Still, she had to remember why she’d come. “Is he well enough that I might pay him a short visit?” She glanced over at Geoffrey, who was watching her with a mixture of bemusement and something more intense. Curiosity? Admiration? Pleasant prickles bubbled through her chest. She abruptly returned her gaze to Mrs. Witherspoon and tried to sound proficient while she made up an excuse for her presence. “To check on his condition, of course.” Perhaps she could sneak in a question or two, though how she’d manage to ask anything substantial escaped her.
“I think so,” his wife replied. “Please, come in,” she offered, grabbing Liliana’s arm. As she pulled Liliana in through the door, she seemed to suddenly remember she’d left Geoffrey on the stoop. “You, too, of course, my lord.” She let out an embarrassed chuckle as she motioned him in. “I’ll just check and see if Harold feels up to visitors.”
Mrs. Witherspoon bade Liliana and Geoffrey wait in a darkened parlor. Liliana shot Geoffrey a bland smile, trying to act as if nothing about their situation was unusual. He still watched her with an expression she couldn’t fathom, yet sent tiny tremors off in her middle. She glanced at the floor, then all around the room, looking everywhere but at him. But she couldn’t ignore his presence, and though he stood a respectable distance from her, it was almost as if he were pressed up against her, so alert and attuned was her body to his. It seemed as if whatever attraction was between them grew exponentially stronger each time he was near, like a reaction that burned hotter and hotter the more substance one introduced.
“I wasn’t aware you were acquainted with anyone in the village,” Geoffrey said.
Even uttering the most mundane of words, his voice moved over her like a warm velvet caress. Closeted with him in this dim parlor as she was, that feeling of having her space pleasantly invaded returned. A delicious shiver snaked through her.
“Not acquainted, exactly,” she said, slanting a glance his way. Had he moved closer to her? Her heart sped up. “I ventured into the village during my morning ride yesterday. I…I had an overwhelming urge for a hot cross bun,” she said, hating the lie even as it passed her lips. Allowing Geoffrey to think she’d come to Somerton Park only at her aunt’s insistence had been bad enough, but at least then it hadn’t been necessary to actually lie to the man. She’d just nodded at his erroneous conclusion. But now she was actively deceiving him, and it didn’t sit well.
“The Witherspoons’ maid was picking up the morning bread at the bakery and we began talking. She told me of her master’s condition, one I recognized the symptoms of, so I gave her the recipe for a tonic that might help.” She shrugged.
That look of concentrated intensity she’d seen on his face before, as when he’d precisely loaded his pistol during their wager, was turned upon her. She squirmed beneath it.
“I see,” he said after a moment. “Just part of your life’s work.” There was no doubt of the admiration in his voice and his expression.
She shrugged again, embarrassed and more than a little uncomfortable. How odd. She’d spent her life chasing recognition, yet the look she saw in Geoffrey’s eyes shamed her. Here he was thinking lovely things about her while she lied to him.
Liliana tried to focus her attention on the parlor as distraction. The windows were covered with heavy fabric, the air musty and filled with dust. The house had probably been shut up while Mr. Witherspoon convalesced, a common enough practice, but one she wholly disagreed with.
A few moments passed in silence, but Liliana could feel Geoffrey’s occasional stare. Finally, a shuffling sound drew their attention.
An older man, rawboned and gaunt, ambled down the hall with the help of his wife and the maid Liliana had met yesterday. As Mr. Witherspoon passed into the light, Liliana blanched at how pale he looked, his ghostly skin blotched with spots. Yet when he smiled at her, Liliana glimpsed what he must have been like in his younger years—a rascal, no doubt.
As was proper, Witherspoon greeted Geoffrey first, but he almost immediately turned to her. A perplexed look crossed his wizened old face as he glanced between her and Geoffrey.
“So you’re my angel,” he said finally, coming to stand before her.
Liliana felt her cheeks pinken. “How are you feeling?”
“Chipper as can be, thanks to you,” he answered.
“I’m glad I could be of help. I wasn’t sure you would try my suggestions, given I’m a complete stranger who appeared out of nowhere on your doorstep.”
Mr. Witherspoon barked a laugh that sounded quite hearty to her. “Believe me, miss, when you’ve been feeling as rotten as I have these past months, you’re willing to try anything…even if old Scratch brought it to your door hisself.”
Liliana felt the corners of her lips rise. But as she took in his pallid tone, she glanced around the dark room once more. She remembered seeing a fence around the side of the thatched cottage. Perhaps there was a courtyard in the rear. She decided to take a chance.
“Well, perhaps you’d be willing to try another piece of advice?”
A wooly white brow rose in expectation.
“Might we sit out in the sunshine while we visit?”
Mrs. Witherspoon gasped, clutching protectively at her husband’s elbow. “Out of doors? Are you mad?”
Liliana held firm. “I know it goes against common wisdom, but there is something about sunlight that is very reviving to a body.” She waved her arm in the direction of the windows. “Fresh air, too. In fact, my suggestion would be to take down these drapes and throw open the windows. Not only here, but in Mr. Witherspoon’s rooms as well. Unless there is worry of contagion, there’s no reason to be confined when the weather is fair. It will do you a world of good, sir,” she said, keeping her eyes on Mr. Witherspoon, not daring to look at Geoffrey to see if he, too, thought she was mad.
“Now, see here,” Mrs. Witherspoon sputtered. “I thank you for what you’ve done, but—”
“Calm yourself, Martha,” Mr. Witherspoon said, laying a skeletal hand on his wife’s plump shoulder. “For years now we’ve listened to that old quack, yet after only a day under this young lady’s care, I feel better than I have in remembrance. Why, I even feel up to some of your wonderful cabbage soup.” Mr. Witherspoon gave his wife a reassuring pat. “I think we should take her advice.”
Liliana waited in the silence, keeping her gaze on the couple. Their obvious love and concern for each other touched an empty place inside of her.
“I agree,” came Geoffrey’s voice, quite startling Liliana. “I’ve known Miss Claremont to be most capable. I would trust her with my own well-being.”
Liliana turned to look at him, pleasure at his words and guilt at their sentiment warring within her. She’d never once considered his well-being in her machinations, and yet the conviction in his voice indicated he meant his words. Despite the pangs of remorse that twinged within her, gratification overrode all. It lightened the emptiness and at the same time agitated her. Since when did one person’s opinion, other than her father’s when he was alive, have the power to move her emotions? Nothing about this could be good.