A May for Mary by Elizabeth Ann West

Author:Elizabeth Ann West [West, Elizabeth Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944345181
Publisher: Elizabeth Ann West

Chapter 8

"I knew you'd be the first to wake! I told you, Buchanan." A strange woman stood over Mary's sickbed as she looked up in consternation. With a little effort, Mary pushed herself up on her elbows, and the strange woman continued to speak. "That fool boy of mine took you to the Bull. I warned him, but will he listen to me? No one listens to me anymore." The woman was dressed too elegantly to be another servant, and Mary looked helplessly at Mrs. Buchanan. The housekeeper mouthed something to Mary, but she couldn't understand it.

"Pardon me," Mary's voice cracked from the dryness in her throat, so she ceased talking almost as soon as she began.

"Here. Drink." The mysterious woman thrust a tea cup at her from the small bedside table and Mary sat up properly to accept. "Don't worry, it's your sister's blend. I didn't add anything to it." And as the older woman winked at her, Mary caught her drift.

"My Grace, I apologize . . ."

"Oh, dandelion's blow in the wind, we can dispense with that for now. Certainly here of all places." Aileena Hamilton gazed at the room around her recognizing it as the same one used for her recuperation just a few months ago. She shivered slightly as memories of her old habit thrilled her, but the duchess was a new woman now. Out of that fog, she was back living what little life she had left, regularly visiting Jane and Robin at Starvet House.

"What did you mean I am the first to wake? The others?"

The duchess laughed. "Oh, fell like flies, the lot of them. Dr. Simpson no sooner saw you than your husband took to bed, burning up with fever. Your sister held out the longest, taking tea before the symptoms fully hit."

"And his lordship?"

"Graemie? Off to Blaylock. I warned him those English stomachs have no business at the Black Bull. You should have ridden three more miles and stayed at Goddodin." The Duchess of Hamilton unleashed her rightful anger at her son's idiocy and Mary shrank back. Sensing weakness, Aileena Hamilton jumped right to the next topic on her agenda.

"Good, you're alert. Let's discuss these letters of yours."

Mary's face froze in an expression of abject horror.

"Your Grace, Mrs. Fitzwilliam needs her rest . . ." Mrs. Buchanan tried to intervene, but Mary soon remembered her place. This was Elizabeth Darcy's home, run by her eldest sister, and duchess or not, this woman held no power over Mary.

"You did not dare read my personal correspondence while I was unwell!" she shouted.

"Of course I dared! How else am I supposed to know what is going on? And how I can help? Your nephew, that boy, he can't stay with Graemie and Jane, that much is very clear."

Mary grew very angry and felt her eyes sting with burning tears. But she would not blink and give this stranger the satisfaction.

"My sister and I have not had a chance to discuss anything to do with Robert yet.

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