Anne's Perfect Husband

“Dealing with her has already put you in bed for a week.”

“You can hardly blame her for that.”

“No, nor for that harebrained journey north in the midst of a snowstorm. That was your fault.”

“It wasn’t snowing when we set out,” Ian said, smiling. “And John brought help as quickly as he could, despite the stable fire. Nothing that happened was her fault. It was simply a combination of unfortunate events.”

“And somehow I have a feeling you are about to embark upon another series of those.”

“I?” Ian asked in astonishment. “I assure you, Val, my life is most circumspect. By necessity, perhaps, but I’m beginning to consider the possibility that I am simply boring by nature.”

“Good,” Dare said. “Until your health is fully restored, I intend to see that you continue to be thoroughly bored. And boring. Now, go back to sleep,” he ordered, picking up his book.

And after four or five minutes of watching Dare studiously pretend to read the same page, Ian felt his eyelids begin to droop. He briefly fought their heaviness, and then finally succumbed to the lure of a world where there were no worries or concerns. Particularly no concerns about a lively redhead, whose assets in the husband hunt were as meager as Dare had suggested.

He would deal with that when he had to, Ian decided, just before he drifted back into the invalid’s world of exhausted sleep.

“Believe me, Mr. Sinclair, I truly wish I could disagree with the opinions of your surgeons. I’m afraid, sir, I must concur with what you were told on the Peninsula. Your lungs were irreparably damaged. They will always be prone to infections. That, in and of itself, however…”

“It is the ‘however’ that concerns you,” Ian Sinclair said.

While he was again being prodded and poked, this time by the man many considered to be the finest physician in England, he had determined that whatever the outcome, this would put an end to it. Whatever McKinley told him, he would accept. And he would live his life, whatever remained of it, exactly as he had lived it before—to the best of his ability.

“The largest piece of shrapnel within your chest is indeed, given its location, impossible to remove. The attempt would kill you outright. Frankly, I can’t understand why it didn’t kill you immediately when you were hit,” McKinley said. “However, if there is anything I have learned through the years, it is that the human body is a remarkable instrument, frequently quite capable of healing itself. If we doctors could let well enough alone,” the physician added, smiling.

Ian returned the smile, recognizing what the Scottish-trained doctor was trying to do. And it wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the effort. It was simply that he preferred his truths unvarnished. Even if the varnishing was intended to make them more palatable.

“Are you suggesting that if we leave it where it is…” Ian began cautiously, knowing this was the only question that mattered. For reasons he chose not to examine right now, it seemed to matter more than it had when he had first been given this same diagnosis more than a year ago.

“It may stay in place for the next forty years, and if it does, you will die an old man, peacefully in your own bed. Or it may shift tomorrow and pierce your heart. In that case…”

He paused, and Ian finished it for him. “In that case, I won’t die an old man, peacefully or otherwise.”

McKinley let the silence build a moment, but he didn’t deny the truth of what his patient had said.

“I should advise you to avoid the kind of physical exertion you recently engaged in. That may not be the life you would have chosen for yourself, Mr. Sinclair, but it is life,” the doctor said. “And much preferable to the alternative, I should think.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” Ian said, fighting the disappointment of a ridiculous hope he hadn’t even realized he had been harboring.

“I take it your brother doesn’t know.”

“I prefer that he never does. What good would it do?”

“He is very anxious about you. Since you have not told him the truth, he quite naturally feels that your convalescence has been unnecessarily slow.”

“And no doubt certain that your well-known skills could remedy the situation.”

“I would that they could, Mr. Sinclair,” McKinley said.

“So do I,” Ian admitted with a smile. “However, since they can’t…And not one of us is guaranteed even one more day, of course. That is a lesson I saw demonstrated quite effectively in Portugal. I have simply received notice to live each of mine as well as I can.”

“I have no doubt that you will. What do you wish me to tell the earl?”

“That he isn’t rid of me yet,” Ian said. “It is, after all, nothing less than the truth.”

“I’m sure he’ll be relieved,” McKinley said. And then, as his patient reached for the bell on the table beside the bed, “Don’t bother the servants. I can see myself back to the parlor. If you have need of my services in the future, do not hesitate to send for me.”

