She took another breath. “From the day I arrived, you were more dead than alive, yet I saw a spark of life when your medicine was delayed. Suppose, I thought, the medicine was having the opposite effect? It seemed to, and I needed to know why, because you had been asleep for weeks, robbed of life in all but fact, which you must agree is in no way normal. You were not living, though you were alive. Do you understand?”
A look akin to respect transformed him. And with regard in his eyes, he looked more striking. And she must keep track of her thoughts. “It’s important that you understand why I did what I did. The first time you responded, surprised me. But the second time, when I told you how well Beth was doing—”
An invisible blow slammed him and he cried out as his head hit the back of his chair.
Shaken, Faith stood. “Are you all right?”
With a sudden palsy, her weak patient could not seem to answer.
“Don’t die on me now! Here, you need your medicine—”
“Damn it! No more medicine!”
His firm, albeit rusty, shout sat her down again.
“’Twas the mention of my daughter,” he whispered. “Beth died in that carriage…accident.”
Faith once thought she understood the word, haunted, but she had not imagined its despair. “Justin, Beth—”
“Stop!” He covered his eyes with an arm, as if to protect himself from a blow. “I cannot think of her…gone.”
For the first time since he woke, Faith took Justin into her arms. “I’m so sorry,” she said, seared by his agony. “I would take your pain as my own, if I could.” Why did Justin remember simple things like her name and Harris having been here, Faith wondered, but he did not remember holding Beth just this morning? How could he be so certain that his daughter had died?
Would telling him be too great a shock?
As much as she feared harming him further, Faith knew she must tell Justin that his daughter lived.
And she would. As soon as she stopped shaking.
CHAPTER FOUR
Faith rubbed Justin’s back to calm him and to put off that moment when she might risk his progress by revealing what he most needed to hear. That Beth lived. His stubbled chin abraded her cheek. And she realized she was as late shaving him as dosing him this morning…or had it gone past noon by now?
His confusion might be caused by his illness or his need for medicine. Perhaps she should make him take it…as if she could. “I wish to God I knew what to do,” she whispered.
“Don’t be distressed,” he said. “You’ll come about.”
Faith smiled despite herself. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
“It’s been an age since anyone worried about me. I’m not sure I like it.” He opened his fist against her ribs just below her breast, and the impropriety in their positions struck her. She released him.
Regret etched his features—a regret to match her own. She straightened her shoulders. “Justin, about Beth. She’s—”
“No!” he shouted, then he sighed, seeming to realize he’d been harsh. “You can’t know,” he said. “Her mother kidnapped her.”
How could a man reveal such hate for his wife as Justin had just done in speaking the word mother? And how could a mother be a kidnapper?
Justin touched his brow with a shaking hand. “I followed their trail. I…I think,” he said. “I’m not sure.”
“Justin. Beth didn’t die. She’s alive. Beth is alive.” But not by so much as a blink did he react. “Did you hear me?” Faith asked, as he closed his eyes, shutting her out. When he opened them, he gave her a patronizing look. “She’s well,” Faith added in frustration. “Did I tell you that? And thriving?”
His smile turned wistful, as if, lacking her wits, she should be tolerated, even applauded for her feeble efforts.
“I once slapped Squire Kennedy’s son for just such a look. I’m not addled. I speak the truth.”
“You go to great lengths to ease a dying man’s final hours.” He closed his eyes to clear their moisture. “But you go too far.”
“You’re not dying.” God, let me be right. “Soon you’ll hold Beth—if you can keep her still that long—and you’ll know.”
As a tear slipped down his ashen cheek, Justin closed his eyes. The sun’s slant cast shadows on the hollow, angular planes of his face. “Is Catherine here?” Then with more dispatch than Faith thought him capable, he raised his hand. “No. Of anyone, I need Cat least.” His words were mocking and self-directed. Bitter.
“Forgive me,” he said, reading her shock. “I’m not up to Catherine. I may never be.” His voice faded as his dark lashes drifted against pale cheeks. He slept once more.
Faith paced the room and back, stopping frequently to check the rise and fall of Justin’s chest. Lord, he thought Beth died and Catherine lived. Had his mind been damaged in the accident?
She left her sleeping patient to check on Beth, who accepted her cookie with a sober nod and tolerated being cuddled for a moment.
Justin slept that whole day, and Faith alternated between pacing and watching, imagining every dire consequence possible as a result of her decision to withhold his medicine.
Memories stirred her—the way he touched her hair, the look in his eyes when he thought she was ill, his rusty voice.
