Page 18 of Better Off Wed

Before he could think of a suitable retort, the room was bustling with servants: a pair of maids to dress the bed in fresh linens, another to light the fire, while Lady Thornton promised the imminent arrival of the physician and hurried off as if to ensure it. A second wave of servants appeared shortly after the countess’s departure, and it soon became clear that his vow to explain himself to Miss Hopkins would have to wait for some time. A footman brought her valise and Jeremy’s satchel, then carried away Jeremy’s muddy boots and greatcoat to be cleaned. Mrs. Tenney, the housekeeper, sailed in with a tea tray held high, while still more footmen carried canisters of hot water and a copper tub.

It was a parade of ostentatious hospitality that left Jeremy equal parts suspicious, grateful, and jealous. Everham could no more have provided these ample, instant comforts than the pub outside Dartford. But he also knew enough about the way men like Thornton managed their business to guess how such luxury was afforded. Just for the moment, however, he was quite prepared to luxuriate in the warm glow of the fire, a cup of hot tea, and the promise of a bath.

As if to the manor born, Miss Hopkins watched the spectacle unfold about her, tilting her fair head graciously when the housekeeper offered her a cup of tea and wincing apologetically when one of the maids knelt to peel off her muddy shoes and stockings.

That glimpse of bare foot and ankle ought not to have elicited any response in Jeremy, other than perhaps pity—it was rather bruised and swollen-looking. But it was too easy to imagine that ankle’s ordinarily well-turned proportions. He knew he hadn’t any business noticing such things—they weren’t actually newlyweds, after all—but every bit of her drew his eye, as charming as he remembered, and as difficult to ignore.

He needed to exercise caution. According to Penhurst, she was not above using her wiles to lure a man to his doom if he gave her cause, and though he could muster no sympathy for Penhurst or others like him, he had no intention of ending up as another of Lady Sterling’s victims.

For that reason, he eagerly absented himself from the room when one of the maids shyly indicated a plan to help his wife out of her muddy traveling clothes and into a bath. In the relative privacy of the chillier dressing room, he undressed without assistance and made do with the water in the washstand and one small, rough towel.

He was grateful for several reasons that he’d made a brief stop at the Underground after leaving Clapham. There, he had shed his uniform, the better to retain his anonymity; packed a few necessities, though too few for what he feared might be a protracted stay in Kent; and arranged for a horse fit enough not to collapse under the strain of a lengthy gallop.

Once clad in a fresh shirt and stockings, face washed and hair combed, he had only to wait for Miss Hopkins to finish her ablutions. As there was no door between the dressing room and the bedchamber, he could hear—and imagine—far more than he liked: the splashing and trickling of water over her flawless skin, a scattering of feminine giggles—Lady Sterling, he felt certain, never giggled, but he very much feared that Miss Hopkins might—and, when a flannel nightdress was produced from the valise, a tittering debate between the two maids about proper attire for one’s wedding night, in which Miss Hopkins thankfully did not participate beyond a few inaudible murmurs.

No sooner had one of the maids advised him that he might return to the bedchamber than Mr. Phelps, the physician, arrived. From the doorway near the bed, Jeremy could see that Miss Hopkins was once more seated on the little damask sofa, decently covered with a dressing gown and a woolen blanket, her hair brushed so that her close-cropped golden curls shone in the firelight, which lent them a reddish glow.

“Come closer, please,” called Mr. Phelps, a small, balding man with spectacles. “You are the husband?”

“I, er—”

“He is,” said Miss Hopkins calmly.

Jeremy wondered whether it was possible to be both grateful for her quick tongue and dismayed by the ease with which she lied.

Then again, he was an intelligence officer. He of all people knew that no one always told the truth.

She was sitting with her left foot on the floor, the injured right leg lying along the seat of the sofa, a plump pillow beneath her foot. Speaking soothingly to her as he worked, Mr. Phelps raised the hem of her dressing gown, folded it to mid-shin, and examined her ankle, moving it gently this way and that, while she dug her teeth into her lower lip.

“A mild sprain” was his diagnosis before he applied some pungent smelling liniment and then wrapped the ankle snugly with a length of linen. “You must keep it elevated as much as possible for the next few days, my lady. I understand you are a new bride. You must allow Lord Sterling to wait on you. Nothing strenuous,” he said, shooting Jeremy a stern glance.

Jeremy felt heat rush up his chest and into his cheeks. “Of course not, sir.”

“Now,” said the physician, turning back to Miss Hopkins, “how does that feel?”

“Better,” she said, and Jeremy thought it might be true. Some of the color that had left her face during the examination was returning. “The bandage helps a great deal.”

“And this will help still more,” he said, reaching into his bag and offering her a tiny glass bottle: a tincture of laudanum. “Just a drop or two, every few hours.”

For a moment, he thought Miss Hopkins meant to refuse it. But after the slightest hesitation, she tucked it into her palm and gave the doctor a nod of thanks.

“I shall speak to Mrs. Tenney on my way out,” he said, closing his bag. “Lady Thornton has ordered her to bring whatever you require. You are fortunate in your hosts, my lady.”

This time, Miss Hopkins was the one at a loss for words.

“We are indeed,” interjected Jeremy, resting a hand along the back of the sofa, almost but not quite touching his supposed wife. If he did not at least sometimes act like a lover, surely it would raise suspicions.

She turned to look up at him and, for just a moment, he thought she meant to lean her cheek against the back of his hand in a convincing impersonation of wifely adoration. Then she said in a cool voice, “My luck cannot be all bad.”

Jeremy knew too much about mathematical probabilities to entertain the notion of luck, either good or bad.

But he had no rational explanation for what had transpired over the last twenty-four hours, the series of improbable events that had brought him to this moment.

He looked toward Mr. Phelps just in time to catch a flicker of uncertainty chase through the man’s benevolent smile. “I’ll pop in the day after tomorrow, to check on the patient. But for now, I’ll show myself out.”

When the door latch clicked, they were at last alone.

Miss Hopkins turned away again, exhaled—in relief? exasperation?—and flicked both her skirts and the blanket back into place. “Well?” she demanded.