A Love That Never Tires (33 page)

“Not too sore?”

She smiled, but did not blush. “Oh, I’m sore.”

Patrick held out his hand, and Linley took it. Together, they walked up the path. The morning mist clung to the mountain, shrouding the monastery. Trees grew fewer and far between the higher Patrick and Linley climbed. They could see the place where the waterfall dumped over the edge of one of the mountains. Someone had placed prayer wheels along the dirt path, and Linley gave them each a spin as she passed by.

Did she feel purified? Was she any closer to enlightenment?

No, Linley felt none of that. She only felt tired. So very tired.

“How much farther?” she asked.

Patrick looked up to see the tip of the mountain. “Are you bored of this already?”

She walked silently for a few steps, not knowing exactly what to say. Things were very different between them now. She felt a little nervous, a little shy. “Patrick, how are we supposed to act now? How should we behave toward each other?”

He squeezed her hand. “How do you want to act?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been in this situation before.”

Of course she hadn’t. Patrick smiled to himself, relishing in the fact that, for now, she was his. No man ever touched her before, and for as long as he could help it, no other man ever would. “I think it’s best we act the same as we always have. At least when we’re in the company of others. And when it is just you and I, we can behave any way we like.”

“I don’t want anyone to find out about us.”

“Neither do I,” he said. “Not for a long while, at any rate.” Patrick stopped to point out a large rock in the path so Linley wouldn’t trip over it. “Your father is bound to find out once I start showing up in random parts of the world. I don’t know how many excuses I can make for visiting Machu Picchu.”

She laughed. “Will you really come visit me?”

“I will if you want me to.”

Linley squeezed his hand very tightly and brought it up to her lips. “And I’d like to come and visit you from time to time,” she said, kissing each of his knuckles. “Surely I can manage a trip to London once or twice a year.”

“But where will we stay? You forget I sold my London house,” Patrick explained. “We cannot very well stay at your father’s cousin’s home, or at my sister’s…I suppose I could sleep at the club, but that would defeat the purpose of sleeping with
you
.”

“If I come to London, you are definitely not staying at your club.” Linley rummaged in her pocket with her free hand for her handkerchief. The weather was not at all warm, but beads of perspiration gathered on her forehead and at the back of her neck.

Patrick watched her dab at her skin, which was flushed dark pink. “Are you all right? Perhaps we’ve overdone it for today. You did have quite a night last night…”

“I am fine.”

They reached the top of the mountain half an hour later. She and Patrick stood on the peak, looking out across the tops of all the other mountains. Beyond their green tips, the white heads of the Himalayas cut through the otherwise endless blue sky. They were so tall and so vast that they hardly seemed real.

Amazing, really—the valley of the monastery so lush and green against the startling white of the mountains in the distance. It was as if they were two different worlds rubbing against each other. Linley and Patrick stood in silence, wondering how long it could last. How long could two opposite environments exist so closely?

Linley looked down into the valley below, but she could not see anything. The clouds shrouded the monastery, blocking it from above. It seemed to exist in a purgatory somewhere between the ground and the sky. The green and the white. Here and…where?

Seeing this had a particular impact on Patrick as well. How peaceful he felt at the top of the world. How utterly at home he seemed.

“I never imagined it would look like this,” he said. “Of course, I’ve seen pictures. But no photographs can compare.”

“Speaking of photographs,” Linley said, reaching into the small bag she carried across her shoulder. “I brought my camera.” She took the small black camera out of her bag and opened the little door at the front, which folded down to reveal the accordion-like bellow and lens. When she pointed it at the horizon, Patrick stepped out of the way.

“No,” she said. “I want you in it.”

Patrick stepped back into the frame. “How should I stand?”

Linley looked up and motioned with her hand. “Look out that way. At the mountains.” She glanced back down at the camera in her hands, holding it about chest level. When she felt she had the right shot, she pressed the shutter release button.

The shutter snapped, capturing the image of Patrick staring out at the Himalayas, his hands resting in the pockets of his trousers.

