Page 2 of The Hidden Heart
The old man glared at her for a long moment. “Afraid you might lose your share of my estate is more like it. Ha! Well, I have news for you. I ain’t dying. And even if I was, I wouldn’t be leaving anything to you and that roué of a husband of yours.”
“Uncle…” Lord Vesey, standing behind and to the side of his wife, tried an indulgent laugh. “You will give everyone the wrong idea. Others are not aware of your little fondness for jokes….”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” the General pointed out sharply, sounding stronger with each passing moment. “Damme! Nobody invited you here. You’re a damned nuisance.”
“Oh, Gramps!” Gabriela burst out, unable to restrain herself any longer. “You’re all right! We thought you were dying.”
The General turned his head and saw Gabriela standing on the other side of the bed, Jessica behind her, and he smiled.
“Now, would I do a thing like that?” he asked, extending his hand to the girl.
Tears spilled out of Gabriela’s eyes, and she leaned forward to take her great-uncle’s hand. “I am so glad you are all right. We were horribly scared.”
“I’m sure you were, Gaby.” The old man squeezed her hand with only a remnant of his former strength. “But no need. I’m still breathing.”
He looked toward the foot of the bed, where his doctor and the village vicar stood, staring at him in astonishment. “No thanks to you, I’m sure,” General Streathern went on, talking to the doctor. “Go away. You look like a couple of damned crows standing there. I’m not dying.”
“General, you must not excite yourself,” the doctor said in a calming voice. “You have been unconscious for almost a week now.”
“No, I haven’t. Woke up last night. Just went back to sleep.”
“It must have been the sound of Lady Vesey’s voice that got through to you,” the vicar said, with an admiring smile in that woman’s direction.
“Humph!” the General responded. “Well, you were a fool when you were young, Babcock, so no use expecting you to be any better when you’re old. Hearing that baggage’s voice is more likely to send me over than bring me back.”
“What!” Leona exclaimed, setting her hands on her hips indignantly. “Well, I like that. We left London and drove all the way up to this godforsaken place just because we heard you were ill. And this is the thanks we get?”
“I didn’t ask you to come here,” the General said reasonably. “Nobody did. You came because you hoped there was money in it for you. It’s the only reason the two of you ever set foot in this house, and I told you last time not to return. You’re damned nervy, that’s all I can say, to come strutting back in here. You are a conniving bit o’ muslin, Leona, and I thank God you’re not my blood relative. I wish I could say the same about that piece of trash you’re married to.” He broke off his harangue long enough to shoot Lord Vesey a malevolent glare. “Now get out, both of you. I don’t want to see your faces again.”
“Perhaps we had best go back to our rooms,” Lord Vesey suggested to his wife, looking a shade paler than he had a few moments before.
“Your rooms? You’re staying here?” The General’s face reddened alarmingly.
“Why, yes, of course,” Leona replied. “Where else would we stay?”
“I told you you were not welcome in this house,” the General snapped, struggling weakly to sit up.
“Please, General, calm yourself,” the doctor said, hurrying around the bed to put his hands on the old man’s shoulders and push him back down flat on the bed. “You will bring on another apopolexy if you don’t watch out.”
“The devil take it!” General Streathern glared at the doctor, but he didn’t have the strength to defy him. “I want them out of my house, do you understand?”
“But, General,” the vicar protested. “Lord Vesey is your nephew. And Lady Vesey—”
He broke off abruptly as the General fixed him with a glare.
“This is my house,” General Streathern said coldly, “and I am in charge of who does and does not stay here. Don’t tell me who I can have in my house, Babcock.”
“No, of course not, General,” the vicar said, forcing a smile. “I did not mean to be presumptuous. It is just—they traveled so far, and where are they to stay?”
“Let ’em stay with you, if you like them so much.”
Reverend Babcock chuckled indulgently, a sound that seemed to irritate the irascible old man even more.
“There’s an inn in Lapham,” he said, naming the local village. “Let them stay there if they’re so bloody-minded they have to remain. But I refuse to let them torture me with their whinings and cryings and making my servants unhappy. Nothing worse than having the maids weeping all over the place because he’s backing them into corners and taking liberties or she’s screeching at them like a harpy and slapping them. If a man cannot have peace when he’s been at death’s door for a week, then I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”
“Of course you can have peace,” the doctor told him soothingly, sending an expressive look in the direction of Lord and Lady Vesey. “My lord…”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Lord Vesey gave a smile that looked more like the death rictus of a corpse. “Anything to make the General feel better. Lady Vesey and I will take our leave right away.”
