The Sum Of All Kisses Part 22

Sarah spent her first full day in residence trapped in the room she was sharing with Harriet with her foot propped up on pillows. Her other sisters had come to visit, as had Iris and Daisy, but Honoria was still at Fensmore, enjoying a few days of privacy with her new husband before traveling down. And while Sarah appreciated her relatives stopping by to entertain her, she was less enthralled by their breathless accounts of all the amazingly fabulous events taking place outside her bedroom door.

Her second day at Whipple Hill pa.s.sed in much the same manner, except that Harriet took pity on her and promised to read her all five acts of Henry VIII and the Unicorn of Doom, which had been recently renamed The Shepherdess, the Unicorn, and Henry VIII. Sarah could not understand why; there was no mention of a shepherdess anywhere. She had nodded off for only a few minutes. Surely she could not have missed a character pivotal enough to merit a mention in the t.i.tle of the play.

The third day was the worst. Daisy brought her violin.

And Daisy knew no short pieces.

So when Sarah awoke on her fourth day at Whipple Hill, she swore to herself that she would descend the grand staircase and join the rest of humanity or die trying.

She did, actually, swear this. And she must have done so with great conviction, because the housemaid paled and crossed herself.

But make it down she did, only to find that half the ladies had departed for the village. And the other half were about to.

The men planned to hunt.

It had been rather mortifying to arrive at breakfast in the arms of a footman (she had not specified how she would descend the grand staircase), so as soon as all of the other guests had departed, she rose to her feet and took a gingerly step. She could put a little weight on the ankle as long as she was careful.

And leaned against a wall.

Maybe she'd go to the library. She could find a book, sit down, read. No need to use her feet at all. The library wasn't so far.

She took another step.

It wasn't completely across the house.

She groaned. Who was she trying to fool? At this rate it was going to take her half the day to make it to the library.

What she needed was a cane.

She stopped. This made her think of Lord Hugh. She had not seen him in nearly a week. She supposed she shouldn't have found this odd; they were only two of over a hundred people who'd made the journey from Fensmore to Whipple Hill. And it went without saying that he would not come to visit her while she convalesced in her bedroom.

Still, she'd been thinking of him. When she was lying in bed with her foot on the pillows, she wondered how long he'd had to do the same. When she'd got up in the middle of the night and crawled to the chamber pot, she'd started to wonder . . . and then she'd cursed the biological unfairness of it all. A man wouldn't have needed to crawl to the chamber pot, now, would he? He could probably use the blasted thing in bed.

Not that she was imagining Lord Hugh in bed.

Or using a chamber pot, for that matter.

But still, how had he done it? How did he still do it? How did he manage the everyday tasks of life without wanting to tear his hair out and scream to the heavens? Sarah hated being so dependent on everyone else. Just this morning she'd had to ask a maid to find her mother, who'd then decided that a footman was the correct person to carry her down to breakfast.

All she wanted was to go somewhere on her own two feet. Without informing anyone of her plans. And if she had to suffer through shooting pain every time she put weight on her foot, then so be it. It was worth it just to get out of her room.

But back to Lord Hugh. She knew that his leg bothered him after too much use, but did he feel pain every time he took a step? How was it possible she had not asked him this? They had walked together, certainly no long distances, but still, she should have known if he was in pain. She should have asked.

She hobbled a bit farther down the hall, then finally gave up and sat down in a chair. Someone would be along eventually. A maid . . . a footman . . . It was a busy house.

She sat, tapping a tune on her leg with her hands. Her mother would have a fit if she saw her like this. A lady was meant to sit still. A lady should speak softly and laugh musically and do all sorts of things that had never come naturally to Sarah. It was remarkable, really, that she loved her mother so well. By all rights, they should have wanted to kill each other.

After a few minutes Sarah heard someone moving around the corner. Should she call out? She did need help, but- "Lady Sarah?"

It was him. She didn't know why she was so surprised. Or pleased. But she was. Their last conversation had been awful, but when she saw Lord Hugh Prentice coming toward her down the hall, she was so happy to see him that it was astonis.h.i.+ng.

He reached her side, then looked up and down the hall. "What are you doing here?"

"Resting, I'm afraid." She kicked her foot out an inch or so. "My ambitions outstripped my abilities."

"You shouldn't be up and about."

"I just spent three days practically tied to my bed."

Was it her imagination, or did he suddenly look somewhat uncomfortable?

She kept talking. "And three more before that trapped in a coach-"

"As did we all."

She pressed her lips together peevishly. "Yes, but the rest of you were able to get out and walk around."

"Or limp," he said dryly.

Her eyes flew to his face, but whatever emotions he hid behind his eyes, she could not interpret them.

"I owe you an apology," he said stiffly.

She blinked. "For what?"

"I let you fall."

She looked at him for a moment, utterly stunned that he might blame himself for what was so obviously an accident.

