by Lara Temple
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise. I told you, I like your choices of fauna. Vixens and ferrets are very resourceful; they must depend on their wits rather than brute strength. Of course, you would say I need depend on neither because I am an heiress.’
Again his smile flickered, but then he was gone and she was alone with herself again.
Chapter Eight
It was white, bright and yellow at the edges, very white at the centre. He closed his eyes again and turned away, but he was so stiff his head hardly moved. Not just his head was stuck, nothing seemed to move. Was he tied down? Yes, here it was, something pressing his head into the earth. God, they were burying him! No, it was softer, just a light touch, but very hot, or perhaps that was him because he felt hot all over and in pain. Now he could feel that all over, too.
Oh, hell, he remembered.
I’m ill. I hate this.
He turned back to find that touch and there it was, soft, light, cool, just skimming his forehead and down to his cheek. He could feel his stubble catch at the caress and wished she would continue to his mouth so he could taste her. Perhaps this was still part of the jumble of dreams hovering around the edges of his mind, billowy white clouds on the horizon.
Then the hand was gone.
‘Can you hear me? You should try to drink something. Do you think you could try?’
‘I’m never ill.’ Was that his voice? Pathetic.
‘So you already told me. Twice. Well, now you are.’
‘Shouldn’t be here. You’ll be ill.’ He sounded drunk, even to himself.
‘If I am going to be ill, I will be ill and finally someone will nurse me. Now stop arguing about everything. This is becoming very repetitive. You are ill, you aren’t going to Keynsham and you have no choice about who is going to nurse you because there is no one else here.’
He forced his eyes open at that.
‘Hollywell. I saw the light in the library.’
She put down the cloth she had been bathing his face with.
‘I thought you were the ghost thumping around when you came in.’
He watched the corner of her smile until his eyes grew heavy again.
‘You should’ve run. Ghosts... Dangerous...’
She laughed at that, a warm sound that pressed back at the core of pain. Even in the murk of thudding misery, some part of him was carving out spaces of awareness. One was engaged in following the movements of the cloth and her fingers over his burning face. Another was an echo chamber for her sounds—her voice, moving between brusque and soothing, the rustle and shift of her clothes. Each space expanded and took centre stage in turn, like moving from stall to stall at a village fair. Now it was her laugh, an infectious tumble of sound, at his reply.
‘Too true. Now it’s time to be quiet. You must sleep...’
‘No!’
Not sleep. He forced his eyes open even though the light burned, adding to the ache that was weighing him down.
She wasn’t smiling now, the auburn brows were tugged together, separated by only two deep furrows, and the honeyed eyes were worried.
‘You must sleep. The more you fight, the weaker you make yourself. This isn’t a case for brute force.’ Her voice had changed, lowered, or he was fading again. He didn’t want to go yet. He might not come back from the darkness this time.
‘Lily... Don’t go.’ He hadn’t meant to say that, perhaps he hadn’t.
He couldn’t keep his eyes open, they burned so much. Everything was burning, pounding, like the siege in Ciudad Rodrigo, where they had been sent in to help hold off the French until the English and Portuguese could complete the Torres Vedras forts. They should have been just the advance force for Craufurd and the Light Brigade, but they and the Spanish had waited in vain, week after week of French cannonballs slamming against ancient rock, each strike jarring them to their teeth, covering them with dust and raising the stench of rotting bodies from the earth.
In the end the Spanish Commander, Herrasti, had warned them he was going to surrender, giving them a night to make their escape through French lines. His men had been exhausted, drained of will. They had begged to be left to sleep and he had shouted at them, ‘If you sleep, you’ll wake up in a French prison or not wake up at all...’
Her hand was leagues cooler than his, closing around his aching fingers. He had no skin, no muscle left, just bones, knuckles hard and white pressed together in her hand, as smooth as satin, sliding over his.
‘Not tonight.’ Her voice had dipped low, into the water. ‘No dying tonight. The grim reaper will have to grapple with me and I don’t fancy his odds at the moment. So sleep.’
He didn’t trust her, but there was nothing he could do. Her voice was sinking him lower and lower, disintegrating him. All he had left was the slide of her thumb over the back of his hand and then that was gone as well. With his last breath, he clung to the lifeline.
‘Lily, stay...’
* * *
He must have slept, because this time when he woke again, he was thirsty.
He knew that feeling too well from the war. It wasn’t like hunger. Hunger was easy; you felt it in your gut. Thirst often started nameless, a need that shifted around the body, searching for something to lean on, aggravating the nerves as it went. He groped after it and an image rose—as sharp as if he was there—Rickie was seated on a small rug by the kitchen hearth, the warmest place in their house in Edinburgh, with one of the neighbours’ kittens a ball of fur in his small lap. That much might have been a real memory, but in this image seated on the floor by his side and leaning against the rough stone wall with a book in her lap was Lily.
