Page 69 of Watching the Earl

He jerked his head back at such an assumption. “No. My father could never lie abed unless he was too ill to stand. He always had to be doing something, even if it was reading to learn about new farming techniques or the ramifications of a new bill to be introduced.”

“Then, my dear husband, you’re not making sense. If you had come home, your father would not have lived longer by lying in bed for a year. He would have continued to run the estate because that was the type of man he was, maybe allowing you to handle a few tenant disputes in person. Tell me, do you think your father would have preferred to live longer by lying abed?”

Confusion and irritation fought inside him. “What are you saying? That there was nothing I could have done to extend my father’s life because of what he was like?”

“Yes.”

He jerked his head back. “No. He wanted me home.”

“Did he say that?”

“Yes.”

She wrapped one arm around the bedpost. “Did he actually ask you to come home?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, not sure why she wouldn’t accept his answer.

“Or did he tell you about tasks you could do next time you were home?”

“It’s the same thing. He wanted me back at Crestfield to help him. If I’d gone, he would have lived longer.”

“No, he wouldn’t have.”

“You don’t know that.” Frustrated, he strode toward her as if by confronting her, she would stop this torture.

Her face softened as she gave him a slight nod. “I do know that. Your father had consumption. He could never get better. Perhaps, if he elected to stay in bed, he might have lasted an additional month at most, but that was not who he was. He lived his life to his very last breath.”

Stunned, he stared at her. “The physician said he wasted away after the grippe.”

“The physician was wrong. It’s why I visited Rose today. Her focus at school is medicine. The duchess herself has taught her. I also visited your mother, who confirmed that your father started coughing up blood before he passed.”

He sat upon the bed, his legs suddenly weak. “Consumption?” He’d learned of that only because a classmate had had a sister who died of it. He looked at his wife, still trying to understand a reality far removed from the one he’d lived with for three years. “Why didn’t the physician know that?”

Georgina sat next to him on the bed. “Would your father have told him he was coughing blood?”

“I don’t know.”

She took his hand in her own. “Philip, look at me.” He did as she asked, her skin practically glowing in the lantern light. “If you were coughing blood, would you tell your physician?”

His heart stopped and he sucked in a breath. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t want the man to tell Georgina that he was dying. Blast it all to hell!

Letting out his breath, he pulled her to him. “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want you to know I was dying. But you would know, wouldn’t you? My mother knew too. That’s why she wrote me.”

Georgina gazed at him, not with pity, but with understanding. “Yes.”

“Do you know why I wouldn’t want you to know?”

She nodded as a soft smile lifted her lips. “Because you love me.”

His chest tightened as his heart recognized the truth. When had he fallen in love with her?

She touched the side of his face with her palm. “And I love you. Isn’t that wonderful?”

His throat closed as emotion filled him. Unable to speak, he leaned in and kissed her with the new feelings swirling inside him. She kissed him just as gently, a promise of love and support. He pulled back and leaned his forehead against hers. “I love you.”

She smiled wide before pulling away and jumping up. “I love you too.”

He watched as his wife spun in a circle, her arms held out as if she could fly. He was amazed and stupefied that the woman he’d spend the rest of his life with was so wise and yet so young and carefree.