Lovestorm

by Judith E. French

  “I miss you,” she whispered. “I do.”

  She felt light-headed and a little scared. Was it possible she was ill? Everyone swore that the night air carried disease. But if that was true, why hadn’t she gotten ill on the beach?

  Elizabeth took a few wobbly steps toward the bed. The pain in her head made it hard to think. She was thirsty again and . . . Soft blackness enveloped her. She didn’t even feel the floor when she fell.

  Dr. Rupert Montgomery stepped into the narrow hallway outside Elizabeth’s bedchamber and deliberately removed his spectacles to polish the thick lenses with the hem of his velvet doublet. The physician was nearly bald, and he affected the speech and mannerisms of a much older man. “Lady Elizabeth’s condition is very grave,” he said. “I see no improvement.”

  Betty sniffed loudly and wiped her nose on her sleeve as the doctor pulled the door shut behind him. Undaunted, the girl pressed her ear against the inside of the door and listened.

  “But she has lain like this for two weeks.” Lady Baldwin’s voice wavered. “Surely there is something you can—”

  “Lady Elizabeth has taken an ague,” the physician continued. “I explained that when you first called me to her bedside. My potions and repeated bleedings have done nothing to lower her fever or to bind her bowels. She is in God’s hands. There is nothing more I can do.”

  No wonder, Betty thought, scowling. A hound couldn’t keep that nasty brown stuff down. As fast as I spoon it in her, it comes back up.

  “Poor child,” Lady Baldwin murmured. “I warned her about night sickness, but she left her windows open anyway.”

  “Then ′tis a lack of common sense that has brought her to the brink of an early grave, not your tender care.” The physician’s words grew fainter as their footsteps moved toward the stairs. “Be certain the girl keeps that fire going in her room. Lady Elizabeth may have a chance if we can sweat out the fever. I’ll come again . . .”

  The rest of their conversation was lost as Lady Baldwin and the physician descended the stairs. Betty sighed and turned back to her patient.

  When she had first found Lady Elizabeth unconscious on the floor, Betty had been terrified, afraid that Elizabeth was dead. When Lady Baldwin assured her that her lady was only ill, Betty had been certain she would die soon.

  Betty pushed up her sleeves and wiped the sweat from her forehead. The bedchamber was as hot as an oven. How her lady could have a fever in all this heat was beyond her.

  She crossed to the bed and took the rag off Elizabeth’s head, replacing the cloth with a wet one. Elizabeth moaned and tossed her head.

  “It’s jest me, m’lady,” Betty said. She slipped a hand under Elizabeth to be certain her bedclothes were still dry. For days, her bowels had run like water, and she had been unable to take food without throwing up.

  Betty tucked the blanket under Elizabeth’s chin. She didn’t mind sick people, as long as they weren’t dead. Lord knows she had seen enough of them in her short lifetime. She’d watched both her mam and da die, spitting up their lungs in bloody clots. Then she’d fetched and carried for an ailing grandmother, too feeble to rise from her bed for the last two years of her life. No, the sick didn’t bother her. As long as Elizabeth kept breathing, Betty would gladly wash and feed her and try to follow the doctor’s orders.

  The Lady Elizabeth had been kinder to Betty than anyone she could remember. She had saved her life when the ship went down. No one else would have cared if Betty had gotten in a lifeboat or not. Without her lady, she would have been drowned before her twelfth birthday.

  Betty stroked Elizabeth’s hair with a thin hand. “Ye got t’ get better, m’lady,” she whispered. “Ye got t’.”

  Rain beat against the diamond-paned windows, and the yellow candle flame flickered as gusts of wind tore at the house. An occasional rumble of thunder sounded above the downpour, and lightning bolts streaked across the sky. Betty shivered despite the stifling heat. She didn’t like thunderstorms. They made her think of ghosts and other frightening apparitions.

  Elizabeth opened her eyes and tried to focus. The flashes of brilliant light made it hard to see. “Betty,” she murmured. Her lips felt dry and cracked, and her mouth tasted like ashes. “Betty.”

  “Yes, m’lady?” The child hovered over her.

  “I’m thirsty. Could I have some wine?” Her voice sounded to her like an old woman’s.

