Page 22 of Every Rogue Has His Charm

Of course, he would be the subject of rumors. When hadn’t he been? And the people of Brighton, though generally respectful, had never truly managed to hide their curiosity about Caro’s unusual situation. At least it was not high season, the town crowded with visitors ready to carry the news to every corner of the kingdom.

“Does he intend to stay in England, I wonder?” Fanny’s question sounded idle, as if she did not expect an answer, so Caro did not attempt one. Her headache had grown severe enough to unsettle her stomach.

“Oh!” She lifted her free hand, undecided whether to press it to her temple, or her belly.

“Caro, dear.” Fanny slid her arm free, only to grasp her by the shoulders, the better to study her face. “Are you all right?”

“Megrim,” she managed to grind out.

“We should turn back this very minute. You need to lie down.”

Caro glanced toward Royal Crescent, but she could no longer judge how far they had come. Even as she tried to focus, the distance stretched and shrank, the smooth surface of the Marine Parade undulating like the waves of the sea. “I fear I’m going to be sick.”

Thank God, Fanny was a sensible woman. Swiftly, she lifted Caro’s veil and tucked it out of the way. A grateful Caro sucked in an unmuffled breath. “You look dreadful,” Fanny declared, alternating between searching in her reticule and signaling to her servant. “I usually have one or two…ah, yes. Here. A peppermint drop. It might help soothe your stomach.”

She pressed the wrapped sweet into Caro’s hand. Caro fumbled a little with the paper, but eventually succeeded in popping the confection in her mouth. The rush of peppermint drove back the nausea and momentarily sharpened her senses. “Thank you,” she managed to whisper.

“I can’t abide smelling salts,” Fanny explained sheepishly. She was like a peppermint drop herself, cool and sweet all at once, stronger somehow than Caro had expected. She looped her arm around Caro’s waist, gathering her tight to her side and clearly prepared to bear her weight. “Do you think you can walk now?”

“I’m sure I can. I just need…” She tried to focus on Royal Crescent in the distance. A man was walking toward them. Fanny’s servant. Then the solitary figure split and became two men—and the row of houses was nothing more than a speck at the end of a long tunnel. How had they come so far? “I just need a…moment to…rest.” And then she was slipping through Fanny’s grasp as the ground rushed upward and the sky mercifully dimmed.

But the thunder! Oh, it made her teeth rattle; the storm that followed would be terrible indeed. She tried to tug at Fanny’s hems and warn her to seek shelter, but she couldn’t reach her, couldn’t reach anything…she needed all her strength just to hold herself together…

No, not thunder…footsteps. Running footsteps. And voices. A man. Men. Shouting—at her? She couldn’t for the life of her make out the words.… She turned her head, intending to ask the fellow to repeat himself, and was promptly and spectacularly sick.

Then everything went black.

* * * *

Leclerc spent half an hour polishing these boots. He’ll have my head.

The shallow, ridiculous thought caught Maxim off guard, and he drove it away with a shake. His mind’s attempt, perhaps, to protect him from the grim reality of the situation. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing: Caro lying on the ground, curled in upon herself, moaning. From the drawing room window, he’d watched her leave the house not a quarter of an hour ago. She’d looked perfectly fit. Perfect.

“Fetch a physician,” he ordered the woman’s—Mrs. Drummond’s—servant. “Go!”

He could’ve sworn he’d said as much once already, but the young man had only goggled at him. He’d lost his wig in the dash toward Caro, and his rust-red hair glowed, even in the gray morning light. When understanding now swept across the other man’s features, Maxim realized his first shouted order had not been delivered in English. “Yes, sir,” he said at last and hurried away.

“What happened?” Maxim ground out as he bent to lift Caro into his arms.

“A megrim, she said.” Mrs. Drummond was pale, but not, thank God, hysterical. “I didn’t know she was prone to headaches.”

Neither did I.

He hardly knew his wife at all. Did not recognize the shape of her body gathered against his chest, could muster only the vaguest recollection of her rosewater scent.

But he had not forgotten that unaccountable, undeniable need to protect her.

Especially from himself.

“Can you manage?” Mrs. Drummond reached out a hand but stopped short of daring to catch his arm when he glared at her.

Turning, he began to trudge across the roadway, disguising his limp. Caro, who had moaned when he picked her up, was now distressingly silent. They hadn’t got far from Royal Crescent, but Mrs. Drummond’s man was still there before them, with a short, silver-haired man in tow. Mrs. Horn herself opened the front door and gasped at the sight of her mistress’s gray-tinged complexion and the beads of sweat that had formed on her brow and upper lip.

“Straight to bed with her,” the doctor said.

Maxim let Mrs. Horn and Mrs. Drummond precede him up the stairs, out of practicality rather than mere politeness. By the time he reached the door to Caro’s bedchamber, the housekeeper had smoothed and turned back the linens and Mrs. Drummond was at the washstand, pouring water from the pitcher into the basin and dampening a cloth.

Before he deposited his wife on the bed, Mrs. Horn untied Caro’s bonnet and removed it. A coil of red-brown hair tumbled loose, more vivid even than usual against her sickly pallor. As he laid her on the plush bed, she exhaled deeply but her body did not uncoil. While Mrs. Drummond sponged Caro’s pale face, Mrs. Horn removed her shoes, unbuttoned her pelisse, and finally slipped off her tattered kid gloves, revealing palms scraped raw by the roadway. She must have thrown out her hands instinctively as she’d fallen; Mrs. Drummond dabbed carefully around a similar wound on Caro’s cheek, the one that had been pressed against his breast.