For three days Anna’s fever rose and fell, and for three days Nicolas didn’t leave her bedside. Shy Fawn had reluctantly showed him how to get her to drink the dogwood tea that would help bring her fever down, then had left him alone. He didn’t care. He couldn’t sleep anyway. Now and then, when Anna rested quietly, he slipped off the chair by the bed and dropped into the big, overstuffed chair by the fireplace and dozed. It was enough.
One afternoon, while she slept deeply, he went through her book on theory and some of her other teaching supplies. He casually opened a notebook, and there, written on the top of the page was the title, Hissik the Skunk. He skimmed the story, feeling an immense pleasure that she’d written it down almost exactly the way he’d told it to the children. Flipping through the rest of the notebook, he discovered other stories he’d told as well. It warmed him. This woman continued to surprise him and please him. He felt in control of everything else in his life, but not his feelings for Anna.
He thought about all the mind games his tutor had put him through to toughen him up, to strengthen his mind in order to keep his body alive. Tests of stamina and endurance, Nick I can teach you everything I know, but I can’t teach you to survive. That’s up to you. And he had passed that test. He’d been left high in the mountains with no food or water, and he’d survived by using his wits. He’d made his own traps, caught his own food, and found his way home in less than four days. He knew his strengths. He was a stronger man than most. And he’d always cursed his one unfortunate weakness: his inability to get enough of sweet tasting, fair-haired, white women. But now it was just one sweet white woman. She’d been able to penetrate his hard shell as no other had, or ever would again.
On the fourth day, when Anna was still feverish, he began to have serious doubts about his decision to keep her at the compound. He was at the window, staring out at nothing in particular, when she coughed violently. Nicolas spun around and found her doubled over in bed.
Rushing to the bedside table, he picked up the cup of tea. He gently lifted Anna into a sitting position and held the cup to her mouth. “Drink, sweetheart,” he ordered, his voice husky and ragged from lack of sleep.
Anna opened her eyes. She smiled at him, her lips dry and shiny as they stretched across her teeth. Slowly she reached up and held onto his hand while he helped her drink. She sipped at the tea, then slumped back against the pillows, her soft, blue eyes still focused on him.
“How are you?” He smoothed her hair back away from her face.
“I’m so tired—” Anna coughed and swallowed. “How long have I been sick?” Her voice was dry and raspy.
“Almost four days,” he answered, bringing her hand to his lips.
“And Summer? How is she?”
Her selflessness was one of the things he loved about her. He smiled to himself, surprised that he’d allowed his thoughts to form the word.
“Everyone’s fine but you.”
She closed her eyes, sighed and snuggled deep into the bedding. Soon she was asleep again.
He looked up briefly as Shy Fawn came into the cabin with a tray of food.
“You must eat,” she said, setting the tray down on the table.
As Nicolas rose from the bed, Anna let out a cry of pain. He looked back and found her doubled over in bed. Grabbing her hands, he held them tightly in his.
“Dammit, Shy Fawn, what’s wrong with her? What’s happened?”
Shy Fawn moved slowly to the bed. She looked down at Anna, who was moaning and writhing beneath the covers. She automatically placed the palm of her hand on Anna’s stomach. When Anna sucked in her breath and cried out again, Nicolas swore and raked his fingers through his rumpled hair.
Shy Fawn pulled the covers down.
“What are you doing?”
She glared at Nicolas. “She has pain in her stomach. I am only going to look at her.” But when she’d removed the covers, Anna rolled onto her side, pulled her knees up to her chest and presented both of them with her back.
Nicolas swallowed the lump of fear in his throat when he saw the huge circle of pinkish-red blood that had seeped from Anna’s nightgown into the bedding under her.
“What is it? Dammit! What’s wrong?”
Shy Fawn didn’t turn around. “Could she be …”
“What! Could she be what!?”
Shy Fawn stared down at the growing red stain on the bedding, then turned to Nicolas. “I think she’s losing a baby.”
Nicolas paled. He pushed Shy Fawn aside and glared down at the enormous stain that had soaked into the bedding. Anna moaned again and turned over onto her back. The front of her nightgown was drenched in blood.