"Don't be ridiculous," she a.s.sured him. "I would have fallen no matter what. Elizabeth was stepping on Frances's hem, and Frances was tugging, and then Elizabeth moved her foot, and-" She waved her hand. "Well. Never you mind. Somehow Harriet was the one who came tumbling into me. If it had been only Frances, I daresay I might have been able to catch my balance."

He did not say anything, and still she found herself unable to interpret his expression.

"It was on the step, you know," she heard herself say. "That was when I injured my ankle. Not when I landed." She had no idea why this might make a difference, but she'd never been talented at censoring her words when she was nervous.

"I owe you an apology as well," she added haltingly.

He looked at her in question.

She swallowed. "I was very unkind to you in the carriage."

He started to say something, probably, "Don't be silly," but she cut him off.

"I overreacted. It was very . . . embarra.s.sing, Harriet's play. And I just want you to know that I'm sure I would have acted the same way with anyone. So really, you shouldn't feel insulted. At least, not personally."

Good G.o.d, she was babbling. She'd never been good at apologies. Most of the time she simply refused to give them.

"Are you joining the gentlemen for the hunt?" she blurted out.

The corner of his mouth tightened and his brows rose into a wry expression as he said, "I cannot."

"Oh. Oh." Stupid fool, what had she been thinking? "I'm so sorry," she said. "That was terribly insensitive of me."

"You don't need to dance around it, Lady Sarah. I am lame. It is a fact. And it is certainly not your fault."

She nodded. "Still, I'm sorry."

For the barest second he looked unsure of what to do, then, in a quiet voice, he said, "Apology accepted."

"I don't like that word, though," she said.

His brows rose.

"Lame." She scrunched her nose. "It makes you sound like a horse."

"Have you an alternative?"

"No. But it's not my job to solve the world's problems, merely to state them."

He stared at her.

"I jest."

And then, finally, he smiled.

"Well," she said, "I suppose I only jest a little. I don't have a better word for it, and I probably cannot solve the world's problems, although to be fair, no one has given me the opportunity to do so." She looked up with slyly narrowed eyes, almost daring him to comment.

To her great surprise, he only laughed. "Tell me, Lady Sarah, what do you plan to do with yourself this morning? Somehow I doubt your intention is to sit in the hall all day."

"I thought I might read in the library," she admitted. "It's silly, I know, since that's what I've been doing in my room these past few days, but I'm desperate to be anywhere but that bedchamber. I think I would go read in a wardrobe just for the change of scenery."

"It would be an interesting change of scenery," he said.

"Dark," she agreed.

"Woolly."

She pressed her lips together in what turned out to be a failed attempt to hold back laughter. "Woolly?" she echoed.

"That's what you'd find in my wardrobe."

"I find myself alarmed by a vision of sheep." She paused, then winced. "And of what Harriet might do with such a scene in one of her plays."

He held up a hand. "Let us change the subject."

She c.o.c.ked her head to the side, then realized she was smiling flirtatiously. So she stopped smiling. But she still felt unaccountably flirtatious.

So she smiled again, because she liked smiling, and she liked feeling flirtatious, and most of all because she knew he would know that she wasn't actually flirting with him. Because she wasn't. She was just feeling flirtatious. It was a result of having been cooped up in that room for so long with no one but sisters and cousins.

"You were on your way to the library," he said.

"I was."

"And you started out at . . ."

"The breakfast room."

"You did not make it very far."

"No," she admitted, "I didn't."

"Did it perhaps occur to you," he asked in careful tones, "that you should not be walking on that foot?"

"It did, as a matter of fact."

He quirked a brow. "Pride?"

She gave him a glum nod of confirmation. "Far too much of it."

"What shall we do now?"

She looked down at her traitorous ankle. "I suppose I need to find someone to carry me there."

There was a long pause, long enough for her to look up. But he had turned away, so all she saw was his profile. Finally, he cleared his throat and asked, "Would you like to borrow my cane?"

Her lips parted in surprise. "But don't you need it?"

"Not for shorter distances. It helps," he said, before she could point out that she'd never seen him without it, "but it is not strictly necessary."

She was about to agree to his suggestion; she even reached for the cane, but then she stopped, because he was just the sort of man to do something stupid in the name of chivalry. "You can walk without the cane," she said, looking directly into his eyes, "but does it mean that your leg will give you more pain later?"

He went quite still, and then he said, "Probably."

"Thank you for not lying to me."

"I almost did," he admitted.

She allowed herself a tiny smile. "I know."

"You have to take it now, you know." He grasped the center of the cane and held it out so the handle was within reach. "My honesty should not go unrewarded."

Sarah knew she should not allow him to do this. He might want to help her now, but later that day, his leg would hurt. Needlessly.

But somehow she knew that to refuse would cause him far more pain than anything his leg could give him later that day. He needed to help her, she realized.

He needed to help her far more than she needed help.

For a moment she could hardly speak.