He must be ill, the vision had all the power of a hallucination, subverting reality and memory. It wasn’t even based on a real memory. Neither of his parents had read books to them and had certainly been too proper to sit by the kitchen hearth, and though he and Cat had read a great deal, it had been a solitary occupation. Perhaps he had read to Rickie, but he couldn’t remember. He remembered them playing with a ball he fashioned from strips of rags stuffed into a sock Cat knitted. Cards. He had learned some tricks in the market near his school and Rickie loved watching him practise, his frail little hands trying and failing to mimic his movements.
He pressed his palm against the ache in his forehead, dragging his thoughts to the surface—he wasn’t in Edinburgh. He couldn’t be. So where the hell was he?
His body reviewed its position and reported. This bed was even more uncomfortable than his bed at the Ship. Not a bed, a sofa? The wooden scrolling was digging into his shoulder and the side of his leg, and it was much too short. And there was something on his chest. No, someone.
That and the thirst finally brought him to the surface and he forced open his eyes.
Her hair had tumbled from its pins and lay over her shoulder, a cinnamon brown in the gloomy room. She was seated on the floor, her head leaning against his chest, and he couldn’t see much of her face, just the curve of her cheek, the auburn upward brush of her eyebrow and those long gold-tipped eyelashes spearing her faint freckles. His brief spasm of concern faded and he didn’t move. She was merely asleep. Whether this was real or merely a fever-induced hallucination, it was surprisingly pleasant and he didn’t want to disturb it.
What the hell was he doing in Albert’s library with Lily Wallace, sleeping?
Then his memory reasserted itself. The light in the window. Lily. His head. Oh, hell.
He looked carefully towards the window. The storm was still raging, but it wasn’t dark, which meant he could not have been unconscious for too long. He had to leave before anyone found them like this.
If he could only find a way to make his body do what he wanted.
He struggled to pull himself into a sitting position while trying not to wake Lily. It wasn’t her weight on his chest that defeated him, b
ut his muscles which were transformed into aching stalks of damp straw. How the hell was sitting so difficult? He had been sitting since he was a baby. One didn’t forget how to do it, did they?
He only succeeded in shifting Lily and she woke into an alertness worthy of his best soldiers.
‘You’re awake. Ow!’ She rose on to her knees, then squeaked and fell back on to her behind.
Fear drove him into a half-sitting position after all.
‘What is wrong? Are you hurt?’
It was humiliating. His voice was weaker than his muscles.
‘My legs are all pins and needles,’ she replied, rubbing at her thigh. The cheek that had rested against him was red and marked from the folds of his coat and even in his pathetic state he almost acted on the urge to press his mouth to those marks and coax her skin smooth again. He closed his eyes. Not appropriate thoughts under any circumstances; right now they were as near disastrous as possible. He had to rise, get on his horse and continue to the Hall. She must return there as soon as possible. Had he been hallucinating or did she actually say she was there alone? He must have been. She could not be that mad.
Whatever the case, he had to leave. If she really was there alone, he would ride to the Hall and have Catherine send the carriage for her right away. There was no other choice. If only he could stay on his horse long enough to make it there. That was debatable. Right now the act of standing up felt beyond him.
Mostly he was thirsty.
‘I need to reach the Hall. Have them send a carriage for you. It will be dark soon.’
She had made it to her knees, but at that she stopped.
‘Not for a while. It is not yet one o’clock.’
‘One...’ He frowned, glancing at the windows again. It looked like they were underwater and sounded like they were surrounded by drums, but it was grey, not black. ‘It can’t be one o’clock at night. It is still light. The clock must be wrong.’
She stood, testing her weight on one leg and wincing.
‘One in the afternoon. You slept for quite a while. When you weren’t trying to escape. You still sound terrible and you must drink something. I will fetch some water for a new kettle of tea. Please don’t wander off, you will only fall down again and my back is aching with dragging you back here.’
Alan didn’t respond. Perhaps he still was feverish, because none of what she said made sense other than the point about tea. He let his eyes drift shut. Perhaps next time he opened them the world would be cognisable.
* * *
‘Here.’
He must have slept again, because she could not have brewed tea so swiftly. The smell was unmistakable and wonderful and his mouth tried to water and failed. When he succeeded in sitting up enough to take the cup, the first sip of the hot, sweet liquid was like a benediction. It filled him, shaped him from the inside, and for a moment it drained away the pain and confusion.
They didn’t speak as they drank and she kept her own gaze on her cup. Her cheek had regained its customary soft lustre with its faint dusting of freckles and he wished she still bore the signs which had been proof she had been that close. She had also collected her hair into a knot low on her nape and other than her crumpled skirts she looked cool and collected once more. Which made no sense if what she had just said was true. None of this made sense. It could not possibly be that he was alone with Lily Wallace at Hollywell almost a full day after spotting the light in the window, could it?
‘More tea?’ she asked politely as she placed her cup on a small table she had drawn up by the sofa.
‘Not yet. First... What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Running away.’
‘Running... Why? From whom?’
‘Just for a few days. I needed to think. I didn’t expect guests.’ Her mouth rose at the corners, but she still didn’t meet his eyes and he realised she was nervous. As well she should be. Bloody hell, they were in trouble.
‘I am trying to understand. Where does Lady Jezebel think you are?’