She wound the film and moved in closer, snapping another shot of him at close range.

“Let me take one of you,” Patrick said, holding out his hand for the camera.

He and Linley switched places, only this time, she faced the camera with the mountains in the background, her brown hair tousled around her face in the wind.

“Beautiful.” He took the photograph, and then closed the camera, handing it back.

They both sat down on the ground, looking out over the horizon. Their shoulders brushed, and Patrick put his arm around her. He held her for a long time before either of them spoke.

“Do you regret it,” he asked. “Do you regret last night?”

“No.”

Patrick barely waited for her to answer. “Because what’s done is done,” he continued. “And if someday you meet a man you’d like to marry, you will have to tell him about me. About this.”

“If I ever meet a man I want to marry, my lack of virginity will not change the way he feels about me,” Linley said. “He would be the sort of man who would accept me as I am.”

“A man wants to be his wife’s first.”

“But that’s not fair. Women have to accept the fact that our husbands will not be virgins on our wedding night.”

Patrick shook his head. “That is different.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know. If I married, I’d want to know that my wife…” He let out a long sigh. “It doesn’t matter. I am not getting married, so what do I care?”

“You want your wife to be chaste. You can say it, I’m not offended.”

“Linley…”

She smiled at him as best she could. “You’re right, a man expects his wife to be a virgin. I made my decision. I sealed my fate. I understood what I was getting myself into, and I am happy with my choice.”

“Truly?” He looked straight into her eyes.

Linley nodded. “Truly.”

Patrick bent his head down and kissed her. Linley snuggled her head on his shoulder, again staring out at the mountains.

“You must think I’m awfully fast,” she said, watching the clouds swirl around some distant peak. “I threw myself at you like a chorus girl from the Gaiety.”

He laughed and hugged her tighter. “Gaiety girls appreciate a seasoned man.”

“I didn’t say I did not appreciate your experience. I just said it was unfair that men were not expected to be virgins. Women have to lay back and spread their legs, knowing that their husband has kept a mistress or lain with whores, and pray to God he doesn’t have a venereal disease.”

Patrick coughed and sputtered. “What do you know of venereal diseases?”

“I know I don’t want one.”

“Well, I don’t have any.”

Linley smiled. “Of course not, Patrick. I never meant to imply you did.”

“No, really. I take precautions,” he said. “I mean, I usually take precautions, but I didn’t bring any with me this time. I hadn’t expected anything to happen, so why would I? But, I’m normally very careful.” Patrick lifted her head off his shoulder and looked her hard in the face. “And you should be careful, too.”

Linley had no idea what he was talking about, but she nodded.

“Don’t just let some chap…”

“What?” she asked “Don’t just let some chap what?”

Patrick sighed. “I’ll teach you about that another time.”

Linley dropped the subject, thinking since Patrick was the one who knew all about those sort of things, he would tell her what she needed to know when the time was right. She did wonder who taught
him
about such things—his father? One of his friends? Maybe even Lady Wolstanton.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

They intended to make love on that mountaintop. Patrick stripped down to his underclothes while Linley struggled with the buttons of her blouse. He did not see her hands tremble as she unfastened them, but once she slid the shirt over her head, he saw something else.

“What is that?” he asked, pointing at a patch of dark pink spots across the top of her chest. “A rash?”

Linley looked down, but she could hardly see anything.

Patrick leaned in closer. It was definitely a rash. “Have you gotten into something?”

“Not that I can recall.”

He searched his own chest. “Do I have anything?”

Linley shook her head. “No, you’re fine.”

“I don’t like the looks of it,” he said. “You should show your father.”

“I am not showing my father my chest!”

Patrick helped her put her shirt back on, careful not to touch the rash. “You don’t have to show him all of it, but he might have some idea what it is.”

Linley stood up and dusted off the seat of her skirt. When she did so, she wobbled a little. “I’ve never had a rash before. Not even as a little girl.”

He was too concerned with putting his own clothes on to notice she was unsteady on her feet. “Well, you’re lucky you made it this long,” he said, pulling his belt tight and pushing the end through the buckle. “I just hope it isn’t contagious.”