  “They’s water here. Would ye like—”

  Elizabeth tossed her head petulantly. “No, no water. I want wine. Get me some wine.”

  “Be ye hungry? I could fetch ye—”

  “Just the wine, Betty.” Elizabeth pushed back the quilt. “It’s so hot in here.”

  “Ye got t’ keep warm. Ye been awful sick, m’lady, wi’ the fever.”

  Elizabeth’s head hurt, but her body felt light. She rubbed her eyes. “Is it night? What day is this?”

  “It’s June, m’lady . . . or maybe July. Ye been sick a fortnight.” Betty tucked the covers under Elizabeth’s chin again. This wasn’t the first time her lady had been awake. Each time, she asked the same questions, as though she couldn’t remember anything. It seemed important to Elizabeth to know what day it was.

  “Where is the moon?”

  “Ain’t no moon tonight.”

  “But is it waning? If you could see it, would it be a crescent?”

  “It’s been rainin’ fierce. Can’t see no moon. Couldn’t see one last night or the night before.”

  “Has anyone been here . . . asking for me?”

  “Lots o’ folks. The governor hisself—”

  “No. Not Governor Berkeley. Someone . . .” Elizabeth trailed off. “Fetch me the wine.”

  “Dr. Montgomery left medicine fer ye t’ take. Could ye swallow a little?” Betty went to the hearth and returned with an earthenware cup of brown liquid. “He says it will bind yer—”

  The odor made Elizabeth gag. “No.” She pushed the medicine away. “It’s foul.”

  “ ‘Twill make ye better.”

  Elizabeth grimaced. “It’s probably made of rat’s droppings and toad skin. Throw it into the chamberpot.”

  “But, m’lady,” Betty protested. “You’ve got t′—”

  “I won’t have it.” She tried to sit up, then fell back weakly against the pillow. Betty’s eyes looked large and frightened in the firelight. “Did the doctor say I was dying, girl?”

  “No!” Betty cried. “He din’t say that. Grave was what he said. He said ye was grave.”

  “I’ll be in my grave if I swallow any more of that slime.” She shook her head. “Take it away.”

  Tears slipped down Betty’s cheeks. “I dasn’t throw it in the chamber pot. What if someone sees? They’d blame me if ye did dee, m’lady. Ye know my kind always gets the blame. They’d hang me certain.”

  “Throw it out the window then. I don’t care. Just get it away from me.”

  Timidly, Betty ventured to the window and unfastened the latch. Opening it only a little way, she poured the physician’s potion over the sill and yanked the window shut. “It’s no night out fer man nor beast,” she said. The wind had extinguished the candle, and she took it to the hearth to relight it.

  Gratefully, Elizabeth breathed in the fresh air. “This room stinks,” she said. “I’m sorry—”

  “No need t’ thank me,” Betty said. “I’m that glad t’ do fer ye. Ye been good t’ me, m’lady, better’n anybody ever was. I’ll fetch the wine fer ye now, do ye think ye can keep it down.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Thank you.”

  Betty scurried from the room, closing the door behind her. Elizabeth threw off the covers. Her linen shift was damp with perspiration, and the air felt cool against her skin. Once again, she attempted to sit up.

  Waves of dizziness assailed her, but she persisted, swinging her feet over the edge of the high bed. The rain beat a steady cadence against the window. If I laid my cheek against the panes, Elizabeth thought, the glass would be cool. If I
opened the window, the rain would run down my face.

  The room seemed to spin as she slid off the bed onto her bare feet. Elizabeth clung to the bedpost and fought for consciousness. “The window,” she murmured, childlike. “If I can just reach the—”

  Suddenly, the window swung open and a man’s silhouette appeared against a flash of lightning. The candle was blown out by the wind, leaving the room in semidarkness.

  Elizabeth blinked, not certain if she had really seen the man or not. “Is someone there?”

  “Eliz-a-beth.”

  A shadow detached itself from the darkness and moved toward her.

  Her heartbeat quickened. “Cain?”

  “I told you I would come for you, Eliz-a-beth.”

  She let go of the bedpost and reached out to him.

  Chapter 10

  “Eliz-a-beth! What be they do to you?” Cain gathered her in his arms and crushed her against his wet chest. “You have fever,” he exclaimed as he laid her back against the pillows.

