Lord Somerton's Heir Read Free Page A

sickroom but to the fact that it was not Anthony whose long frame occupied the finely carved bed. Isabel set the candlestick on a table near the bed and approached the bed.
    Sebastian Alder’s dramatic arrival at Somerton House had been met with remarkable calm by the servants, who seemed to take it for granted that when one Lord Somerton died, another took his place. Although they were not generally carried in through the front door on a stretcher.
    The doctor she had engaged had told her that Sebastian had taken a musket ball just beneath his right ribs. The ball had passed through and, while it appeared to have missed anything major, the wound had become infected and the lack of proper care and attention in the days since the battle had contributed to a nasty mess and a wound fever.
    Isabel knew from reports from Bennet and gossip from her own maid, Lucy, that Sebastian had barely been lucid since his arrival and it frustrated her that propriety forbade her interference.
    ‘Pish to propriety,’ she repeated to herself, looking down at the man who lay sprawled in the large bed, one of Anthony’s night shirts open at the neck and twisted around his chest, a testimony to his restless state.
    She bent over the bed. Even though Anthony’s nightshirt had been made with plenty of room, it seemed too tight across the shoulders of this man. She attempted to untangle the garment but Sebastian pulled away from her, muttering incoherently.
    She walked over to the shuttered window, throwing it wide. The cool night air rushed into the room and she paused for a moment, her hands still on the casement, letting the breeze tumble her hair before turning back to the room. The fire flickered in the draught and she bent over it, scattering the logs with the poker. The room would be cool within a short time.
    Returning to the bed, Isabel pulled back the heavy blankets, leaving only a sheet covering the feverish man. The material clung to his body, revealing a broad chest tapering to narrow hips, with strong horseman’s thighs. She swallowed. The only man with whom she had such an intimate acquaintance had been her husband and those were memories she pushed away.
    To distract herself she looked around and saw a bowl of water with a cloth sitting on the nightstand. Isabel wet the cloth and folded it into a pad, laying it across the man’s burning forehead and then his wrists. She kept this up until he calmed and settled into a fitful sleep.
    Isabel pulled up a chair and set herself to watch. Sebastian Alder’s right hand lay outside the covers, palm up, the fingers curled. Something in the vulnerability of the gesture touched her and she reached out and laid her hand on his. Her little hand seemed lost against his and she picked it up, seeing even in the candlelight the grime of the battlefield still ingrained around his fingernails, and the calluses and scars of his years of soldiering. She thought of Anthony’s soft, white, immaculately manicured fingers and shivered.
    His fingers tightened on hers and he turned his face to her, his eyes wide and dark in the light of the candlelight. He mumbled something and she leaned in close to hear him.
    ‘ Inez. Você precisa voltar para mim ,’ he murmured, his voice hoarse with fever.
    Beyond the name Inez, she understood nothing and wondered if he spoke in Portuguese or Spanish. He began to speak rapidly in the same foreign language, his fingers tightening on hers with urgency, his eyes beseeching her for an answer she could not give.
    In the end she ventured the one Spanish word she did know. ‘Si, Sebastian,’ she said, adding in English, ‘I am here.’
    His eyes closed, the grip on her hand relaxed and he slept at last.
    ***
    For a long moment Sebastian thought that, if he opened his eyes, he would find himself back in the fetid ward of the hospital with no beautiful ladies spinning strange stories. The feel of the fine linen beneath his fingers and the soft bolsters beneath his head