by Erin Satie
All the closeness made her very, very aware of his smell. He had been lying in the damp for who knows how long, unable to see to basic necessities. The results were inevitable, unpleasant, and dangerous for his already fragile health. He needed a bath. Bonny didn’t hesitate for long. The stakes were too high for modesty.
She gathered a rough cloth and a bar of soap, removed his clothes—all of them, because it was necessary and she couldn’t afford to be missish about it—and scrubbed Loel clean.
It was a vile task. She tried not to be embarrassed, but she was profoundly glad to be alone where no one could see her and that she wouldn’t have to tell anyone what she’d done if she didn’t want to.
It wasn’t until she’d finished that she could really appreciate the naked male body she’d just touched so intimately, and by then she didn’t care. She dried him, stripped the blankets from his bed, and draped them over him.
She didn’t like to leave linens on the floor, but there was no helping it. She couldn’t lift Loel. Perhaps eventually she’d think of a way to move him. If she were lucky, he’d wake and find the strength to move himself.
She had just enough time to wheedle another cup of broth into her patient before the sun dipped low enough to resume watering. It was fussy and repetitive work, but sewing had accustomed her to that. But on her feet, in the thick heat of the greenhouse… even wearing only her chemise, she felt faint by the time she finished.
She stoked the stoves as high as they’d go and checked on Loel one last time. It was probably her imagination, but she thought he looked better. The fever still burned hot, and his skin remained strangely dry, but his color had improved. He wasn’t quite so terrifyingly still.
She swaddled herself in her warm clothes and set out into the gloaming. Dark thoughts chased her down the lonely road to town—she should have done more, she’d taken on a hopeless task, and she’d be grieving by the end. She almost turned around and went back, desperate to find some work, some medicine that might make a difference.
Her parents met her at the door. Margot too. Her little sister wrinkled her nose and said, “You stink,” which—for some reason—Bonny found hysterical. Margot laughed too, and the tension between them all eased a little.
“Why Lord Loel?” her father complained. “Isn’t there someone else you could help? Some other cause for you to adopt?”
“I know you’re upset, but…” Bonny struggled to explain. “Who else can forgive him? Who else can reach out? If we don’t, no one will—out of respect for us. And he might die.”
Her father’s grunt was brief and eloquent. Let the man die.
“Have dinner at least,” said her mother. “You look exhausted.”
“I am.” Bonny eyed the stairs longingly. “Would you mind if I refuse? I’d rather lie down.”
They allowed it. What’s more, Emma brought her a tray with a bit of bread and cheese and weak tea, and Margot sat with her while she ate, repeating what she’d eavesdropped of their parents’ conversations during the day.
“They’re worried,” said Margot. “But I don’t know why. Now that you have help from Olympia and Tess, it doesn’t matter what anyone here in New Quay thinks.”
“They’re our neighbors,” said Bonny. “Of course we care what they think.”
“They’ll change their tune when you find a husband better than Mr. Gavin ever was.” Margot hugged her. “And then you’ll find one for me and everything will be wonderful.”
In the morning, Emma had a basket ready for her, packed with a sealed jar of good broth for Loel and a bit of lunch for Bonny herself, if she could find time to eat it. The encouragement, however small, lifted her spirits.
They plummeted again when she reached the greenhouse. The fires in the stoves had burned low, and the fountains had stopped flowing. Even a cursory glance showed her that the flowers had suffered during her brief absence. When she reached Loel, he’d thrown off the blankets and shivered violently on the floor, naked and exposed.
Bonny blinked back a rush of tears. She wasn’t a doctor. She didn’t know what was wrong with Loel, and she didn’t know how to fix it. Neither was she a gardener. This task was too big for her. She needed help, but who would come for the town pariah?
“Why am I doing this?” she asked aloud. Just a week before she’d been in a London. In a ballroom. Laughing with her dearest friend, chatting with an heiress and a princess, wondering if she should discard the fiancé she had for a better one.
Now she had broken her engagement, disappointed her parents, and she’d spent the past two days alone in a greenhouse with a dying man and his dying plants.
Calling herself the worst sort of idiot, Bonny stripped off her clothing and set to work. It was the same routine as the day before: rushing to water the orchids, stoking the stoves, feeding and bathing Loel. She learned to work the pump that filled the reservoir that kept the fountains going and worked it until her arms felt like they were made of string.
She’d never worked so hard in her life.
On the way home, she stopped at Cordelia’s house. The Kellys’ manservant invited her in, but she turned down the offer. She hadn’t seen a mirror all day but she was sure she looked frightful. Indeed, when Cordelia arrived at the door, the first thing she said was, “Bonny? Are you all right? What can I do?”
Bonny was too tired to respond with a quip. “I’m fine. Lord Loel is sick, and I’ve been taking care of him.”
“All by yourself?”
“Do you know anyone else who’d agree to help?” Bonny snapped, then instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry. I’m exhausted. I came to tell you that I won’t be able to accompany you on the library delivery rounds”—until Loel got better or he died, whichever came first—“for a bit.”
