Web of Love (16 page)

His mother collapsed against him. “I thought I would be relieved once I heard,” she said. “No matter what the news was. As long as I knew, I thought. But I still do not know. Three weeks, Edmund. And he had a high fever.”

He kissed her forehead and held her to him. “No, don't choke back your tears, Mama,” he said. “I shall feel remarkably foolish for my own if you succeed in controlling yours. Tomorrow we will be on our way. Then at least we will be doing something. And soon enough we will know.”

He looked at his wife through his tears as he held his mother's head to his shoulder and rocked her against him.

H
E WAS STILL SLEEPING WHEN SHE WOKE UP. It was a deep and peaceful sleep. There was none of the tossing and turning of his head and the heightened color and the mutterings that she had become used to in two weeks of nursing him. He was sleeping. He was going to get well again.

Ellen was feeling cramped from lying on the hard floor. But she did not move for a while. She lay still and looked at him. Would she even call him handsome if she were to see him now for the first time? His normally fair wavy hair had not been washed in two weeks, except at the forehead and temples with the damp cloths she had used so often to cool his face. He had a two-week growth of beard. And his face was thinner than it had been. Even his arm and hand, flung out on top of the covers, were thinner.

But he had come home, and she had fought for his life. And he was going to live. The question of whether he looked handsome or not was supremely irrelevant.

Ellen gazed at Lord Eden for a long time without moving. It seemed that she had slept for the first time in a long, long while. And she felt refreshed. There was a deadness somewhere inside her, an enormous load that might weigh her down if she dwelt upon it. But she would ignore it for the present. It was not time yet to take it out and explore it. She had slept and she was refreshed and she would allow herself to regain strength and energy before looking too far inward.

She had washed and changed and was folding the last blanket that had covered her on the floor when she turned her head to find him looking at her.

“You are awake,” she said.

“Did you sleep there?” he asked. “It must have been very uncomfortable.”

“Perhaps it was,” she said. “But I was sleeping too soundly to notice.”

A ghost of his old grin flashed over his face. “Have I been a hard patient?” he asked. “I can remember only that the furniture was walking about the room. Most disconcerting, I assure you.”

“You have not been a difficult patient,” she said.

He looked keenly at her for a few moments. “Two weeks I have been here?” he said. “There have been others too? You look run into the ground.”

“There have been others,” she said. “There still are in the other part of the house. They are all recovering.”

He closed his eyes.

“You should not talk,” she said. “You are very weak.”

“And will be as long as I lie here sleeping and saying nothing,” he said, opening his eyes again. He felt his jaw. “Ugh! I must look like some sort of monster. May I trouble you for some water and a towel, ma'am? And can you possibly lay your hands on some shaving gear?”

“I will bring them,” she said, picking up her blankets and pillow and leaving the room. But when she came back with the things he had asked for and took hold of his blankets to fold them back, she found one of his hands on each of her wrists.

“I shall do this myself,” he said. “I gather that for the last fortnight you have cared for every single one of my needs. It quite puts me to the blush to think of it. But no more, ma'am. I thank you, but I shall see to my own bodily needs from now on.”

“You are weaker than you think,” she said. “You will exhaust yourself.”

“Then I shall sleep afterward,” he said. “I have a comfortable bed in which to do so.”

Ellen hesitated.

“I am ravenously hungry,” he said. “Do you have any food in the house, ma'am? Do you have any money? I am afraid I have no way of knowing if I do. Do I?”

“The surgeon said you are to have only tea and toast,” she said. “I shall bring you some. He is coming sometime today to bleed you again.”

“Devil a bit!” he said. “I feel as weak as a baby. I don't think I can spare any surgeon one drop of my blood. I need it all myself, and a beefsteak and some porter sound altogether more palatable than tea and toast.”

Ellen felt herself smile. “Perhaps some eggs with the toast,” she said. “And some milk instead of the tea.”

When she entered the room next, he was lying on the bed, his eyes closed again. But he was clean-shaven, and his hair was damp and clean. He was looking very pale.

“I feel as if I had done a week's work,” he said. “Damnation! This weakness. Pardon me, ma'am. My brain must be addled. Can't think what I am about, using such language in a lady's hearing.” He did not open his eyes.

“You must sleep,” she said, crossing the room and laying light fingers against his forehead. But it was quite cool. “You shall eat when you wake up again.”

“You cannot know how tempting your suggestion is, ma'am,” he said. “But I need to eat if I am ever to get up off this bed without coming nigh to fainting.”

“I shall fetch the tray then,” she said. “It is all ready.”

By the time she came back with it he had managed to drag himself into a half-sitting position, with two pillows behind him. And he felt as if he must scream with the pain and faint from the exertion. He gritted his teeth and smiled at her. Boiled eggs had never looked so appetizing, he thought. Two of them with two pieces of toast and a large glass of milk. He thought he could probably eat the plate and glass as well.

“The beefsteak for dinner?” he asked.

“I shall see what the surgeon says,” she said.

He kept talking to her as he ate. She stood beside the bed for a while, her hands folded in front of her, and then she sat down and watched him quietly.

As she had done for the two weeks previous. He could remember that too. And her face bent over his. Always soothing him. He could not remember quite how. He could not recall all she had done for him. But there appeared to be no servant in the house. She must have done everything. And even though his hair had been unwashed and his beard of two weeks' growth, the rest of him had been perfectly clean, he had discovered when he had washed himself, including his bandage and his large nightshirt.

