Oh, Lord! Decima made her voice as matter of fact as possible. ‘No, Pru. This is Lord Weston’s house. Don’t you recall he rescued us from the snow?’ She urged the unsteady figure back to her room.
‘Snow? I don’t remember any snow, Miss Dessy. Or any lord. Oh, my head…’
Decima smoothed the rumpled sheets, plumped up the pillows and tucked the maid back into bed. ‘We are snowbound, Pru, and you are not at all well, but we’re quite safe here.’ She flinched inwardly at the lie. Pru might be safe, but her mistress was within an ame’s ace of serious danger, mostly from herself. ‘Now try and drink some water.’ She really needed one of the drinks Decima could remember Cook producing during childhood illnesses. Barley water? Could that be one? ‘Are you hungry?’ That produced a grimace of rejection. ‘How about a hot drink?’
‘No, Miss Decima, I just want to sleep.’
The bed seemed warm enough now and the room was snug with the fire flickering behind its screen. There was probably something she should be doing, but goodness knew what. Biting her lip, Decima left the door ajar and went to look at Bates. He was sleeping soundly, snoring his head off, no doubt happily unconscious on laudanum and brandy. She made up his fire, then checked the fires in her room and Adam’s before accepting that she was putting off the evil moment when she must go back downstairs.
Outside the kitchen door Decima stood breathing deeply, fighting to compose her face. She realised that her shoulders were hunching into the all-too-familiar defensive slouch that she used to use in a vain attempt to hide her height. It seemed that living life to the full meant taking responsibility for your own mistakes as well. Come on, Decima. She pulled back her shoulders and swept into the kitchen.
There was no sign of Adam but then she heard sounds from the scullery and peeped round the door, her embarrassment disappearing in a gurgle of laughter. His lordship was swathed in a vast white apron and had his hands in a bowl of hot water in which he was vigorously scrubbing a plate. ‘What are you doing?’
‘The washing up. The range had heated the water up very efficiently so I thought I would get it out of the way.’
‘I am most impressed,’ Decima admitted.
Adam regarded her seriously. ‘This soda is vicious stuff. The maids’ hands must get raw.’
‘There should be some lanolin somewhere. That’s what our cook uses.’ Decima began to hunt. ‘Look, here by the jar of soda crystals. Rinse your hands in clean water, dry them and rub some in.’
Adam fished out the last plate and did as she suggested, wrinkling his nose at the lanolin. ‘It smells of sheep.’
‘Now why haven’t the apothecaries thought of that?’ Decima mused, finding a cloth and beginning to dry the plates. ‘Scented hand cream for the gentleman who does his own dishes. They could sell it with your crest on the jars—“Lord Weston’s Special Washing-Up Hand Balm: By appointment. Every kitchen maid can have hands as soft as a viscount’s.”’
‘Minx,’ he observed appreciatively. She could feel his gaze on her as she stacked away the plates, then began to hunt along the shelves, but there was nothing of that sensual heat in his gaze now and she felt quite comfortable. She must have imagined that they had stood so close, imagined that his lips had almost been on hers. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Something to feed Pru when she wakes up again. I must tempt her appetite, she is feeling very poorly. And we’ll need to feed Bates up; I am sure that helps knit bones. And then we will need breakfast, and meals tomorrow. Oh, yes, and I need barley water for Pru as well.’
‘Try the stillroom,’ he suggested. ‘That’s where I found the laudanum.’
Half an hour later there was a pile of notebooks at one end of the kitchen table and a row of small bottles at the other. Decima regarded them gratefully. ‘Thank goodness for Mrs Chitty. There is cough syrup there, and a headache powder and lavender water and that red notebook is full of cures and recipes for medicines.’
Adam was thumbing through it. ‘Here is the receipt for barley water. You’ll need to put the barley into water to steep overnight.’ He continued to read while Decima rummaged in the storage bins, emerging triumphant with a scoop full of barley and a bowl to soak it in. ‘Warm water. Then in the morning, add lemon juice and sugar.’
‘No lemons, but there is apple juice.’ She came and leaned on the table next to him, reading over his shoulder. ‘Stewed Quaker—what’s that?’
‘A sovereign remedy for colds, apparently. Burnt rum and butter. I must try it.’
‘I think we will have to try baking before anything else,’ Decima said ruefully, reaching over to pick up one of the cookery notebooks. ‘There is one loaf left. And we cannot survive on cold meat for much longer, either.’
Adam twisted half-round in his chair to grin at her. ‘I don’t think we are going to be bored, Miss Ross.’ Her heart gave a little flip at his nearness, but he looked away and began to turn the cookery book pages. ‘To boil a turkey with oyster sauce—all we need is a score of oysters, a loaf and a lemon for this recipe. We have the loaf.’
‘But no turkey or oysters,’ Decima pointed out practically, squashing this flight of fancy. ‘I just hope that Mrs Chitty does not think making bread too basic to put in her notebooks. Oh, my!’ She broke off as a jaw-cracking yawn seized her. ‘I must go to bed.’
Adam filled hot water cans and carried them up while Decima lit the way. ‘I could make a reasonable hand at being a footman, don’t you think?’ He grounded one can on her washstand and paused by the door as she came in. ‘Good night, Decima.’ The kiss he dropped on her forehead was so swift that she was still blinking in shock as the bedchamber door closed behind him.
‘Goodnight, Adam,’ she said blankly to the expressionless panels of the door. That was not quite the kiss she had been fantasising about. With a little smile at her own foolishness, Decima turned back her bedcovers and began to undress.
Decima managed two hours of sleep before sounds from the adjoining bedroom dragged her back to consciousness. She had expected it, leaving the interconnecting door wide open so she could hear Pru, but even so it seemed a bottomless pit that she had to haul herself out of before her eyes opened.
‘I’m coming!’ But Pru was not calling to her, simply talking loudly in her fever. Her forehead was burning hot as she tossed and turned, moaning and coughing. Decima worried that the fact she did not wake herself up meant her fever was very serious, but she had nothing to judge it against.
All she could do was sit by the bed, sponging Pru’s burning face with cold water and talking soothingly to her. She vaguely recalled hearing that it was serious if the patient was not sweating, but as the memory contained nothing about how one could induce this, it left her anxious but no further forward.
Trying to support Pru’s head in an attempt to get her to drink was fruitless, but eventually Decima hit on the idea of dipping a clean handkerchief in the water, then trickling it between the maid’s parched lips. That seemed to help; Pru even sucked feebly at the moisture and, after several redippings, became quieter and calmer.
Out on the landing Decima could hear the sound of soft footsteps and the murmur of voices. His lordship was up and occupied with Bates. She hoped that did not mean the poor man was in too much pain, but it was reassuring to know that others were awake in the cold, still house.
She sat gazing into the fire, suddenly struck by how very lucky she was that Adam Grantham was the sort of man he was. An out-and-out rake, bent on seduction or worse, was one danger, of course, but she had never been in any real fear of that since the first moment she’d met those steady grey eyes with their intelligence and humour.
But she could never