She felt bad. Cordelia already did most of the work that kept the library going. She counted on Bonny for the social aspects, smiling and chatting, that she didn’t have the temperament for. Delivering the books together was fun, but it would be a thankless task all alone.
She didn’t expect a complaint—Cordelia wasn’t that sort of friend. But neither did she expect her best friend to say, “Of course. Don’t worry about it.” Or to gather her close for a hug and whisper, “You are a lamb with a lion’s heart, Bonny. A lamb with a lion’s heart.”
The days passed in a blur. Her tasks didn’t change or get any easier. She was fairly sure that a good number of Loel’s orchids had died, but she wasn’t confident enough in her assessment to skip them on her watering circuit.
Most seemed to be holding on. It occurred to Bonny that the technique Loel had taught her had probably been suited specifically to the Odontoglossum crispum, rather than intended as a universal prescription. The crispum had never looked better.
Loel’s fever finally broke. He roused a time or two, opening his eyes and making startled noises, and convincing him to eat got easier. She wouldn’t have called him lucid, but she began to think he had a real chance at recovery.
Though she still couldn’t determine what infection had felled him. All the wounds that Mr. Gavin had inflicted were healing normally. She saw none of the signs that she’d learned to fear: no swelling, no discoloration, no dark threads spreading out from the site of an injury.
She was halfway through bathing him for the sixth or seventh time when the thought came to her, as though it were a revelation: She was touching a man’s naked body. She had been from the start, of course, but it hadn’t seemed to matter. There’d been no room in her mind for thoughts like that.
But now, watching her own hands swirl over his flat stomach, his skin slick with soap, embarrassed her. She noticed, as she hadn’t before, that his skin was golden brown above the waist, from laboring in the sun, but pale as milk below. The wiry hair she lathered and rinsed on his chest was just a little darker than the hair on his head.
She was shaking by the time she was done. Her tongue stuck to the roof of a mouth gone dry, her heart raced, her hands tingled. She didn�
��t want to think about why. If she stopped to consider what she’d just done, what she was now feeling, she would be sick and guilty and horrified.
So she ruthlessly shut those feelings away and went looking for clothes in his size. She fled the greenhouse for the open yard, where the summer sun felt cold to her fevered cheeks, and gulped clean fresh air until her teeth began to chatter.
Then she fetched Lord Loel a pair of pants, and blushing furiously, she put them on him.
There.
Better.
A few minutes later he began to stir. His eyes opened, seeing nothing. Bonny nearly jumped out of her skin. She squeaked out, “Lord Loel?” in the guiltiest tone imaginable and, to her intense shame, quietly prayed that he’d fall back into his stupor.
He turned toward her voice, bleary eyes slowly focusing.
“Am I dreaming?” he asked, his voice gravelly from disuse.
“Yes,” Bonny said promptly. “You’re dreaming.”
He muttered something unintelligible and sank back into unconsciousness.
Bonny breathed a sigh of relief. It had been wrong to touch him and ogle him while he was unaware. The same exact activities had been fine when she’d been subjecting herself to a vile chore she deemed essential to his recovery, but something had changed. She didn’t need to examine what though. Only to make sure that nobody ever found out and it never happened again.
Thus decided, she carried on with her chores.
The evening mail brought two letters for Bonny. The first, from Charles Gavin, proposed a time for his visit. She set it aside to answer later; she couldn’t receive him in town while she was spending every day from dawn to dusk at Woodclose. She’d answer him later, once she had a better sense of Lord Loel’s fate.
The other came courtesy of Cordelia, but the envelope contained a letter from Olympia Swain.
Miss Kelly,
I hereby condemn you utterly for the foul act of giving that book, The Widow, to Tess and me. It was riveting, causing us both to lose sleep, and I hold it wholly responsible for the many arguments we’ve had since. Tess insists that the housekeeper killed the husband whereas I am convinced it was the widow.
We sent a letter to the author’s publisher, demanding an answer to the mystery, but have not yet received a reply. In the meanwhile, I expect both you and Miss Reed will reply in support of my theory so Tess will admit that she has made a mistake.
If you support Tess’s theory, keep your thoughts to yourself!!! Unless you tell me in person—in London—as my guest. I live with my guardian—Joanna Peet, you may find her in Debrett’s—in a house with many empty rooms. Should you visit, I will hear you out. Grudgingly.
This invitation extends also to Miss Reed. Though I hope she has formed the only correct opinion about your cursed book. The bachelors hereabout speak of her often and regret her absence. Ordinarily, I would recommend that you postpone a second visit until the time is ripe, right before the young men begin to forget you. Usually this doesn’t take long—I have observed that young men have short memories. Better than fish but worse than dogs, at my best approximation.
I’m afraid that, as regards Miss Reed, they have undertaken to prove me wrong.
Yours affectionately,
Olympia Swain
The letter invigorated Bonny. Because she’d fished those two boys out of the canal, Tess and Olympia had introduced her around London. Because Tess and Olympia had introduced her around London, she’d gained the courage to stand up to her parents so she could nurse Lord Loel. The good deeds formed a chain, each made possible by the last.
