Once Upon a Castle - Jill Gregory [74]
“When Father received your letter, he was already too weak to leave his bed. But it cheered him to hear from his old friend. He spent hours afterward, whenever he was strong enough, talking about you and the adventures the two of you shared in your youth. I thought…I thought I might find a friend in you as well.”
Nodding, Lord Falcon patted the chair that Simmons had positioned beside the bed. “Come and sit a while, my dear. Tell me about your father’s work. Did he ever write the book he’d planned, about his study of herbs and plants in the Dark Continent?”
Felicity sat and folded her hands primly in her lap. “I’m afraid not. I helped him with voluminous notes on the subject. He dreamed of the day his writings would be published. But Father was more a dreamer than a doer, I’m afraid. He often said he never would have left the comfort of home and hearth had he not been prodded by his old friend. He claimed that though he was as timid as a churchmouse, you were absolutely fearless.”
Lord Falcon gave a snort of derision. “Fearless? I thought so at the time. Now I wonder if I wasn’t simply foolish. It’s a family curse, I’m afraid. Every male in my family has this need to explore the unknown. And all, with the exception of me, have died young. My father helped chart the Nile and drowned when his boat overturned. His father before him traveled to the Orient and never returned. I grew up accepting this restlessness, this need for adventure, as my fate. When your father and I fell into a cave deep in the heart of the jungle, I feared I was under the family curse as well. Ironic, isn’t it? We emerged unscathed and lived to be old men.” His voice lowered with passion. “But I would willingly give up every year that I have lived if it would remove the curse from my own sons.”
Felicity heard the pain in his voice. “What has happened to your sons, Lord Falcon?”
He looked away, but not before she saw the haunted look in his eyes. “My oldest, Chandler, has been lost in the Amazon and is presumed dead.”
She reached a hand to his. “I’m so sorry.”
He studied the long, tapered fingers, so like another he’d known. “William, my younger son, was thrown from his horse while racing across the moors. He now lies broken and lost to us in body and mind. He is trapped in the bed of his youth, which he may never leave.”
“How terrible.” She glanced at Simmons, who stood stiffly beside the table, waiting to serve their breakfast. “Can nothing be done for him?”
The old man shook his head. “The doctor has done all he can. The rest is up to the fates. But if the Falcon curse is to be believed, the fates will not be kind, and William’s wife will soon be a widow.”
“His wife?”
“You did not meet Honora?” the old man asked.
“It was very late when I arrived last night.” The thought of another young woman was most appealing. Perhaps they could find common ground. Oh, it would be wonderful to have someone she could call friend.
“I fear Honora’s life at Falcon’s Lair is not what she’d hoped. Instead of hosting lavish parties and teas, she must nurse a dying husband and spend long days dispensing medicine with a doctor.”
Lord Falcon signaled for his tray, and Simmons obliged, tucking a napkin into the front of the old man’s nightshirt before pouring tea.
Felicity sipped her tea and studied the man in the bed. It wasn’t only his voice that reminded her of a lion. A mane of silver hair, in need of a trim, fell to his shoulders. His face, though etched with the lines of age, was still handsome. And his eyes. So like the ones she had seen in the darkened moors and again in her room. Shadowy, watchful, they seemed to see more than they cared to reveal. They were watching her now, over the rim of his cup.
“How long can you stay in England, my dear?”
She gave a negligent shrug of her shoulders. “I haven’t really set a time. But I thought a few weeks.”
“Nonsense. That’s not nearly long enough. You’ll need at least a few months to get to know this lovely land and its people.”
“Lord Falcon, I couldn’t possibly stay a few months.”
“Why not?” he