“He isn’t going on a journey, you fool man. He just isn’t going home. You give him that valise, then go back where you came from so you aren’t underfoot.” She walked away, shaking her head. “As if we need valets and such here.”
“I am not a valet,” Brigsby said to her back. “I am a manservant, and skilled in many responsibilities. If necessary I can perform your duties better than you can.”
Beth stopped, straightened, and pivoted.
Brigsby looked down his nose even when not trying. Now he did try. “I am a cook, for example. I also attend to my gentleman’s household. All that he requires, I do for him.” He lifted the valise high and moved it up and down. “Please show me where his chambers are, so I can settle him in.”
Beth walked back toward Brigsby with murder in her eyes.
Chase thought it a good moment to cough. They both turned their heads, startled. Brigsby recovered first. “Ah, there you are, sir. I have what you will need.” He carried in the valise while Beth disappeared. Jeremy lingered at the doorway, caught Chase’s eye, and gestured to the street. Chase let him know to bide his time.
He opened the valise. He had indeed sent an incomplete list with Jeremy, since his thoughts had been on little besides Minerva. Brigsby had packed the shirts, but also a stack of clean cravats, an extra waistcoat, small clothes, and grooming implements. It was enough for a journey of five or six days, not a night or so in a house right in town.
“Your pistol and some lead is under it all,” Brigsby said quietly. “You usually take it with you when you travel, so I thought I should bring it too.”
“I don’t think I will need it, but you would not know that so your forethought was understandable.” He closed the valise and set it aside.
“That woman appears to think I should leave, sir.” Brigsby appeared as bland as ever. “If that is your request, I will now do so.”
“That will have to wait until I return. I need the carriage for a few hours.”
“If you tell me where your guest quarters are, I will unpack for you while I wait.”
“I have no idea where they are. Perhaps right in this library. Ask Beth. She is the woman you just spoke with.”
Brigsby’s mouth pursed. “Am I to address her as Beth, sir?”
“It might be better, considering your first meeting, to call her Mrs. Shepherdson. She is down in the kitchen now. She would rather be above with Miss Hepplewhite, so you can offer to make some supper for the household in her stead. She may decide you are not a nuisance then.”
Brigsby’s eyebrows rose a fraction. Chase walked around him and strode to the door. “Come with me, Jeremy. We have a small errand to address.”
Jeremy caught up at the carriage. “If we are going where I think, you might take that pistol.”
Chase climbed in. “If I take it, I will probably use it on the rogue. Get up with the coachman and make sure he doesn’t dally.”
* * *
“—so the duke sent for a royal physician, who was the other man here, the one with the long, skinny face. Useful to have a relative who is a duke. I could use one.” Beth chatted on, her spirits rising with each minute. Minerva watched from her bed in the room lit by only one lamp. Her headache was almost gone, but Beth insisted on laying damp compresses on her brow every few minutes. She could feel the pull of the poultice on her head, somewhere on her crown above her left eye. There had been no fresh blood, even when she demanded that Beth help her to sit more upright.
She finished the last of the soup and bread and lifted the tray. “It was delicious. Thank you. Tomorrow perhaps I will eat something more substantial. I am somewhat hungry.”
“Soup wasn’t all mine. That valet finished it. ‘Where are your herbs,’ he kept asking. ‘Where is your cream? Where is your pepper?’ I left him to figure it out himself, since he is so special.”
“If Brigsby is here, where is Chase?”
Beth stood and took the tray and turned to set it on a table. She fussed with the dishes. “I expect he will be back soon. Maybe he went to talk to his cousin.”
After a very long while facing that table, Beth returned to her chair beside the bed. She reached into the bowl for a newly dampened cloth.
“No more, please.” Minerva removed the cloth still dripping water onto her nose. “I don’t think I need these anymore. In fact, I don’t think I need to be in this bed anymore.”
“Since it is night, where else would you be?”
“Doing something other than this. I am not tired at all. I slept all day. I am not an invalid. I was well shocked and very shaken, but I am recovered now.” She cast the bedclothes aside. “In the least I will sit in a chair, not this bed, and light more lamps so I can read.”
“You are to remain in bed,” Beth said, blocking her from rising with her body. “Two doctors said so. Two.”
“Oh, what do they know.”
“More than you do.”
“I’ll go mad if I have to stay here when I am not even tired. Now, stand aside so I can—”
“What do you think you are doing?”
She froze. Not Beth’s voice. Chase’s.
She looked up to see him at the doorway to her chamber, looking in. He appeared tired, disheveled, and not happy.
“Back in bed, Minerva.” He stepped in. Beth gave her a self-satisfied look and left with the tray.
“It is not necessary.”
“Bed rest. One week. The doctors were explicit.” He held up the bedclothes and gestured. She swung her legs back on the bed and punched the coverlet.
He sat in the chair. “Your restlessness is a good sign, though.”
It was not only restlessness that she experienced this moment, but also sharp annoyance. “You did not rest in bed after you were hit on the head, so why should I have to?”
“That was different.”
“It wasn’t. Not at all.”
“You bled profusely.”
“You bled enough. Head wound, you said. They always bleed a lot, you said.”
He tried to appear sympathetic, but only looked stern. “You were unconscious. There could be damage inside your head.”
“You were unconscious. Did you not worry about damage inside your head?”
“I could tell there was none. And I was only unconscious for a few moments.”
“It was many moments. And if you could tell there was no damage, so can I. My headache is almost gone, and the light does not bother me. Watch, I’ll stare right at the lamp.” She did just that. He reached over and moved it so she no longer could.
“I am telling you it is not the same,” he said firmly.
She punched the coverlet again. “It is not the same because I am a woman, is what you mean.”
“Exactly. Also because if anything happened to you because you ignored the doctors’ advice, I would never forgive myself. So indulge me, and do as you were told.”
She didn’t like it, but he had a look about him that did not encourage more rebellion. “I will stay resting in bed three days. However, if after that I am myself again, and have no pains or anything else, I will decide I am fully recovered and I want you to admit as much too.”
He closed his eyes in forbearance, but nodded.