To Walk in the Sun (Wiggons' School for Elegant Young Ladies - Book 1)

by Charles, Jane

  “It will be over soon, I promise,” Vincent insisted.

  She swallowed and nodded her head to show she understood.

  Dr. Conrad blotted more blood then picked up a bottle of spirits. He poured the liquid into the wound. Tess hissed and arched off the bed. Vincent held her down. More tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

  After a moment her breathing calmed and she once again rested against the pillows. “Is he done?”

  “Almost.” Vincent attempted a smile when he answered.

  “All I need to do is stitch you up, Miss Crawford and then I will give you something to help you rest.”

  Tess turned to look at the doctor. He eyes grew wide when he held up the needle and thread. If possible, her face grew more pale before her eyes once again rolled back in her head and she fainted.

  “You shouldn’t have shown her. Tess said she would rather risk a scar than be stitched.” He glanced at the gash on her forehead that had still not completely healed. It was scabbed, but at least the discoloration from the bruises had begun to fade.

  The doctor offered a grim smile. “I know. I had to stitch a cut on her hand shortly after I moved here. She fainted then too. This will be painful enough so she might as well be unconscious.”

  * * *

  “Lord Atwood,” Sophia called after she peeked her head into the room. Miss Crawford lay on the bed, asleep. If one didn’t know better, they would think she simply slumbered for her white night rail covered any sign of bandages on her shoulder.

  “Yes, Sophia, please come in.” He motioned her to the side of the bed.

  “How is she?” With small steps she approached the bed.

  “Sleeping peacefully.”

  “Mrs. Wiggons said she had a fever.”

  Atwood turned his attention back to Miss. Crawford. “Yes, this morning it developed, but I believe it is under control for the moment.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  He looked up. “Keep your friends occupied. If I’ve learned anything, those two are liable to get into mischief and your teachers do not need to worry about what they are up to.”

  A weak smile pulled at her lips.

  “I can see by your expression they are making plans.”

  Sophia opened her mouth to speak.

  Vincent shook his head and held up his hand. “I am sure I don’t want to know.”

  A rosy hue blanketed her cheeks and Sophia dipped to a curtsey. “I’ll do the best that I can.”

  Vincent focused on Tess when Sophia left and closed the door. He put the back of his hand against her forehead. The fever had not returned, for which he was grateful. It had not been high this morning, but any fever was dangerous and he refused to leave her side until she awoke and he was assured of her recovery.

  In just a few hours it would be a full day since Tess had been shot. He wished she would awaken but Dr. Conrad insisted that due to the traumatic injury and loss of blood, she could sleep for another day. While he didn’t want her to suffer any further pain, he wanted assurance she was well.

  He also had a very important question to ask her and this time he would not take no or a dismissal for an answer. There was nothing to hold her back, now that her name had been cleared. The only reason Tess could possibly reject his proposal was if she didn’t love him.

  No, Vincent did not want to consider the possibility. But what if she didn’t? What would he do then?

  He reached over and grasped her hand in his and squeezed it. Well, he would simply find a way to make her love him.

  …she had never appeared so fair, so fascinating, so admirable

  when depicted by his imagination, as when now beheld in reality.

  Never till now had her voice sounded with such tones of sweetness;

  never before did her language possess such eloquence as it now did,

  when she conversed with him on the subject of the past…

  Wake Not the Dead

  Johann Ludwig Tieck

  Chapter 28

  Tess groaned but did not open her eyes. She could not recall hurting this badly before. What had she done to invite these aches? And she was so thirsty. She opened her eyes and moved to sit. Only to fall back against her pillow and hot searing pain tore through her shoulder. What happened to me?

  “You shouldn’t move. What can I get you?”

  Her eyes opened and she focused on the concerned features of Vincent’s face which hovered above hers. She wanted to speak, but her throat was parched. Tess attempted to lick her lips and utter a few words, but they were dry as well.

  “Just a moment.”

  Vincent disappeared from her sight. It took all of her effort to move her head and follow his movements. He poured a glass of water from the pitcher at the side of the room and returned. He placed it on the nightstand then moved toward her. Tess gritted her teeth. She just didn’t relish the idea of moving.

  His arms were gentle as he slipped one behind her shoulder and raised her to a sitting position. Tears sprung to her eyes when pain knifed through her shoulder. He held her suspended while someone to the left of her moved pillows. She could only assume that was what they were doing because she didn’t have the strength to turn her head and look. After a moment, he laid her back, as carefully as he had lifted her, and Tess sighed into the cushion of the several pillows now behind her.

  Vincent turned, picked up the glass and brought it to her lips. “Sip slowly,” he instructed.

  Tess was so thirsty she wanted to guzzle it all. But she did as he instructed, still not sure what was wrong with her. Everything in her mind was fuzzy with bits and pieces of memories. The cemetery, Vincent in the sun, carrying her, which she knew must be a dream. Sophia. Nothing made any sense.

  “Thank you,” she uttered once she was finished.

