A Phantom Affair Read Online Free Page B

doctor? Where were the others? When she heard the doctor’s muffled voice by the door, she sighed. No doubt, he was giving Mr. Wolfe a report on his cousin’s condition. Deteriorating condition, if Ellen was not mistaken. Lord Wulfric’s breathing had become more shallow even while she sat here.
    The voices swarmed over her, and she looked around to find that the others were lined up around the bed. She blinked, wondering why they had rushed into the room so quickly. Mayhap it had not been quickly. Each blink of her eyes seemed to leap her forward in time as she fought to hold onto her senses. She wondered how much time had vanished, unnoted, into the eddy of pain swirling in her head.
    She tried to focus on Marian’s face. She could not. Shifting her eyes to the man beside her bosom-bow nearly undid her. She tightened her grip on the chair as she stared at Mr. Wolfe. His face was nearly as gray as Lord Wulfhc’s. She wanted to ask him why.
    Mr. Wolfe’s words answered the question she did not ask. “I shall inform the rest of the family of his death. How ironic that he should risk death with the army across the Channel and die here in his own garden.”
    â€œDead?” gasped Ellen. “Lord Wulfric is dead?”
    Marian put her hands on Ellen’s shoulders and helped her to her feet. “You must lie down, my dear. I have never seen you so drawn.”
    Tears fled down her face as she tried to shake her head. She subsided with a moan.
    â€œThe bedchamber next door has been prepared for Miss Dunbar,” Mr. Wolfe said quietly.
    â€œThank you.” Marian turned her toward the door. “Come along, Ellen. You must lie down before you injure yourself more.”
    Ellen considered protesting, but had no strength. She let Marian steer her out the door and across the hall, stumbling on nearly every step.
    The bedroom was smaller than the one they had just left, but decorated as grandly with art and a wall of books edging the fireplace. The one small part of her mind that was still working suggested these might have been the marchioness’s private rooms. The soft grays and yellows were a shadow of the brilliance of the marquess’s bedchamber, but more restful and feminine.
    Marian’s prattle bounced through Ellen’s head as a maid held out a nightdress Ellen guessed had been retrieved from a storage trunk in the attics. The scent of herbs, which would ward off insects, billowed from it. Compliantly, as if she were no more than a babe, she let Marian help her get ready for bed.
    The thick mattress surged upward to envelop her. As she rested against the pillows, she stared at the material shirred between the tester posts of the mahogany bed which was flushed with russet fire in the light from the hearth. Flowers rippled across it in a glorious copy of the garden.
    â€œHere,” Marian whispered, holding out a handkerchief. “You must stop crying. This household has suffered a horrible loss tonight. We must not encumber Lorenzo with our own grief.”
    Ellen wiped the back of her hand gracelessly against her wet cheeks. “You don’t understand, Marian. Lord Wulfric was so wondrously amusing. I was ready to fall in love with him tonight.”
    â€œAs you have with so many others.”
    â€œBut I never had a chance to fall out of love with him.”
    â€œHush.” She pulled a chair from the dressing table closer to the bed.
    The sound added to the cacophony in Ellen’s head, but she said nothing as Marian spoke softly. When her friend vowed to stay by her side until she could sleep, Ellen closed her eyes and burrowed into the pillows. She winced as she tried to make her arm comfortable.
    â€œShall I read to you?” Marian asked.
    â€œIf you would get me a book, I shall read to myself.”
    â€œI would be glad to read to you.”
    Ellen wondered how anyone who was trying to be so nice could be so irritating. She struggled to