Her behavior was ridiculous,but there it was. She didn’t want to see their handsome new doctor, not today or tomorrow. She wanted everything to go back to how it was before he’d come to their house on Christmas Day, when all she had on her mind was counting the days until she left for London!
“Lie down now and rest,” she murmured, pulling the covers to Estelle’s shoulders. “It won’t do for Dr. Whitaker to think you mightbe taken with fever when he sees your pretty face all pink and flushed—”
“Like yours?”
Linette sighed with exasperation as she bent down to give her grinning sister a kiss on the cheek.
A cheek as thankfully cool as her own felt overwarm at the thought of running into Dr. Adam Whitaker if he arrived early. Oh, dear, she hoped not…
***
“Prince Valentin, you say.”
Linette nodded at Donovan,who sat behind a paper-strewn desk.
Christmas had barely come and gone and already the house was a flurry of activity as preparations were being made for Donovan, Corie, and their family’s move to Arundale Hall in Hampshire within the next few weeks. Donovan, in fact, so hale and strapping a man with his midnight hair and dark good looks appeared fatigued to her, but how could he not be?
Hewas a duke of the realm now, with more responsibilities than any man might wish to shoulder along with the great wealth and position his title now afforded him. And here she’d gone and poured more cares upon him with Estelle’s fantastic story, although Linette really didn’t doubt that it might be true. Estelle had made a remarkable recovery, for which they were all so grateful, her mind clear andsharp again after her near brush with death.
Now, as Donovan leaned back in his leather chair, mid-afternoon sunlight spilling across his desk on an unusually fine winter day, Linette knew he was pondering everything she’d just told him.
“I suspected, actually, that some sort of trouble had kept Estelle’s rescuers from revealing themselves to us. By God, but a prince? From where? He speaks Frenchand perfect English, with the looks of Adonis and golden hair. Surely not too difficult to find if he and this Robert are still hiding out somewhere in Porthleven…”
Linette kept silent, certain that Donovan was thinking out loud rather than talking to her, though suddenly he fixed his dark gaze upon her.
“It’s about time, isn’t it?”
“Time?” She stared at him in confusion, until realizationslowly dawned at his cryptic smile that made a blush race to her forehead.
Dear Lord, did the entire household know she’d hidden in her room the last three days when Dr. Whitaker had come to call?
Donovan glanced at the grandfather clock against the opposite wall, then leaned forward in his chair. “Thank you for sharing Estelle’s story with me…but you’ve only a few minutes to make it upstairs.You’ll have to run.”
“I’ll not run anywhere,” Linette said stiffly, knowing now that her childish reaction to Dr. Whitaker’s visits would have to stop. “When the doctor arrives, I’ll accompany him to Estelle’s room, well, with Miss Biddle, too.”
“Excellent. He’s a fine young man, Whitaker. I’m very impressed with him. A bit restrained for my taste, aloof, even—”
“Aloof? I didn’t find him aloof,”Linette interrupted him, Donovan raising a black brow at her.
“Really? Yes, I suppose not. If he’d been aloof, I doubt he would have turned around and met you under the mistletoe for a kiss. Paloma can’t seem to talk of anything else these past three days.”
“Oh, dear.” Linette sank into a chair opposite the desk and looked down at her lap, plucking unseeingly at the linen folds of her rose-huedgown. “I should have declined, Donovan—”
“Not at all. It was an innocent thing done to humor a young girl. A Christmas tradition, after all, the mistletoe. Corie would tell you she enjoys the custom very much.”
Linette glanced up to find Donovan smiling at her, and she found herself praying again for a husband like him who remained as captivated by his wife as on the day they met.
Well, perhapsnot the first day, she amended. She smiled now, too, as she remembered the hilarious story of Corie with her pitchfork stabbing at the straw for Donovan’s hapless agent, Henry Gilbert, until Donovan had wrested it from her. Thankfully, Corie’s renowned temper had eased since those days, which made Linette long again for a marriage as loving and ardent as theirs.
“Ah, I believe Dr. Whitaker ishere.”
Linette froze in the chair at the clopping of hooves coming to a halt outside, her widened gaze meeting Donovan’s.
“He rides a fine horse, a good thing for covering this parish. I’m considering giving him another so he’ll have two strong steeds, just in case. What do you think, Linette?”
She started as the first resonant chime of the three o’clock hour sounded behind her, not thinkingof horses or anything else.
The second chime had no sooner rung and she jumped up and fled from the library, determined to make it upstairs to her room before the footman even opened the front door.