  He set the glass back on the nightstand and looked at her. The concern had still not left his face. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I have been trampled by a carriage.”

  A smile pulled at his lips but did not reach is eyes. “I imagine so.”

  “What happened?”

  His brow wrinkled. “Don’t you remember? The crypt.”

  Horror struck as her mind began to clear and the memories came to the forefront. Yes, she had shot Percer. Had he shot her? She tried to recall what happened after she pulled the trigger but those memories remained fleeting. “Did I kill him?”

  Vincent’s expression softened. “No. Your bullet barely scratched him, but it did stun him enough that you got away.”

  “How was I shot then?”

  He frowned again. “We are not sure. There were so many guns. Percer’s, mine, Wesley’s and Lord Hopkins’. We don’t know. We are all sick knowing you were caught in the middle.”

  Tess attempted to lift her hand to his face, but her arm was too weak and her hand dropped back to the bed. “Percer put me there. Nobody else.”

  “That doesn’t offer comfort.”

  Tess studied his face. His eyes were tired, and there was bruising beneath as if he hadn’t slept enough. There was also almost a full beard along his jaw. He looked as if he had aged ten years. “Am I going to die?”

  There was a hint of a smile on his lips. “No, though a few days ago I was not so optimistic.”

  “We all knew she would not perish, Lord Atwood,” Mrs. Wiggons chastised. “You just worried over much.”

  Tess tried to offer a smile but feared she failed. “How long?”

  “It has been only two days. I always knew you would pull through, even with the fever, and I was right.”

  She turned back to Vincent. “Sophia?”

  “Is perfectly fine, with the exception of being worried about you.”

  Once again Tess tried to smile, relieved, but could not.

  Vincent placed a cup against her lips. “Drink this. It will help with the pain.”

  Tess sipped and tried to swallow the vile stuff. She turned her head away, but Vincent grasped her ch
in to hold it in place. “Drink it all, and I will let you sleep.”

  The pain in her shoulder was stronger than her dislike for the medicine and soon she complied.

  * * *

  Vincent raked his fingers through his hair. Never had he been so relieved as when Tess finally woke. Though pale, she did seem to be on the mend. The fever had been short lived and not all that high, but he feared its return.

  “You need to rest, Lord Atwood. I will look over her.”

  He glanced up to Mrs. Wiggons. The woman had never lost faith that Tess would survive. She may have tisked often, but she never doubted her teacher’s survival.

  “I would rather stay. I want to be here when she awakens again.”

  “If you don’t get some rest soon, you are liable to topple from that chair and injure yourself.”

  He laughed at the ridiculous thought.

  “Besides, she will sleep for hours given the medicine you just made her drink.”

  Vincent glanced back at Tess. She did appear to be sleeping peacefully and the laudanum would provide her with several hours’ rest. He stood and stretched. “I will be in my room. The door will be open. Get me if anything changes.”

  The woman smiled and nodded her head.

  * * *

  “I swear, Lord Atwood is not a vampire,” Sophia insisted.

  “What proof do you have?” Eliza cried, unwilling to accept the truth.

  “I watched him carry Miss Crawford through the cemetery, in the full sun, and he did not die, or burn up, or whatever a vampire is supposed to do.”

  Eliza fell back in the chair, a stubborn frown on her face.

  “That does not mean that he has not brought Lady Atwood back from the dead,” Rosemary offered.

  Eliza turned toward her with a smile and a gleam in her eye. “Exactly!”

  “Oh, please, Lady Atwood is not a vampire.”

  “Then what caused that noise in the cellar?” Eliza countered.

  Sophia had about as much as she could take. She would return to that dark, scary cellar just to prove to the two that vampires did not exist. One would think that after the horror Miss Crawford and herself had gone through from a very real monster, her friends would give up this quest for vampires.

  She stood and marched to the door.

  “Where are you going?” Rosemary asked.

  “To prove to the two of you there is nothing below this house.” She turned the handle and marched out of the room. She didn’t look back to see if they followed because she knew they would.

  Once they reached the dining room, Sophia picked up the candelabra from the center of the table. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it right. She found a flint in the kitchen and lit each of the eight candles, then started for the cellar.

  “Wait,” Rosemary cried out. “Perhaps this is not a good idea.”

  Sophia turned on her. “You wanted to find Lady Atwood, so let’s find her.” She didn’t wait for a response from either of her friends before she started down the stairs.

  The room holding the wine was empty, as she suspected it would be. Even the glass that had been there before was gone and nothing looked out of place.

  Without hesitation she marched toward the door on the opposite side of the room. As her hand reached for the handle she glanced back at her friends. They stood by the chaise, holding hands. Eliza and Rosemary may be brave in the daylight or when they really didn’t expect to find anything, but when faced with the possibility of actually encountering a villain they were petrified. After being kidnapped by Percer, Sophia wasn’t sure anything could scare her as much again.