‘In Bath. She thinks I departed for a few days with Jackson and my maid to visit a friend who lives in Bath.’
‘Your maid and groom are here as well?’
‘No. I left them waiting for the London coach on their way to visit their families. Then I directed the post-chaise to take me here.’
‘But...why?’
‘I told you. I needed to be alone. Utterly alone. Someplace of my own so I could think. I asked Mr Prosper to stock Hollywell for guests a couple days ago so that I would have everything I needed.’
She finally looked up, her eyes dark and pleading.
‘This might be the last time I will have to really be alone, before... I thought I would be able to think things through in peace here. It’s so quiet.’
‘You’re mad. You can’t just... It just isn’t done, Lily!’
She shrugged. ‘You sound like your grandmother. Of course it isn’t done and yet I have done it. Here I am. I never expected anyone to come by, certainly not in this weather. Last I looked this morning the drive looks like a tributary of the Amazon.’
He pushed himself further upright. ‘My horse. I must...’
‘He ran away,’ she said hurriedly, raising her hands as if to press him back, but he pushed into a sitting position and leaned his head in his hands, trying to think.
He had been alone with her at Hollywell for a full day. The fact that no one knew this yet made no difference. Her rashness and his fever had just sealed their fate.
‘You have to return to the Hall. Now.’
‘No, I cannot. Everyone thinks I went to Bath. What on earth would I say if I suddenly appeared the following day, as muddy and wet as a bog monster and without my luggage? As soon as the rain stops and you are well enough to leave, you can walk to Keynsham. I will stay here until the post-chaise I hired returns for me in two days’ time. You see, I have thought it all through.’
He didn’t raise his head. He hadn’t felt so bruised since the forced march out of Portugal under Moore. She wasn’t mad, yet she was if she thought it was that simple.
‘You aren’t well enough to walk to Keynsham yet,’ she continued, infuriatingly matter of fact. ‘But you cannot spend another night here on the sofa. Do you think you can manage the stairs? The bedrooms have been aired.’
The bedrooms have been aired.
Lily. You’re mad.
He didn’t say it. Partially because he knew that under her cheerful bravado she must be as aware as he of the consequences awaiting them and partially because he couldn’t help the anticipation that was building as his mind and body absorbed this new reality.
He was about to break another vow. It was becoming a habit.
Compromised by an heiress.
Marriage.
Hunter and Stanton would split with laughter.
‘Very well. Upstairs.’
* * *
It wasn’t as bad as he anticipated. Halfway up the stairs his legs began to remember their function and he could have made do with leaning on the banister, but he kept his arm around her for the pure pleasure of it. This indulgence almost cost him his balance halfway down the corridor when Lily suddenly shuddered and leapt to one side.
‘Lily! What’s wrong?’ He managed to stop from keeling over by propping himself against the wall and he pulled her against him in one movement.
‘I stepped on something. It was soft and... Oh, no, it’s a mouse. I killed it.’
He found what she was staring at in the faint light of the tapers she had lit along the corridor to light their way. A tiny grey bundle in the centre of the carpet. His head was pounding and his body felt it was a hundred years old, but he couldn’t help it, he started laughing, then winced as she jabbed him with her elbow.
‘Oh, you heartless brute. It isn’t funny!’
‘I’
m not... I’m not laughing at that. I don’t know why I’m laughing. But you can relax that conscience, sweetheart. It wasn’t a vixen that did your grey friend in, but a cat. Those are claw marks.’
He felt her shudder again as she looked and then glanced away and he pulled her more firmly against him. What a strange little thing she was. To brave being alone in a haunted house and caring for a felled rake, but then to come apart at the seams over a mangled rodent.
‘I forgot all about it, but Albert had a cat, a very unfriendly ginger tabby who was always disappearing behind furniture and making a general nuisance of himself. I thought someone would have taken it, but perhaps not. It might explain your broken urn if he’s been chasing mice around an empty house. Come, let’s leave the little fellow for now. There’s nothing you can do for him.’
‘I hate leaving him there.’
‘I’ll toss him out the window, then.’
‘No...leave him. The tabby is probably hungry. I’ll try not to think about it.’
He kept a firm hold on his smile until she had deposited him on the side of the bed with all the concentration of a three-year-old carrying a full glass of water.
‘You should lie down.’
So should you, right here with me.
He didn’t say the words, but as they surfaced in his mind he vaguely remembered asking her not to leave when the fever had been high, clinging to her hand like a child. She must think him pathetic. Even if she did lie down with him, he was in no shape yet to do anything about it. Yet.
In the light of the single candle she looked younger, unusually awkward as she stood watching him. Was she waiting for him to fall over again? What a blow to his vanity. Here he was worried about the consequences of compromising her when she probably thought him an object of pity. But whatever either of them thought, they would likely only leave this house categorically betrothed. Did she realise that? For someone so sophisticated she could be incredibly naïve. If he said anything, she would likely run away again, storm notwithstanding.
Would it be so terrible to marry her?
It might be. He remembered most of the things she had said to him and this particular comment lingered. She had been clear about what she wanted from life—a home. Children.