He pulled his tortured gaze away and looked at Shy Fawn. “What have I done? We have to get her out of here!”
Chapter Fifteen
“I s’pose I could have kept her at my place,” Doc Healy said as he closed his medical bag. “She’s lost a lot of blood, no doubt expelled the fetus yesterday. But Concetta’s the best nurse in the valley, and I don’t have anyone to watch the woman.”
Marcus Gaspard absently buttoned his shirtsleeves as he stared down at the schoolmistress who had been missing for three months. “And you don’t know how she got to your office?”
The doctor shook his head. “Damnedest thing. Something woke me up during the night. I lit the lamp, made my way to the front of the house, and there she was, asleep on the settee.”
Marcus looked back at the woman. The morning sun sent a spray of light across the bed, making her long, bleached, tangled curls shimmer. Her lips were chapped, and each tan cheekbone was stained with a wash of pink color. Marcus touched her face. It was still warm. She frowned in her sleep, wrinkling her forehead and her peeling, freckled nose.
“Well,” Doc Healy said, “I’ll be back by in the morning. Concetta knows what has to be done. G’bye, Marc.”
“Doc?”
Doc Healy paused at the door. “Something else?”
“Let’s keep the miscarriage between the two of us.”
The doctor shrugged. “Whatever you say.”
Marcus glanced up as the doctor left the room, but his gaze quickly went back to the woman in the bed. He wondered where in the devil she’d been all this time, and who’d dropped her off at Doc Healy’s.
He glanced at the clothes the housekeeper had rolled up and placed by the door. As he was about to examine the bundle, Concetta scurried into the room and grabbed the clothing from the floor.
“Just a minute,” he ordered.
Concetta waved him away. “It’s only her soiled clothes. I go to wash them.”
“Give them to me.”
“What you want with her dirty things?” She appeared casual, but Marcus noticed that she refused to meet his gaze. It was the one way he had of knowing she was trying to hide something.
He reached for the clothes. “I know what happened. Give them to me.”
Concetta sighed and handed him the bundle.
Marcus took it to his room and closed the door. He put the clothes on the bed and lifted them apart. A white petticoat that had been rolled into a ball fell open, revealing a large, round circle of blood. Marcus bent to examine the stain.
The bedroom door opened and Gretchen sailed into the room. Marcus quickly covered the stained petticoat with a rumpled yellow dress.
“What’s this I hear about the schoolmistress being left on Doc Healy’s doorstep?” She walked to the bed. “Where has she been?”
“I don’t know. She isn’t conscious.”
Gretchen gazed at the bundle of clothes. “What’s wrong with her?”
“How the hell should I know?” He stepped in front of the bundle, not wanting Gretchen to see the damning evidence against the schoolmistress until he’d had a chance to dig into the matter. The possibility that she’d been raped by Indians was news too juicy to give to Gretchen. He knew his wife’s taste for gossip.
“Are those hers?” Gretchen edged herself around her husband and reac
hed for the yellow dress.
He grabbed them before she could touch them. “Yes, they are,” he said quietly.
Gretchen frowned at her husband. “Why do you have them? Shouldn’t you give them to Concetta?”
Marcus turned away from her.
“What are you hiding, Marcus?” She lunged for the bundle, knocking it from his hands. The bloodstained petticoat opened as it hit the floor.
Gretchen gasped. “Marcus, it’s blood!”
He grabbed her arms and turned her toward him. “Yes, dammit. It’s blood.”
Gretchen’s eyes widened, but not in horror. She wrenched herself from her husband’s grasp and picked up the soiled petticoat from the floor. She threw her husband a triumphant look. “What’s this?” Her nostrils flared. “Oh, God. This is an awful lot of blood. Did she miscarry?”
Marcus nodded, clenching his jaw at the gleeful sound in his wife’s voice. “This is to stay between us.”
A sharp laugh exploded from Gretchen’s mouth. “You don’t think Concetta knows what happened?”
“I’ll keep her quiet.”
