Silent on the Moor (2019 Edition) by Deanna Raybourn

Author:Deanna Raybourn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2009-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

I woke the next morning, feeling as if I had slept a hundred years. I longed for a bath and I was ravenously hungry. Morag carried up an enormous plate of eggs and bacon and devilled kidneys with toast and a steaming pot of tea. There were no mushrooms, I noted with a grateful shudder. I doubted I would ever be able to eat them again. I applied myself with vigour to my breakfast, and by the time I had wiped the last crumb from my plate, I was feeling entirely myself again.

I washed and dressed and emerged. Lady Allenby’s door was closed, and I wondered if she were still immured in her room. I found Portia with Brisbane. He was propped up in bed, neatly dressed in a clean nightshirt, arms tightly locked about his chest as Portia endeavoured to cut his hair and Valerius attempted to take his pulse.

“Brisbane, honestly. You look quite a pirate. Now, if you will just let me trim a lock here and there, I can make you thoroughly respectable,” she argued. She advanced toward him with scissors, and he held up a hand.

“I may not yet have regained my full strength, but if you so much as lay a single blade on my head I will have Puggy stuffed and mounted to hang over my fireplace,” he told her, his eyes glinting coldly. I blinked back sudden tears. I had not imagined it would be so moving to see him alive and in a foul mood, but I had come to accept that I would rather have Brisbane in a savage temper than any other gentleman with perfect manners.

“Portia, do you mind?” Valerius asked sharply. “I am trying to assess his condition, and you are agitating him.”

“I would not agitate him if he would give in,” Portia pointed out reasonably.

“Now, children,” I said briskly. “No need to fuss. Brisbane, if you wish to go about looking like Heathcliff that is your affair. Leave him be, Portia.” She subsided, and Val shot me a grateful look as he applied himself to Brisbane’s pulse.

I glanced at the hearth where Mr. Pugglesworth was resting on his favourite cushion and emitting foul smells. “Ah, Puggy. I thought I smelled something decaying. Well, I am glad you’ve brought him, Portia. He will be on hand when Florence is delivered of his offspring.”

I had not had the chance to write the news to her, and Portia blinked at me in surprise. “Mr. Pugglesworth is going to be a father? Are you quite sure?”

“As sure as ever I would want to be,” Morag told her sourly from the doorway. She entered bearing a tray with a pretty little dish of custard and a soup plate of beef tea. Brisbane looked pointedly at the dark smear on the wall, the souvenir of his earlier displeasure.

“Morag, unless there is something on that tray I can chew, do not bother to come any farther.” Morag sniffed and put the food on the hearth.

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