  She opened her eyes and managed a weak smile. “I was sick . . . but . . .” She glanced toward the door. ”You shouldn’t be here. If they find you in my room . . .” She gripped his hand tightly. “It’s dangerous. These Englishmen have no love for your people, Cain.”

  He shrugged. “You are my wife, Eliz-a-beth. I said I would come for you in the turning of a moon.” He took her other hand and leaned over her, his eyes burning into hers like glowing coals. “Have you taken another husband? Do you lie beside your Edward now?”

  She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the sweet joy of seeing him again, of touching him. “You don’t understand,” she murmured. “Everything is changed.”

  How out of place he looks in this room, she thought. Cain was naked except for a scant vest and loincloth; his hair and clothing dripped water onto the wide board floor. His feet were bare, and his long dark hair was bound with a leather thong. Copper earrings gleamed in the firelight, adding a savage splendor to his proud bearing.

  He took her face between his palms. “This one has not changed. Look at me, woman,” he ordered.

  Trembling, she turned her face away, refusing to meet his gaze. “Go, before they find you and kill you,” she whispered. “Please.”

  “You have taken an Englishman to your bed?”

  “No . . . but . . .”

  He released her. “Why, Eliz-a-beth?”

  “I told you that you wouldn’t understand.” She slid to the far side of the bed, away from his touch. He wants to kiss me, she thought. He wants to kiss me—and God help me, I want him to. Everything was so confusing. Was it the fever or her own uncertain feelings? “Edward isn’t here,” she said. “He had to return to England.”

  “He went without you.”

  “Yes, but he thought I was dead.”

  “Good. To him you are dead. Come with me, Eliz-a-beth, and be my wife in truth. The fox cubs are learning to hunt, and the dolphins watch for you.” He raised her hand and turned it over to brush the pulse at her wrist with a gentle kiss. “Lie beside me, dah-quel-e-mah, and we will make beautiful babies with eyes as black as a crow’s wing and hair the color of autumn grass.”

  For an instant, she let herself believe that it might be so—that she could go with Cain into the storm and forget who she was and what she was meant to do. She could leave Elizabeth Sommersett behind in this room and become a Lenni-Lenape woman, as free as the dolphin to follow her mate. For a heartbeat she let the image of the moonlit beach rise before her. In the recesses of her mind, she heard the sound of the surf and the cry of the osprey.

  Go with him, an inner voice urged. If you don’t, you’ll never know such happiness again.

  Betty’s shrill voice came from the top of the stairs. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll tend t’ it soon as . . .”

  “Someone’s coming!” Elizabeth warned Cain. “You’ve got to go.”

  “You must choose,” he reminded her sternly.

  “Yes, ma’am. I put the herbs on . . .”

  Elizabeth grabbed his arm. “Cain, please!”

  “Come with me. It is not safe for you with these stupid Englishmen who build their houses in a swamp. I know the medicine to make you strong again. I will care for you and let no harm come to you. This I swear.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got to follow Edward to England.” How could she make him understand that she wasn’t free to follow her heart? She was an Englishwoman with responsibilities to her family. “It would never work between us,” she cried. “I do love you, Cain, but we are of different worlds. Go back to your forest and forget you ever saw me.”

  He reached the window in three strides. “The fever speaks for you, Eliz-a-beth, not your heart. I cannot take you into the rain when you have fever. But I will come again. In three nights. Meet me by the willow trees behind the house when the moon is high.”

  “No,” she protested. “I can’t go with you. Don’t ask it of me.”

  “When the moon is high, Eliz-a-beth, I will wait for you beneath the willows. Come to me, or follow this Edward back across the great salt sea. The choice is yours.”

  “Go!” she cried in desperation. “In Christ’s name go and leave me in peace!”

  Without another word, he opened the window and swung out into the pouring rain. The window banged back and forth in the wind, and water soaked the pine floor.

  Elizabeth turned on her side and buried her face in the pillow. Her fingers knotted into the linen sheets and she moaned deep in her throat. “Cain,” she whispered, “Cain. I’m so sorry.”