She made the journey to Woodclose with a spring in her step. She stripped to her chemise and set about the greenhouse chores with a will, singing all the while. It might do the plants some good—or even Loel—and she felt so hopeful finally.
“Come, now.” She poured Emma’s broth into a mug. “I think you’re losing weight.”
The jostling, or perhaps the hard press of the cup against his mouth, roused him. He groaned and stirred, stretching his legs and rolling his shoulders.
“Don’t thrash, please,” Bonny said. “You’ll knock me over by accident.”
He opened his eyes. For the first time, the glossy blankness sharpened and his eyes focused.
“I didn’t think I knew how to have good dreams,” he said, very seriously.
Bonny opened her mouth to tell him that he was awake, that he’d forgotten his manners, but what came out was, “This is a good dream?”
“They’re always bad. Nightmares.” He reached up to stroke her thighs. “Except for this.”
“Don’t. You mustn’t.” Bonny used her free hand to peel his roaming fingers loose. But when she let go, he grabbed her again. His hands were hot and damp, and the feel of them on her bare skin made Bonny… hot and damp.
She pitched sideways, stretching to set down the mug of broth somewhere beyond Loel’s reach. She needed to free her hands. Quickly.
He stroked her inner thighs with his thumbs. “My God, your skin is soft.” His brow furrowed. “I’ve never felt skin so soft. Not… ever.”
Bonny swallowed, afraid that the moment had come. That he’d return to himself and she’d have to explain. Instead, he sank back into unconsciousness.
Bonny stood. She trembled, head to toe, from fear and… from other things. She paced, trying to walk the jitters away. She shook her limbs and took deep breaths, but her heart only beat faster.
His thumbs had been inches away from her most private parts. Inches. If he’d remained awake for even a few seconds longer…
He’d wake soon and be a man again, and she had to be ready for it.
She had never touched a man the way she’d touched Loel these past few days. Charles Gavin, for all his faults, had never overstepped. He’d invited admiration, not intimacy. She’d never been able to touch him freely—not his face, not his hands, certainly not the parts his clothes covered.
But now she knew the silky texture of Loel’s hair, the rough burr of his beard, the weight of his limbs. The only body more familiar to her was her own. She’d crossed so many boundaries, and she’d done it alone, without supervision… or consent.
She’d have to rebuild those boundaries on her own too. She had to ensure that when he woke, nothing had changed.
Late in the morning, Loel began to thrash. He continued in this restless, uneasy state through the afternoon. When he finally quieted, she dropped what she was doing so she could get some broth in his stomach before night fell.
He drank eagerly. The first sign of appetite she’d seen from him in days.
She finished the watering, filled the reservoir, and stoked the stoves, checking on him one last time before she left. He lay on his back, staring up at the glass roof.
She knelt by his side. “You’re getting better.”
“I’ve said the same thing to dying men.”
He had? When?
Bonny smoothed a hand across his forehead. “You’re not dying.”
He seized her wrist. The quick movement cost him; he held her still, breathing hard, fighting to remain conscious. A battle he won.
“You’re really here,” he accused.
“I’m here.” Bonny peeled his fingers loose, one by one. “But it would be best if we agreed that you were dreaming.”
That wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows again—he didn’t understand. It must have been struggle enough to sort dream from reality. Apparently a man had to be fully conscious to contemplate lying.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she promised and left with a feeling of deep foreboding.
Loel was missing from his spot on the floor the next day. Bonny panicked, but he’d only moved to his bed. All by himself! She knelt by his side and pressed her palm to his brow.
“I think the tide has finally turned.” She’d never talked to herself so much in her life, but she’d never been so isolated either. “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve watered the flowers.”
Sh
e began to unfasten the buttons of her dress… and then thought better of it. The desperate, awful days when Lord Loel had been a patient instead of a man were over. But laboring in the humid greenhouse with all her clothes on would surely make her faint. She decided on a compromise. She removed her bonnet, her gloves, her stockings, and her petticoats.
She’d covered nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse before the rising sun forced her to stop. Her speed and technique had both improved, though it was hard to congratulate herself when hundreds of his orchids had died.
Next she heated the broth that Emma had prepared. She carried it to Loel’s bed, settled on the thin mattress, and lifted his head into her lap. Touching the lip of the cup to his mouth, she murmured encouragement.
He stirred and opened his eyes. His eyes gleamed in the cold morning light like sunlit absinthe, unbearably bright, but he didn’t seem to see her.
She untangled herself once she’d emptied the cup. She had a few hours to herself, which she used to mend the jacket she’d cut off his body on the day she found him. Lord Loel began to stir while she was working on the left sleeve.
Quickly she set it aside.
“Lord Loel?”
He levered himself into a sitting position, sheets falling away from his bare chest to pool around his waist.
“Careful.” She hurried to his side. “You’ll make yourself dizzy.”
He swung toward her voice, throwing out one arm for balance. Bonny caught him before he could tip, steadying him as best she could.
His gaze focused first on her face before dropping to the hand she’d splayed flat across his bare chest. She’d put it there to brace him, but now she became aware of how close they were, the springy hair tickling her palm, the fever still running hot inside him.