As the door closed behind the physician, the eyes of Ian Sinclair focused on the fine plaster ceiling above his head. The verdict had been nothing he hadn’t known, he told himself.

There were things in his life he regretted, but the actions that had led to his being wounded were not among them. And he would therefore deal with the consequences of them without complaint. It was better, however, that he deal with them alone. He had always known that. Better for him. And much better for his family.

Chapter Four

It had been a very lonely Christmas, Anne thought on the bleak, snowy morning following that equally bleak holiday. Whatever Ian Sinclair had intended when he had brought her to his home, she must believe it had not been this.

Of course, there had been a formal Yuletide dinner last night, which had included all the traditional dishes of the season and which she had eaten in solitary splendor in the dining room. The whole house was decorated quite beyond anything she was accustomed to at Fenton School.

What she was unaccustomed to, however, and the lack of which she had felt most severely, was companionship. She missed the girls. She missed taking care of the younger ones and she had worried about them. She also missed having someone to talk to and with whom to share games and cherished holiday pastimes.

If, as her guardian had indicated, his servants had been looking forward to providing a festive Yuletide celebration for his ward, Anne had not, during the long, lonely days she had spent in his home, been able to detect any sign of that intent. They had probably been disappointed that she was not the child they expected. And it was apparent they held her responsible for Mr. Sinclair’s illness. She didn’t blame them. She, too, considered his condition to be her fault.

The doctor, identifiable by his bag, had come and gone several times during the past eight days. From her bedroom window, worried and anxious about the cause of each visit, she had watched him arrive and depart. And her new guardian’s older brother, the Earl of Dare, had stayed for several days before finally departing this morning.

Neither of them had spoken to her, of course, although she was perhaps the person most in need of information. After all, no one doubted that Mr. Sinclair had been made ill as a direct result of his rescue of her. A rescue that must surely satisfy every longing for adventure she had ever felt.

A longing she would never feel again, Anne vowed. She saw, thankfully only in memory now, the face of the man with the torch, missing tooth revealed by that ghastly, leering smile, and she shivered. And if it hadn’t been for Ian…

For Mr. Sinclair, she corrected. It would not do to presume, even in her thoughts, which had centered, almost exclusively, throughout these long days and nights, around her guardian. And some of those thoughts—

There was a discreet knock on the door, and Anne scrambled off the high bed across which she had been sprawled in unladylike abandon. She straightened her dress and then her hair, tucking in tendrils before she hurried across the room. She even bit her lips and pinched her cheeks to give them some color.

It was not until she was halfway to the door that she realized this visitor could not possibly be her guardian. And she couldn’t imagine for whomever else in this household she might be concerned about her looks. The acknowledgment that she would wish to appear attractive before Ian Sinclair was a clear affirmation that she had spent too much time daydreaming about him in the last few days, she told herself sternly.

She opened the door and was confronted by the disapproving features of Mrs. Martin, the Sinclair family housekeeper. Unfamiliar with the protocol governing the servants in such a large house, Anne wasn’t sure if she should invite the woman in or converse with her standing in the hall.

“Mr. Sinclair wishes to see you, miss. Mind you now, no matter what he says, I won’t have you tiring him out,” the housekeeper warned. “Ten minutes and no more. You understand?”

“Has he been so very ill?” Anne asked, the fear she had lived with through these lonely days rising to block her throat.

“Mr. Sinclair allows no discussion of his health. Those of us who wish to keep our positions in his household learned that long ago. Something for you to remember,” Mrs. Martin added.

The housekeeper turned and bustled forward with an important jingle of keys, passing door after door along the long hallway. Anne followed, wondering exactly what her warning had been meant to convey. That if Anne mentioned Mr. Sinclair’s health, she would be sent back to Fenton School?

An idle threat, considering that during the past week she had pined for its safe familiarity. She regretted the thought as soon as it formed. Whatever Mrs. Martin meant, Mr. Sinclair had risked his life to save hers. And at last, it seemed she would have the opportunity to tell him how grateful she was.

Finally the housekeeper stopped before one of the doors. She leaned her ear against it for a moment before she straightened and knocked.

“Come in,” someone instructed.