Gretchen snorted. “That’ll be the day.”
“You,” Marcus said, pulling the petticoat from his wife’s grasp, “get in there and keep an eye on both of them.”
“And just what am I supposed to be looking for?”
Marcus lifted his buckskin jacket off the bedpost. “Use that insatiable talent you have for snooping into other people’s business.”
She glared at him. “And do what?”
“Find out if Concetta knows something she isn’t telling me.” He slipped into his jacket and walked to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I have an appointment. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Gretchen followed her husband out of the bedroom. When he went downstairs, she crossed the hallway into the room where the schoolmistress was resting. She narrowed her eyes at Concetta, who was busy scrubbing the woman’s filthy, broken fingernails.
Gretchen walked to the bedside. “Did you undress her?”
Concetta’s usual disrespectful glare slid to the floor. “Si.”
“You saw her clothing?” When Concetta nodded, Gretchen inched closer. “She’s miscarried, hasn’t she?”
Concetta’s head didn’t move. She continued scrubbing the schoolmistress’s nails.
Gretchen rapped her knuckles against Concetta’s temple. “Answer me! She’s miscarried.”
Concetta didn’t wince. “Si. ”
Gretchen almost shouted with joy. “I knew it. I just knew it.” The little schoolmistress had been kidnapped by the Indians and raped. She danced around the room, delighted with the news. “I wonder how she got rid of it? Some kind of savage herbal quackery, no doubt.”
She swung back to the bed. “God. Just look at her. She hasn’t seen a civilized face in months, you can tell.” Gretchen bent closer and wrinkled her nose. “Nor has she seen a bath, it would seem.”
Concetta finished the woman’s hands, then tried to pull a comb through her tangled hair.
“Has she been awake at all?”
Concetta shook her head. “The fever is nasty. She might sleep for days. When she breathe it sound like many niños dragging sticks along a fence.” Concetta ran a cool cloth over Anna’s flushed face. Each time the cloth dampened the hair at Anna’s temples and forehead, it curled more tightly.
“I want to know the minute she wakes up. Do you understand me, you lazy bitch?”
Concetta ignored the slur. She merely got up off the bed and waddled toward the door. “I must get more water.”
Gretchen frowned at the obese woman’s back. It angered her that Concetta couldn’t be intimidated. She was not only disrespectful, but she was the laziest servant in the world. If Jean-Claude hadn’t made provisions for her to stay on as housekeeper after his death, she would have seen to it that Marcus tossed Concetta out on her fat behind months ago.
Gretchen heard movement, turned quickly and crossed to the bed. The schoolmistress was moving about restlessly, as if having a bad dream. Gretchen sat down beside her and took her hand.
“Anna?” she said, using a soft, familiar tone. “Anna, are you awake?”
The woman’s head thrashed back and forth on the pillow. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, causing tears to slide down her temples, into her hair. Tiny frantic sounds rose from her throat. “No,” she whimpered. “No!”
Gretchen bent closer to her face and stroked her hair, hoping to get her to speak again. Perhaps, in her delirium, she would say something that would give them a clue as to where she’d been.
“Anna, dear. Where have you been?”
Fresh tears streamed down Anna’s cheeks. She pulled her hand away and coughed until she was panting against the pillow.
Gretchen swore under her breath, then stood up to leave. She glanced back once before leaving the room. The woman would have to be watched. Carefully.
The nightmare was real. She stood beside Nicolas, pinching his arm as she looked down into the grave that held the tiny casket. My baby. My poor, sweet baby!
Summer is at peace, Anna.
She looked up at his placid face. How could he stand there so calmly? What have I done? Why was she taken from me, too?
Suddenly Anna was wrenched from his side. Shy Fawn was clawing at her, scratching her face and neck with long, curved fingernails. Shaman bitch! Murderer! You killed her!
Anna tried to pull away, but Shy Fawn’s grip was like iron. Don’t Please, don’t But she was falling into the pit that held Summer’s casket. Falling … falling … falling … No! Help me, please!
