Page 58 of Broken

“Do you mean to say she’s not eaten since breakfast?” Giles demanded, irritated by the news.

Mrs. Osprey nodded, shifting her weight from foot to foot on the other side of his desk.

“Is she ill, madam?”

“Oh, no, sir. Not ill. Well, not perhaps, as you might understand matters. No, not ill at all,” Mrs. Osprey assured him, but he still did not understand what the problem could be.

Watching her wring her hands in tongue-tied agitation, Giles placed both hands on the desk and rose to his feet. “Dithers!”

At his shout, Mrs. Osprey went pale. “Oh, I could not. I just could not.”

The butler could help him deal with this vexing creature. He usually knew how. Giles held a hand out to stop the flow of words while he waited.

“Dithers, finally,” Giles cried as the door burst open. “See if you can get some sense out of this woman, will you? Apparently, I need to know something about Miss Winter, but Mrs. Osprey cannot bring herself to tell me. At least not in a manner that I might understand clearly, if you catch my meaning.”

Dithers’ expression stated he did not understand anything at all, but he moved toward Mrs. Osprey. When Mrs. Osprey met his gaze, her eyes firmed at once and she swiveled to face Giles, appearing right-minded for the first time since his return to Northamptonshire.

“It is a private matter, my lord.”

Giles could see Dithers taken aback by her sharp tone. Mrs. Osprey appeared to be a woman in complete control of her mind. A nagging suspicion formed. It was not only men who played games to get what they want.

Crafty woman! She’d played helpless to keep Dithers near.

Giles waved the man away. “Dithers, you are dismissed.”

Mrs. Osprey hid a smile and Giles gestured toward the garden door. She stepped through with firm steps and walked ahead of him to a spot where they could not be overheard.

Giles folded his arms across his chest. “Now, what the devil is going on?”

Mrs. Osprey clasped her hands together. “My Lord, I understand it if you’d prefer not to be involved directly with the young lady, but Miss Winter’s behavior today gives me great concern.”

Giles’ heart dropped to his toes, but he managed to strangle out a convincingly neutral, “Oh.”

“When I was with her earlier this morning, and I know this is of no concern to gentlemen, but I did notice that her woman’s time was upon her. At least that is what I believed then. When I left her, she seemed cheerful, but luncheon came and went and she ate nothing. She stayed on the chaise, and has not moved. When I took tea upstairs just now, she was still there and had a look about her I did not like. She does not confide in me, my lord, but I believe her to be in some sort of shock. Do you think something may have happened to her during the night? Perhaps, something sinister that could have overset her nerves?”

Giles stood rooted to the spot. Nothing sinister had happened to her other than sharing bed space with him. Nothing to account for the bleeding anyway. And Giles had not entered her. Not even with the tip of a finger. He had managed to keep his head and remained on the outside of Lilly’s body through the entire glorious event.

No, it must be as Mrs. Osprey had first assumed, her woman’s time was upon her and she was upset about it. He had not left her bed until the early morning light had first illuminated her room. He had slept all night in Lilly’s bed, even keeping his boots on his feet.

Right now, though, he had a problem. Mrs. Osprey assumed, as he had wanted her to assume, that he had no serious interest. He had thought she might have been hiding from him out of shyness, or perhaps from Lord Carrington, and he wanted to smack his head into a very hard tree for not thinking to check on her earlier.

He should have treated her very differently after last night, and he needed to go see her now. Was it possible she came downstairs, heard his and Carrington’s discussion, and hadn’t cared for what was said about her? Neither he nor Carrington had remembered to keep their voices particularly low.

“You will need to speak to the girl, I suspect.” Mrs. Osprey rocked on the balls of her feet. “I don’t know how she will feel about it all, but perhaps you could talk to her in private. I can wait outside in the hall, or at the edge of the room.”

Bless Mrs. Osprey. He did not even have to suggest behaving improperly. Perhaps she still could read his mind as he had once thought. “Yes, I suppose a private discussion would be best and prove less embarrassing all around. Thank you for suggesting it, Osprey. I will be there directly.”

“Oh, that is so good of you, my lord.”

He looked about him and spotted a pretty flower in a nearby bed. A flower might lift Lilly’s spirits. Once Mrs. Osprey turned her back, Giles pinched it off the bush and tucked it into an inner pocket before he followed her inside.

There was no response to Giles’ quiet knock on Lilly’s door but he entered anyway. Instead of finding her propped up in bed, under the covers as usual, Lilly lay curled on her side on the chaise. Giles kicked the door closed, keeping Mrs. Osprey out, and drank in her subtle and very distinctive scent.

Arousal tightened his trousers and he fought it. Her face had a pinched look about it that troubled him a great deal. When he crossed the room and bent over the chaise, she did not move. He opened her hand and twirled the flower across her palm, but didn’t get a pleased grin in return.

He clasped her hand tight, pressing the flower between their palms, and noticed how clammy she was.

“Lilly, darling, whatever is the matter?” Giles reflected wryly that he asked her that a great deal.