Justin awoke, regret filling him. He dreamed that when the pretty nurse said Beth lived, he believed her. But as dusk bruised the horizon, he knew she’d lied to ease him peacefully into eternity. He was dying. He breathed, deeply, to lessen the pain the acknowledgement brought. If he didn’t collect himself, he might cry like a babe then what would his nurse think of him? Enough, he was at her mercy without allowing her pity. Upon his death, he would see Beth again, a thought sufficient to rally him.
He surmised it to be evening of the day he’d awakened. His nurse, Faith, sat beside him, bent over her stitching, concentration rapt.
Certain he’d never seen her before, he wondered why he felt as if he knew her, as if they were connected in some basic way.
His stomach pitched violently. “I believe I am hungry.”
“Oh. Ouch!” She dropped her mending and stuck her pricked finger into her mouth, regarding him, her green eyes huge.
If he were not so ill, he would be enchanted. He frowned. Better to be ill. Best not allow another woman to spin her web. For good reason, the deadliest of spiders was named widow. Enough that Catherine had ensnared him—such a paltry sin in view of everything—for she had murdered their daughter as surely as if she took a knife to Beth’s tiny heart.
Yet it was Vincent he sought revenge upon, with reason, if only he could remember what reason precisely. Justin tried to keep from succumbing to his frustration, determined Catherine must be held accountable.
Women were capable of every deceitful, vile, even deadly deed. If he would but remember that, he could be safe from this beautiful nurse. Yet as he looked into her eyes, he feared she already possessed more power over him than Catherine or his mother ever had, except he did not understand how or why.
Forewarned is forearmed, he thought, and wondered if he had the strength to fight a blind, mewling kitten, much less a vibrant, determined young woman with raven curls and sparkling emerald eyes. A woman whose seeming concern rocked him to his depths.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, fighting nausea.
With her mask of concern in place, he almost believed her sincere. What had she to gain from caring for him? Something, he did not doubt. He simply must learn what.
“I’ve made you ill with my ridiculous notions,” she said, placing her cool hand to his brow.
Justin struggled with the roiling in his gut and took another deep breath. “Been asleep for weeks. Told me so yourself. Must have done something right.” He wished her touch did not feel so splendid. He closed his eyes hoping she would keep her hand where it was. Her violet scent brought a fleeting memory. An angel of mercy, beautiful and soft. He tried to hold the concept, but the mons
trous ill feeling in the pit of his belly plagued him.
She removed her hand—more’s the pity—and brushed it against his cheek, another touch he recognized. Craved.
When Justin slept again, Faith spoke to Jenny and Sally together in Beth’s room. “My patient will need most of my attention for a while. His illness has taken a bad turn. Sally, I need you to take full charge of Beth, but I shall spend every minute with her I can. Jenny, I’ll count on you to fetch the necessities for my patient while Harris is away.” Their willingness removed such a burden. “Thank you, both of you.” Afraid to be away from Justin too long, she kissed Beth’s jam-sticky cheek, and could almost imagine herself being squeezed in return. “Be a good girl,” Faith said, tucking a curl behind Beth’s ear. “I love you.”
Beth gave her Justin’s wistful I-wish-it-were-so smile. Like him, she wanted to believe Faith’s words, except she thought she knew better. Both would need tender care in the days ahead. And if it was love they needed, Faith would see they got it.
Upon her return, Faith regarded her patient. Her grandfather had looked healthier laid out in the front parlour the morning of his funeral, than Justin did right now.
She wheeled him back to the bed to transfer him into it. Holding him the way Harris taught her, she moved him…but he woke. “Relax, Justin. Don’t fight me.”
He did relax, and she hauled him onto the bed, his breathing laboured, brow damp. “I can handle you better when you’re asleep,” she said by way of apology. “Please say something.”
“Weak,” he whispered. “Like an old woman. Bloody degrading. Cold too.”
Faith got another blanket. “Are you still hungry? I could—”
“God no.” He shuddered. “More blankets.”
He trembled uncontrollably, his complexion a muddy gray. Placing more covers over him didn’t help. Faith had never seen anyone shake so. His eyes held a plea.
“Blast,” she swore. “I’m killing you with my theories. I’m giving you your medicine.”
“No,” he said, teeth chattering.
Oh, Lord. “Is there nothing I can do?”
Shaking his head, he closed his eyes, his brow and hands cold as ice. Faith removed her shoes, climbed under the covers, and took him into her arms to share her body’s heat. “We’ll get through this together,” she said.
He held her so tight, Faith was certain she’d be bruised—a small price to pay for his recovery, if recovery it were to be.
His chills interspersed with pain, Justin trembled, teeth chattering and gnashing in turn. Judging by the way he stiffened, groaned, and went limp, he lost consciousness, until another bout roused him again. And when it did, he uttered a string of ragged curses, peppered with succinct words—inappropriate she was certain. “Blast it, Faith, don’t listen to me, I’m a vulgar son of a bitch.”
