his father is!”
“Who?” Lamb asked, polishing off the last of the cakes. He licked a sticky finger and smiled at the prospect of James’s tattle.
“The prince. Yes, Old Bertie himself!”
Lamb laughed and waved off the idea as he stood up and stretched. “Nah, Bertie was straight as an arrow! A right prig of a fellow, else the queen would’ve sent him packing.”
“Little you know, you old rustic! They say Wilder’s mother suffered a comedown of one sort or another. Very wellborn, so I heard, but her family booted her right out, just disowned her, and then she…”
“Here now!” Lambdin interrupted, stepping around the end of the settee and laying a hand on James’s shoulder. “We’d best leave off with this. Laura’s not up to snuff at the moment and this is no topic to trouble her with. Not proper anyway.”
He leaned down and took her elbow. “Come on, old girl, why don’t you go upstairs and have a lie down, eh? Looks a bit peaked, don’t she, James?”
She allowed him to lead her to the stairway. With a murmur of thanks, she did as he suggested. Lord knows she felt good for little else at the moment. And James’s tale of Mr. Wilder’s ancestry made her slightly more ill than she already was.
Laura welcomed Lambdin’s belated concern. She knew he soft-peddled it so as not to alarm her further and she appreciated that. But she couldn’t stand that he had told James Maclin of her illness, even though his doing so did make perfect sense. He had wanted someone to talk to about it. She wished for the same, but Laura knew instinctively that anyone’s pity would undo her completely.
Had Lamb also told the man who stayed for tea? Did you know my poor old sister’s dying, sir? That’s why she tore off in such a snit. Can’t control herself. So sorry.
No, Lamb would never do such a thing. Even so, Mr. Wilder had seemed a trifle too curious with all that staring he had done. A handsome man of the world such as he shouldn’t have glanced twice at a clumsy country girl who was “not much to look at.” James Maclin had described her that way to Lambdin, and in exactly those words.
Wounded vanity ought not to mean much at this point, but it certainly did. Here she was, old, ugly, and…dying. She shrugged off her self-pity with no little effort, busied herself undressing, and then donned her best nightgown. No use to go on and on about it, she told herself sternly. She would just forget she had ever heard it. It wasn’t true in any case. She was fine. Just fine.
The bed felt too soft when she lay down. Would they cushion her coffin, she wondered? God, she had to stop these morbid thoughts. What use was it to dwell constantly on what would happen? She should concentrate on the time she had left, such as it was. If it was true. Could it be?
Laura yanked the covers over her head and curled into a ball. So many things she had yet to do. Her entire twenty-five years had been spent here in the country looking after Lamb and the estate while their parents either traveled or lived abroad.
She knew more about farm matters than most men. With her gone, the haughty Mr. Williams might have to live up to his post as manager, she thought with a smirk. Thus far, all the man had seemed capable of was warding off her suitors, few as they were, and bailing Lamb out of trouble now and again. He had certainly proved proficient at both. Perhaps with his task as watchdog cut in half by her demise, he would have time to see to the business of running Midbrook’s farms. God knows she was sick of paperwork. Perhaps He did know, and that was why…
She would be gone. No more. Dead.
For a long time—perhaps hours—Laura lay there contemplating. Slowly she came to terms with what she had heard. At least for the moment. Strange, how she could almost tolerate the horror of thinking about it.
Not that she looked forward to dying, but reluctant acceptance was better than outright hysteria. She could not allow herself to fall apart.
Her brother had borne the news with surprising strength. And she knew now that she would not ask him to discuss the matter with her. Somehow his determination to spare her the dread of death seemed conscientious, something Lambdin almost never was.
Dr. Cadwallader had obviously advised him, and both believed they were doing the right thing to pretend to her that nothing was wrong. The least she could do was humor them and appreciate their misguided thoughtfulness. She would not speak of it to them. Ever.
Laura decided the thing that bothered her most about dying was that she had never really lived. Life had slid right by her, day after boring day, year after boring year. She had not even had a happy family life to compensate.
Gifts had arrived, expensive things which hardly made up for the lack of parental involvement in her life or Lambdin’s. But some treats had been thoughtfully chosen—Lamb’s prized Arabian, Caesar, and her own beloved little mare, Cleopatra. Her parents had shipped them all the way from Egypt. Ostensibly, the horses were for breeding purposes, but Laura just knew her parents had their children’s pleasure in mind when selecting those two.
How had they known her one great joy was riding? And that she would adore the mare with all her heart? Perhaps Mother and Father did care in their own distracted way. Would they miss her when she was gone? Would they even know the difference?
Father was not really her father, of course. Not as he was Lambdin’s. Still, he had adopted her when he married her widowed mother, giving Laura his name. She had never dared ask for more than that for fear Father would change his mind and she would be an outsider. As it was, she received the same infrequent attention as he gave the son he had sired.
At times she believed Father originally purchased the remote manor and its accompanying acreage just to keep her and Lambdin isolated and out of trouble.
That had certainly been his motive for hiring Mr. Williams as manager. As for her situation, the number of available suitors had kept her opportunity for misdeeds to a minimum. Thanks to Mr. Williams’s vigilance regarding those few fellows, she had just celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday without any hope of a proposal, proper or otherwise.
Now she would die an old maid. Laura Ames Middlebrook, Proper Spinster. Unwed, untraveled, unremarkable. What a truly rotten epitaph.
Exhaustion finally took over and the next she knew, morning had dawned. The bright sunlight streaming through the tall casement windows seemed out of keeping. She wanted rain, lots of it. And cold, mourning winds soughing through the eaves.
Suddenly Laura leapt out of bed in an unexpected fit of rage. She threw open the windows and stalked out onto the balcony, beating her fists against the railing. Damn it all, this was unfair! When was she supposed to live? Really live, instead of existing in this bucolic little burg, counting sheep and cows, and worrying over crops that were not even hers? Why did she have to do all the work while her parents made merry abroad and her brother played with his horses?
Well, no more!
She slammed back into the bedroom. Lead crystal perfume bottles crashed against the wall leaving gouges in the plaster. No more! The piecrust table cracked beneath the weight of her heavy water pitcher, scattering knickknacks everywhere. No more! Her breath heaved out in furious pants. One swipe of her arm cleared the mantel.
She looked around desperately, hands fisted and lips tight. Panic overwhelmed her. She slid into a crouch by the bed, her nightgown bunched at her knees, glass from the photograph frames biting into her feet. And she wept.
Chapter Two
Ten days later, Laura had gotten herself in hand. She had taken control. Her course was set now. No more useless grieving, she had decided firmly. No more self-pity. Time was running out and she must make the most of what was left to her.
Lambdin had seemed agreeable when she announced her decision to go to London. He had said it was a famous idea to strike out on her own, and had even promised to create a diversion so that Mr. Williams would not notice her leaving until