“Please,” Anna whimpered weakly as she fell. Just before she hit the casket, she sat up with a start. Her breath came in hoarse, dry heaves. She dashed away her tears and opened her eyes, pulling against the swelling and the mucus that had glued them shut.
She blinked, peering through the filmy coating, and looked across the room at the door. Through the fuzzy haze it looked as though the door was open. She picked up a corner of the sheet and rubbed her eyes. The sheet felt different. Her fingers moved tentatively over the fabric, testing it for familiarity. Her glance caught the delicate lace ruffle at her wrist, and she quickly put her hand on her chest, realizing for the first time that the nightgown she wore wasn’t hers.
She swallowed hard and lowered her eyes, focusing on the quilt. It was white with raised crocheted red roses. She’d never seen it before.
She looked frantically around the strange room. Where was she? Her glance darted from object to object, and her senses screamed for her to find something familiar. The bed, with its crocheted lace canopy, the bed linens, so crisp and clean, the light blue wallpaper with the delicate pink tulips and the dark blue border—it was all beautiful, and all totally unknown.
She coughed and slid down in bed, dragging the bedding to her chin. The last thing she remembered clearly was falling asleep with Summer at the river. She had to get up and find out where she was. When she pulled herself up on her elbows, her head pounded and her eyes hurt. The small movement exhausted her and she flopped back onto the pillow. The spicy smell of a cinnamon sachet from the gown she was wearing reached her nostrils as she snuggled deeper into the clean, comfortable bedding, and fell asleep, again.
When Anna awakened, the room was still light. She reached up and touched her chest, then looked down to find a piece of gray flannel sticking out around the unbuttoned opening. Pulling it off, she struggled to sit up, her eyes watering as the strong smell of camphor reached her face. She sat up slowly, testing her strength, then slid her legs over the side of the bed.
“No, no, señorita. ”
Anna turned, startled at the sound of another voice in the room. She watched as a heavy Spanish woman in a garish red skirt and blouse waddled quickly toward the bed.
“You no can get up. Stay,” she said, gently pushing Anna back into bed. “You sick niña. ”
“Who—” Anna broke int
o a coughing fit. The old woman lumbered to the table by the bed, poured a cup of water and held it toward her.
Anna lifted her fingers to hold the cup, but her hand shook so badly, she let it drop back onto the bed. She sipped a little of the water, then pushed it away. “Thank you,” she whispered, then slid back under the covers. She watched the Spanish woman return the cup to the table. “Who are you?”
The woman turned and smiled at her, showing large, strong white teeth. “I am Concetta.”
Anna felt a stab of fear. “How … how did I get here?”
Concetta walked to the door and peeked around the corner, looking both ways down what Anna assumed to be a hallway. She moved quietly back to the bed. “I am Nicky’s housekeeper,” she said, just above a whisper.
His name penetrated Anna’s foggy brain. “Nicolas?”
The woman grinned. “You know my Nicky.”
She gave her a weak smile of understanding. She was safe, and she was warm.
Concetta put her hand on Anna’s arm and shook her head. “But you must remember, maestra, while you are here, you do not know of him. You do not know any of them.” Her eyes were snapping black.
Anna swallowed. “I … I’m not to know any of them.”
She slid her hand to the bed and winced as she tried to pull herself up. The pain between her legs was fresh. She looked at Concetta, panicked. “What happened to me?”
“You got fever. They bring you to the doctor. He bring you here, because I am a good nurse,” she said proudly.
“And …” Anna was afraid to voice her next fear. “Am I … all right?”
Concetta sighed and sat down beside her on the bed. Before the woman said a word, Anna knew what had happened, and she started to cry.
“I … I lost it, didn’t I?”
Concetta nodded, smoothing Anna’s hair. “I’m sorry.”
Anna tried to stop crying, but each breath became a shaky, heaving gasp. “Does Ni—Does he know?”
Concetta nodded. “But, senorita, you must not remember anything from before.” She took Anna’s shoulder and looked her square in the face. “Do you understand?”
Secrets of a Midnight Moon--The Moon Trilogy--Book One Page 24