  She grasped the handle, turned it and opened the door. It led to darkness. She glanced back one more time. Eliza and Rosemary now clung to each other. Sophia stepped into the darkness, the candelabra held high. The room held nothing but boxes. To leave nothing unsearched, she walked the depths of the darkness. It was nothing but a storage room. Sophia returned to her friends and shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  The girls visibly relaxed if their slumping shoulders and heavy sighs were any indication. They disengaged their arms and moved apart.

  “Well, that is it then,” Sophia announced.

  Eliza spared one more glance past Sophia into the dark room.

  “Nothing is in there. Do you want to look yourself?” Sophia held the candelabra out to Eliza.

  “No, I believe you.”

  “Can we please return upstairs?”

  “Yes, let’s do,” Rosemary chimed in and raced for the stairway.

  * * *

  “How are you feeling?” Vincent asked from the doorway three days later.

  “I am fine and want out of this bed.”

  He grinned and sauntered toward her. “That is not going to happen until Dr. Conrad says you can move about.”

  “But it is my arm, make that shoulder, not my legs,” Tess knew she whined but didn’t care. She had been in this bed for days and was about to go mad if she wasn’t allowed to move about soon.

  Vincent’s eyes at least held some sympathy.

  “Could I go down to the terrace at least? Just for a short bit of time?”

  “No. The temperature has gotten a good deal colder and I will not risk you becoming ill on top of being injured.”

  “I will lose my mind if I must lay here for one more minute with nothing to occupy it.”

  “I could have the contents of my library delivered up here,” he suggested as he took a seat.

  Tess gestured to the books already on the bed with her good arm. “Even reading does not hold my attention at the moment. Which is very rare indeed.”

  “Then perhaps some company.” He grinned at her.

  “Who?” She hoped he was offering, but feared he would send in one of the teachers or girls. They visited often, and she loved talking with them, but the subjects were thin at the moment. It wasn’t as if they were in London where gossip could entertain her. No, the entire school was within the household and even the three troublemakers had been behaving. Things had gotten remarkably dull in the last few days. Not that she wished for anyone to be kidnapped again, or a tempest, or to be shot for that matter, but it was rather dull after enduring such excitement.

  “As the teachers are all doing their jobs and the students are occupied with their lessons, I have only myself to offer.” He spread out his arms and shrugged.

  Tess didn’t bother to hide her smile. “Very well, then. You shall have to entertain me.”

  “What shall we converse on? The progress of the building of the school, the students’ activities, town gossip?” He laughed.

  Tess studied him for a moment. Now was the time to ask the question that plagued her. “Why can’t you go in the sun? And, why do you have trouble reading?”

  The smile fell from his lips. Vincent stood and raked his fingers through his hair. “We are not sure.”

  “We, as in you and Wesley, or doctors, or who?”

  “Everyone.” He shrugged.

  “What happened?” Tess dearly hoped she was not asking too personal of a question, but it bothered her ever since she heard about the lord who did not leave the house in the daylight and visited his wife’s grave at night.

  Vincent began to pace. “I was injured from artillery during the Battle of Bergen. Besides a wound to my right thigh, I was knocked unconscious from a blast. When I awoke, I found I experienced the worst headaches imaginable. I hoped they would go away, and they did, for the most part. The only thing that brings them on is when I try to read, or go into the bright sun.”

  “Yet you carried me through the cemetery with the sun beating down on you?”

  He grimaced at the reminder. “Did they also tell you how I cast up my accounts afterwards?”

  A small smile pulled at her lips. “Yes, they did.”

  “With the pain comes sickness and there is nothing anyone can do.”

  “That is why you drank so much brandy when we arrived,
” she confirmed.

  “It helps dull the pain and helps me sleep.”

  “What of laudanum?”

  His jaw tightened at the suggestion and Tess could not understand why. The man forced the vile stuff on her for three days following her injury.

  Vincent took a deep breath and settled into the chair across from her. Tess listened as he told of the night of his return and finding Percer with his wife and her death. She swiped away the tears when he explained how the town came to view him when he did not attend her funeral.

  “You must have loved her so very much.” It tore at her heart to see him in such pain. It also made her face the fact that Vincent had found his one, true love and it had been taken from him. He would never love like that again.

  He lifted his face and looked her deep in the eyes. “Yes, I did.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “As am I.”

  She couldn’t bear the pain on his face, or the ache in her heart. A man who loved like that, loved once in a lifetime. Even had she agreed to be his wife on one of those occasions he had asked, she now knew he would never love her. It was a marriage of duty, protection, and she was glad she had declined the offer. Living without him was surely easier than being his wife, and loving him the way she did, when he did not return the same emotion. “You should return to your work. I have kept you away too long.”

  “I can’t work right now.”

  “Why?”

  “I am without a secretary, and my library is presently occupied.”

  “Claudia, Natalie?”

  “Don’t have time for me,” he laughed.

  “Perhaps you should advertise. I am certain someone who is qualified can be found,” Tess encouraged.

  “I don’t want anyone else. I want you.”

  Tess turned away. She would love nothing more than to be his assistant, but it would only cause heartache in the future. “I don’t think I will have time either, once I am recovered.”