Free Angel's Touch by Elizabeth Bailey

you’ve called no doctor
to you, I’ll be bound.’
    ‘ Of
course I have not. But I shall send for Claughton to look me
over.’
    ‘ Aye, that you will, me lord, if I’ve to fetch him to you
meself,’ promised his henchman grimly. ‘Now just you wait while I
find a boy to hold the horses and I’ll help you up, me
lord.’
    ‘ Don’t be a fool, man,’ snapped his lordship. ‘I can manage
very well.’
    But he winced as he
hoisted himself into the phaeton, a sign of pain that was not
missed by his anxiously watching attendant, who lost no time in
deprecating this foolish independence in a spate of heavy
sarcasm.
    ‘ Aye, that’s right, me lord. You go for to make everything
worse for yourself with your obstinate ways. Don’t you pay no mind
to them as has nursed you through all those tricksy times when your
lordship never thought to walk on your legs again.’
    ‘ Damn you, Hoff, be silent,’ begged his master, closing his
eyes tight shut against the memories that these words brought
crowding in.
    The
groom, seeing the reins held in his master’s competent hands and
the horses quietly standing, ventured to let go their heads and
leap nimbly up to take his place in the phaeton. The gentleman was
leaning one elbow on his good leg and had shaded his eyes with his
hand. The groom’s gruff tone entirely failed to conceal his anxious
concern.
    ‘ Do
you pass over them reins, me lord, afore you falls out of this here
rig.’
    His
lordship brought his hand down, rapping out, ‘I am quite capable of
driving this vehicle to Braxted Park, and I’ll thank you to mind
your place and your tongue!’
    The curt tone was
alien both to him and to his faithful attendant.
    ‘ As
your lordship pleases,’ said Hoff stiffly, drawing himself up into
the erect posture of the perfect servant.
    His master turned to
look at him. Hoff had been with him since his own childhood, and
was devoted to him as he well knew. He realised that this
unaccustomed and undeserved harshness had deeply hurt the man.
    His
hand went out to briefly touch the groom’s arm and, when the
servant looked round, he gave him a rather wan smile.
    ‘ Forgive me, Hoff. I am not myself. But
I must drive. I
need—I need occupation.’
    ‘ Well, o’course, me lord, I understand,’ said the groom,
unbending at once. ‘Just you let me have the reins whenever you
feel yourself tiring.’
    All
the same, he kept a sharp watch and held himself in readiness to
intervene at need. He knew his master, and if something had not
happened to bring back that dark period—those days when the whole
household feared at times for his lordship’s reason, let alone his
life—then his name was not Samuel Hoff.
    The
groom was perfectly right. The Marquis of Salmesbury, struggling
with his own particular demon, was indeed remembering the appalling
events of two years ago, when his careless haste had cost his
children their mother’s life and had left him a cripple.
     
     
     

Chapter
Four
     
    Miss
Lambourn, hurrying away to her lodging with her mind all chaos, was
shocked, but secretly relieved, to hear from the maid hired for the
season by her patroness that her ladyship had got up from her bed
and gone with Mrs Polegate to the ladies’ coffee-room.
    ‘ She
said as she would see you in the Assembly Rooms later, miss,’ added
the girl.
    Verity thanked her and
escaped to her little bedchamber, glad of a few minutes of solitude
to collect her disordered thoughts.
    How much more
discomfiture must she bear on account of this wretched Mr Haverigg?
She could scarce open her mouth in his presence without letting
fall some incautious word that resulted in her own confusion. Was
she so tactless? Or was he merely touchy?
    No,
that was unfair. After all, who would not be a trifle out of temper
after being knocked so violently to the ground? Poor Mr Haverigg
had taken it remarkably well, she was forced to admit. It had not
been that which
had caused him to clam up and look