Page 73 of Scandalous Nights With the Earl

But she was sick and he was angry. For now, this was all it could be. The pounding, chaotic ecstasy was gone and in its place was uncertainty.

He tightened his grip just a little on her hand, careful not to wake her.

Oliver and Esther arrived just after five o’clock that evening and they were eager to find out just how Wilhelmina was.

‘She has been ill and she goes in and out of slumber all day and night. She has nightmares and the maid says she cries a lot.’

‘She has had a huge fright, Phillip. When I was pilloried by all of Society after the truth about my mother came out at a public ball I was just the same. I was simply too scared to do anything at all, so I cried and I slept.’

‘Did Simon St Claire hurt her?’ Oliver asked this.

‘It seems he tried to but she escaped and somehow got herself alone down to the south coast.’

‘Has she told you about her journey?’

‘She’s struggling to speak much at all and I don’t want to upset her by asking. She can barely cope with niceties.’

‘Then she needs time,’ Esther said this with certainty, ‘and she does not need to be pushed. She needs patience to learn to trust again.’

‘She’s lost a lot of weight but I think she is eating more every day.’

‘Aunt Julia sent a letter to Nettleford Park yesterday and she said that London Society was agog with the scandal of the St Claires and that many voices were not kind. I am not sure if she can ever go back to her old life, Phillip.’

‘I am not, either, but right now she just needs to get better.’

‘Has our physician been called?’ This was from Oliver.

‘Willa does not want him here. She is more than happy with how things are.’

‘I can be a chaperone if it would help silence some of the detractors, Phillip.’ Esther looked worried.

‘No. It stays as it is.’

He saw his brother and sister-in-law glance at each other.

‘There may be consequences from such an action.’

‘I will deal with those if and when they come.’

‘Then good luck to you, brother, though I doubt if you will need it. You seem to have come through a baptism of fire quite whole apart from the bruise on your chin. It suits you, such a mark. It makes you look as dangerous as I am finding out you are. America for all its faults and sadness has tempered you in steel and brought back a different man than the one who left the shores of England.’

‘I do not think it was America, Oliver.’ Phillip’s words were quiet.

‘It is Wilhelmina?’ Esther looked delighted as she clapped her hands.

But he did not answer, turning to the cabinet in the corner and pouring them all a brandy. He needed the strength of it to get through this. But most of all he needed Willa well again.

Phillip walked with Willa slowly to his stables the next day and from the moment of being in the company of his horses she looked better.

‘I think animals know when someone loves them,’ he said quietly as her hands wandered over the nose of the next horse she was entranced by, her whole body alive.

Today she did not look sleepy at all, a new energy engulfing her every movement as she asked the horses’ names and ages and background.

‘How many do you keep here at Elmsworth?’

‘Only around ten or so but I will build up that number now that I am home. My father stabled twenty or more and he won a few cups at the local competitions.’

‘How wonderful.’ She laughed and such unexpected joy had him staring at her.