He owed her everything. And he was embarrassed, self-conscious. They were alone together in her rooms, as far as he could tell. She was beautiful. He must have noticed that before. She was pale and thin. There were dark shadows below her eyes. And the eyes themselves were tired. But she was beautiful. And she must be no older than he. She should not be nursing him.

He had been wholly dependent on her for two weeks. She had talked to him. He recalled that now also. Her voice soothing and caressing. He could still hear it, though he could not hear any of the words she had spoken. He must have called to her often. He could remember her sleeping in the chair in which she now sat.

What was he doing there? Why there in particular? Madeline was still in Brussels. Mrs. Simpson had sent to her the night before, after his fever broke, she had told him. Why was he not with Madeline? He was about to ask as he talked on about nothing in particular. But something stopped him. There had been a reason. He could not remember what. He
would
not remember what. He did not want to remember. Not yet. He needed some of his strength back before he could cope with that memory.

“Damnation!” he said, looking down at his tray and realizing that both plate and glass were empty. “I have never felt so tired in my life. Did you give me a sleeping potion, ma'am?” He was aware of a noisy and inelegant yawn, which he supposed came from his own mouth.

“No,” she said. “It is just that your body has a little more sense than you have, I believe.”

The tray was gone from his hands. There was an arm behind his shoulders, and when it eased him back, his pillows were flat on the bed again. And cool and comfortable. And her hand on his forehead was light and cool. He sighed with contentment. “Magic hands,” he murmured, and let himself fall into a deep and welcome nothingness.

L
ORD
E
DEN WAS
still sleeping when his twin arrived during the afternoon, hurried and breathless.

“You must think I do not care,” she said to Ellen. “I cried so hard when I received your letter last evening that Lady Andrea misunderstood and launched into a speech about how Dom was better off where he was than suffering on unnecessarily. And I cried and laughed all night long. I would have come early this morning, but Lieutenant Penworth needed me again. The poor man. He has no will to live, you know, and no one can do anything at all for him but me. He refuses to eat or drink or even move for anyone else. He needed me this morning. His leg was paining him again, or rather the stump of his poor leg. And I knew that Dom was out of danger and in good hands. I am prattling, am I not?” She burst into tears.

Ellen put her arms about her and hugged her. “Yes, he will live,” she said. “And it is only after a long period of anxiety is over that one realizes how much of a strain one has been under. I have never doubted your devotion to your brother. Not for one moment. He is sleeping. Go and see him.”

“You have shaved him,” Madeline said with a laugh when she came back out of the bedchamber. “And did not cut his chin even once. How clever of you.”

“I was allowed to do nothing for him this morning except bring him a food tray,” Ellen said. “If he had had his sword beside him, I believe he would have held me off with that.”

Madeline laughed again. “Oh, you do my heart good,” she said. “Dearest Dom. And I suppose he was demanding kidneys and ale for breakfast?”

“Beefsteak and porter, actually,” Ellen said.

Both women giggled and felt strange doing so, as if they were performing some long-forgotten skill. They looked at each other in some embarrassment, and both ended up with tears in their eyes.

“I do wish Lieutenant Penworth were roaring with such discontent,” Madeline said. “Oh, I do wish it. But then, his injuries are in many ways worse than Dom's, though I do not believe he was ever as close to death. He has to learn to live without a leg and an eye. It is bound to take longer, is it not?”

“He is fortunate to have someone who is willing to spend her time and sympathies on him,” Ellen said with a smile.

“And Dom is fortunate,” Madeline said. “But I cannot help feeling that we are imposing upon you now, Mrs. Simpson. Perhaps you would like to be free to leave here. Shall I make arrangements to have him moved to Lady Andrea's? I am sure she will not mind. I was hoping to have heard from Edmund in England by now, but still there is nothing. I suppose the mails have been disrupted in the past two weeks.”

“I have no plans,” Ellen said. “And I would not want Lord Eden moved before he has regained some of his strength. Please leave him here.” Her voice shook a little. “I believe I need something to keep me occupied for a while yet.”

Madeline bit her lip and looked away. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I shall leave him here, then. And thank you. Will you tell Dom that I have been? The lieutenant was asleep when I left, but he does not sleep for long. He will be needing me again. I shall call again tomorrow if I may.”

She hurried away again soon after, eager to return to her main patient. She felt so very sorry for him. He was very young to have lost both his looks and his fitness. And he had been a vigorous young man who had enjoyed exercise and outdoor activity more than anything. She tried to imagine the same thing happening to Dom, and she knew that he would rather be dead. As Lieutenant Penworth would. He had told her that more than once.

He needed her now. She was the only person he would respond to, the only one he would listen to. She sat by his bedside sometimes for an hour or more, chattering away about her childhood, her girlhood, Amberley, the strange circumstances that had brought Edmund and Alexandra together, anything she could think of to distract his thoughts for a few minutes. And talking was something she had always been good at.

It felt lovely to be needed. Although she would many times prefer that the lieutenant had not been so wounded, since he had, she was glad that chance had brought him to Lady Andrea's house and her. For the time, at least, purpose had been given to her life. It would be many weeks, perhaps months, before he would be fit enough to return to England. In the meanwhile, she would stay with him. Lady Andrea had no intention of removing from Brussels while her husband was with the army in Paris anyway.