“So do I, for your sake.”

They walked hand in hand back down the path. Patrick walked too briskly, because Linley struggled to keep up. He slowed down to an easier pace, noting the way she was out of breath. He also saw she perspired as if she’d just ran a foot race.

“Should we stop for a moment?” he asked.

Linley shook her head. “No. Let’s keep going.”

“Are you certain, because—”

“I said no.”

Patrick felt her hand grow clammy. A fine sheen of sweat covered her skin, which looked very, very flushed. He hoped something they encountered on their hike had not made her ill. After all, she seemed perfectly well that morning.

As they walked, Linley’s condition worsened. She stumbled over her own feet, relying on Patrick to keep her from falling. He held her by the elbow, guiding her down the path one slow step at a time. When they reached the prayer wheels they encountered on their trip up, Linley vomited.

“You are too sick to walk any further,” Patrick said, scooping her up into his arms. “Let me carry you.”

She was in no state to argue. Her head pounded. Her stomach ached, and she reeled from nausea. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”

“It’s all right.”

He carried her down the mountain. Even though she weighed very little, it was no easy task. Linley’s head rested limply against his shoulder, and Patrick could feel the heat burning through her sweat-soaked blouse. They stopped twice so she could vomit, but now it only came out in gut wrenching dry heaves.

They reached the monastery, and Patrick shuffled across the stone courtyard. He, too, was covered in sweat and his arms ached. From inside the main building, he heard the monks chanting.

“Tell them to be quiet, Patrick,” Linley whispered. “They hurt my ears.”

He smiled and kissed her matted brown hair, which lay plastered against her head. Christ, she was burning up! Patrick pushed his way through the side door and carefully made his way up the steps to her room.

As he did, Archie passed him in the corridor. “What’s going on here?”

“She’s ill.”

“I’ll get Bedford,” he said, hurrying down the stairs and out of sight.

Patrick made it to her room and laid her on her narrow cot. He placed her camera and the bag she carried next to her leather pack on the floor. Before anyone came in, he leaned down and whispered, “Tell your father you have a rash, but don’t mention that I know anything about it.”

Linley nodded, her head barely moving against the pillow.

“Button!” Her father burst into the room. “My God, what has happened?”

Patrick stepped out of the way, letting the man get closer to his daughter’s bedside. “We were hiking down from the top of the mountain and she fell ill.”

Sir Bedford looked up at him, concern slashed across his features. Before he could unleash a torrent of questions on Patrick, Linley lifted a weak hand and placed it over her father’s. “A rash,” she whispered. “I have a rash.”

“A rash? What sort of rash? Where?”

She moved her hand to her chest, patting the space just above her breast.

Her father ushered everyone out of the room, and then pulled the curtain that served as the door closed behind them. Patrick and the others stood in the corridor. He leaned against the cool stone wall, not wanting to meet their gaze.

“What happened up there?” Reginald asked.

Patrick closed his eyes. “She became ill. One moment she was fine, the next she could barely stand. I brought her down as soon as I could.”

“Funny she should get sick with you,” Archie said. “I saw her this morning and she seemed fine.”

“I told you.” Patrick opened his eyes and leveled them on Archie. “She was fine until we were coming down.”

The curtain to the room pushed aside, and Sir Bedford stepped out into the hall. “She does have a rash. Not a very large one, but it is there.”

“What does that mean?” Reginald asked. “A rash could be almost anything.”

Linley’s father nodded. “We will just have to keep an eye on it and see what happens.”

***

She slept the rest of the afternoon, but when Patrick peeked his head into her room, Linley sat up and invited him in.

“Sorry I got sick in front of you,” she said. “I am humiliated.”

“Please, don’t be,” he said, “I’m just glad to see you are feeling better.”

Patrick sat down on the edge of her little cot. Linley and her father had been given the only beds at the monastery, although they both swore the floor was more comfortable. Sitting on it then, Patrick was apt to believe them.