And that, she thought, must certainly soothe her sensibilities. She might laugh, if she didn’t want so badly to cry. “Say what you will; I shall wipe it from memory with due haste.”
His chuckle ended in a hiss; a new agony taking him in its grip.
Most of the time he didn’t know who or where he was, why or how he suffered, much less what he said. The consequences of her decision to withhold his medicine had, indeed, become his.
Justin could very well die in her arms.
Time passed at the pace of a garden snail making its plodding way up hill. Faith’s clothes were drenched with sweat. Justin dozed fitfully. Minutes turned to hours. Toward morning, when his trembling subsided somewhat, Faith eased from his side to run to her room to wash and change.
When she returned, he was as ashen as the first time she saw him. Now, they teetered at the opposite pole from twenty-four hours ago. Not receiving the medicine was killing him.
Faith fetched the vial. “Forgive me,” she whispered, “But you need this.” And she poured the medicine down his throat.
He choked and spat out the pungent brown liquid. For a second Faith gazed at her splattered gown—then she looked into furious dark eyes. Demon’s eyes—wasn’t that what his childhood nurse called them? Be happy you’ll never be pierced with the likes of his stare, Vincent had said, and a piercing stab, she felt.
Then Justin became violently ill, putting period to her morning wash and fresh dress. When his spasms subsided, he bestowed upon her another dark penetrating stare and a long, low snarl of fury.
She cleaned him up in silence, and after a good-night growl, he slipped into an exhausted sleep. She sat and fretted. He remained in a coma when he took the medicine. He became deathly ill without it. Her nursing skills proved worthless in the face of the paradox.
At the window, Faith looked beyond the firmament toward He who allowed Justin’s suffering. “He has had enough!” she shouted. “Do you hear? Enough. Have mercy.”
When Justin finally woke, after two agonizing days, the stubble on his cheeks gave him the look of a pirate—an angry pirate, inclined toward flogging and carnage.
Faith hid dismay behind bravado. “I do not know how a man who has imbibed strong drink appears, but I expect that’s how you look right now.”
“And exactly how I feel. No thanks to you.”
If he wasn’t absolutely right, Faith might defend herself, but she had intensified his torment rather than lessen it. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she raised her chin. “Whatever you think, I have done only what I thought best for you.”
“I can almost believe it.”
Ire replaced her guilt. “Try a little harder then, if you please.”
His raised brow spoke of challenge.
She took up the gauntlet. “I insist that you eat something.”
He crossed his arms. “My stomach will pitch anything you give it.”
“In just that event, I sent for quince jelly.” He looked entirely doubtful, but when she presented the filled spoon, he opened his mouth. As the victor in this battle of wits, Faith smiled inwardly. His hand to his stomach stopped her celebration.
She, with a quick basin, Justin poised at the ready, they waited, but the quince jelly did not get pitched.
“Did it help, do you think?”
“I’m…not sure.”
Faith raised a spoonful of soft marrow pudding.
Dread in his look, Justin accepted the offering.
The clock counted the minutes, and time augured success.
Hard on its heels, she offered another.
“Damn it. Wait.” He took a deep breath. Nodded.
After he swallowed, his eyes widened then he shook his head and lay back. “All I can stomach.”
“You’ll lose your strength.”
“Not to worry. None to lose.” He stared at a trembling hand. “So blasted weak.”
“I worry that you are too ill to go without your medicine. Let me give it to you.”
“Makes me sleep.” He caught his breath. “Might have for eternity. I know…I am alive, however sick I become, this way. No more medicine.”
“You wish to stay awake and suffer?”
Justin touched her cheek. “I’d rather look at you than sleep.”
Faith didn’t want him to see how his words or his touch affected her. “I’ll do everything I can to help you.”
“Why so downcast?”
“It hurts me to see you like this.”
“Hurts me more.” His chuckle became a groan. Beads of sweat formed on his upper lip, his eyes glazed and his body went rigid. He looked as if he could scream in agony, but he remained silent.
She bathed his brow.
“Go away,” he said between clenched teeth.
“What?”
“Go…away.”
“I will not!”
“Get out! I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone!” He groaned, pulled her close, and buried his face in her skirts. One hand dug into her hip, the other ripped her sash. And he passed out.
Faith lowered him to the bed. “I’ll never leave you.”
Justin’s tempera
ture rose, and Faith forced Calamint tea down his throat as he slept. She watched his chest for every breath, selfishly thanking God he lived still.
When he doubled over, teeth gnashing, she rubbed his back. She tried to soothe him in every way she knew—with her touch, her words, her presence. “I would take your pain as my own, if I could,” she whispered, while through the incredibly long night, Justin continued to refuse his medicine.
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