe in his bed, with servants in attendance, and Nurse there to feed him tea and bathe his sweating body.
…it was better to leave him where he would be safe, and where she was sure he’d be provided for.
Dain had not been loved, but his mother had left him safe enough. He’d been looked after, provided for.
His mother had not taken him with her…where he would surely have died with her, of fever, upon an island on the other side of the world.
This boy’s mother had left him to die.
“Go down and tell them we must have a pot of tea immediately,” he told Phelps. “See that they send up plenty of sugar with it. And a copper tub. And every towel they can find.”
Phelps started for the door.
“And the parcel,” said Dain. “Fetch my lady’s parcel.”
Phelps hurried out.
By the time the tea arrived, Dain had stripped off his son’s sweat-soaked garments and wrapped him in a bed sheet.
Phelps was ordered to build a fire, and set the tub near it. While he worked, his master spooned heavily sweetened tea into the boy, who lay limply against his arm, conscious again—thank heaven—but just barely.
Half a pot of tea later, he seemed to be reviving. His bleary gaze was marginally more alert, and his head had stopped lolling like a rag doll’s. That head, an untidy mass of thick black curls like Dain’s own, was crawling with vermin, His Lordship noticed, not much surprised.
But first things first, he counseled himself.
“Feeling better?” he asked gruffly.
A dazed black gaze rose to meet his. The sticky childish mouth trembled.
“Are you tired?” Dain asked. “Do you want to sleep for a bit? There’s no hurry, you know.”
The boy shook his head.
“Quite. You slept a good deal more than you wished, I daresay. But you’ll be all right. Your mama gave you some medicine that didn’t agree with you, that’s all. Same thing happened to me once. Puked my guts out. Then, in a very short time, I was all better.”
The boy’s gaze dropped and he leaned toward the side of the bed. It took Dain a moment to realize the brat was trying to see his boots.
“There’s no need to look,” he said. “They’re ruined. That’s the second pair in one day.”
“Yousquashedme,” the child said defensively.
“And I turned you upside down,” Dain agreed. “Bound to unsettle a queasy stomach. But I didn’t know you were sick.
Because Jessica wasn’t here to tell me, Dain added silently.
“Still, since you’ve found your tongue at last,” he went on, “maybe you can find your appetite.”
Another blank, shaky look.
“Are you hungry?” Dain asked patiently. “Does your belly feel empty?”
This won Dain a slow nod.
He sent Phelps down again, this time for bread and a bowl of clear broth. While Phelps was gone, Dain undertook to wash his son’s face. It took rather a while, His Lordship being uncertain how much pressure to exert. But he managed to get most of the grime off without scraping half the skin away as well, and the boy endured it, though he shook like a new-foaled colt the whole time.
Then, after he’d consumed a few pieces of toasted bread and a cup of broth, and had stopped looking like a freshly dug-up corpse, Dain turned his attention to the small copper tub by the fire.