  Outside the bedchamber door, little Betty dropped to her knees, covered her face with her dirty apron, and rocked to and fro in silent misery. She had heard the man’s strangely accented voice in her lady’s room, threatening her mistress.

  The Lady Elizabeth had called the man Cain, and that was the Indian’s name. Betty remembered Lady Elizabeth telling Sir Thomas so. Now the same savage had returned to try and take her away again. Betty knew that her lady was afraid of Cain. Hadn’t she begged him in Christ’s name to leave her in peace?

  What am I t’ do? Betty agonized. Should I tell Lady Elizabeth what I heard? What if he comes back? I’d be scalped and murdered fer certain.

  The pewter goblet Betty had been bringing to her mistress lay unheeded where it had fallen from her numb fingers; the red wine spread across the wide boards like a pool of blood.

  Tears streaked the child’s face when she gathered her courage enough to stand. She put a trembling hand on Elizabeth’s chamber door, then backed away and fled in search of Lady Baldwin.

  Elizabeth’s fever rose again the following day, and for a time she wasn’t certain if Cain had really come to her room or if it had all been a dream. She was so weak that she could hardly raise her head or swallow the egg and wine mixture that Lady Baldwin spooned into her. Then she saw the water stain on the floor before the window, and she knew that Cain had kept his promise.

  When Lady Baldwin’s servants came to change her linen or to bring her wood for the fire, she asked about Betty and was told that the girl had been sent on an errand to Governor Berkeley’s plantation outside of town. The girl didn’t come to her chamber all day, and Elizabeth began to believe that they were lying to her.

  The second day, Lady Baldwin admitted that Betty had taken ill. “Nothing for you to worry about. The girl just has a cough, but Dr. Montgomery said she is not to come near you until she is over it.”

  “Are you sure she’s all right?” Elizabeth had insisted.

  “Right enough to hoe weeds in the kitchen garden.”

  “But I—”

  “Hush now, you need to save your strength. Drink this.” Lady Baldwin held a cup of bitter herb tea to Elizabeth’s lips. “Drink it all, child. It will help you sleep.”

  Elizabeth didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to think about Cain and to find out what had happened to little Betty. But warm darkness descended over her mind, and she slept to wake fitfully and sleep again.

&
nbsp; Lady Baldwin came again with the herb tea, but Elizabeth wasn’t sure if it was the same day or another. Her eyelids felt so heavy . . . so very heavy. It was easier not to fight the weariness, easier to drift on a soft cloud of sleep.

  Elizabeth sat bolt upright in bed. It was Sunday. She knew that it was Sunday morning when she heard the church bells ringing. She tried to count the nights since Cain had climbed through her window, since she had last seen Betty, but thinking was like trying to walk in molasses. It’s the fever affecting my mind, she thought. But she felt different than she had when she’d been so sick and thought she was going to die. She wasn’t soiling her sheets like a babe anymore, and the tea and egg posset stayed in her stomach.

  Why do I feel so strange? she wondered. And the thought came to her that Lady Baldwin could be drugging her. “That’s absurd,” she murmured. Why would she do such a thing? I’ve lain here so long in this bed that my brain has turned to corn mush.

  She forced herself to fight the torpor. The fire had gone out in the fireplace, and the room was blessedly cooler. Outside the window, she heard the trill of a mockingbird. Below, the house was quiet.

  “It is Sunday,” she said. “Sunday, and they’ve all gone to church.”

  She slid from the bed and made her way unsteadily toward the door. Once she swayed and would have fallen, but she caught herself on the candle stand. Clinging to the door jamb, she pushed open the door and listened. Still nothing.

  The stairs were more difficult to navigate than she believed possible, but just being out of the sickroom gave her strength. Downstairs, she inched her way along the hall and into the winter kitchen.

  The family had taken their morning meal in one of the formal rooms, but the remains of breakfast sat on a tray waiting to be carried back to the summer kitchen a short distance behind the house. The back door stood open, and Elizabeth heard a woman singing. The cook, she knew, was a slave woman, and she often sang as she went about her duties.

  Satisfied that no one was around to stop her, Elizabeth scooped up several scones and a dish of preserves. A mug of ale stood beside the pewter plate of fried fish. She picked up the ale and drank deeply, trying not to think who might have already sipped from the cup that morning.