Lost in Your Arms (4 page)

Nothing.

“This explosion of yours did an amazing amount of damage.” She gently probed his ribs. “Yet you were lucky. Perhaps you have some cracked ribs, but none are broken and stabbing you.” As she washed each part of him, she dried it carefully and placed it beneath the blanket.

Each time she touched him, the sense of connection between them expanded. When he’d been healthy and her husband, she had never felt like this. Perhaps this tragedy had altered him—or perhaps the years had matured him, permeated his essence to such an extent she discerned them. Perhaps she’d changed, softened, grown forgiving. Or she realized that death hovered above them like a great dark raven, ready to snatch him away before they could write more of their history.

She could hear men moving below, a greeting, then the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Behind her, Mr. Kinman stirred and groaned, a great hulking man who feared the sight of blood. But only one thing was important now. To give MacLean a fighting chance. “MacLean.”
She repeated his name, thinking surely he would respond to that above all else. “You could have lost an eye to the flying glass, but you were lucky there, too. And the break in your leg was dreadful.” As the sound of booted feet grew closer, she began the torturous process of unwrapping the limb. “But somehow you’ve thrown off any infection. You’ll walk again. So tell me, MacLean, why are you still asleep?”

“He’s asleep, young lady, because of the blow he sustained to the head.” A bewhiskered gentleman stood at the top of the stairs, dressed in brown tweed and smelling of tobacco. A superior gentleman, and from his expression, one given to scorn and an unwarranted haughtiness. “I’m Dr. Bridges, and I demand to know what you think you’re doing!”

Mr. Throckmorton stood behind him in the shadows, and for all that he allowed Dr. Bridges to take the lead, Enid addressed only him, “Mr. Throckmorton, I’m washing MacLean. He was filthy.” Enid tossed her rag into the basin. “Mr. Kinman, could I prevail upon you to discard this and bring more warm, clean water?”

Mr. Kinman groaned again, then crawled toward her and held up his hands.

She placed the basin in them and admonished, “Don’t spill it.”

“I won’t,” Mr. Kinman whispered. Staggering to his feet, he headed for the stairs.

Dr. Bridges’s luxuriant mustache quivered with indignation at being ignored. “Young lady, I am a trained physician, a graduate of Oxford, and what you’re doing is wrong.”

“Perhaps it is, but what
you’re
doing is killing him.”
She kept her voice low, for if she didn’t, she would have started shouting again, and that might disturb the patient.

She glanced at MacLean’s slack features.

Although she might come to shouting yet, if that would wake him.

“Even a sick man deserves to be washed and to rest on clean sheets,” she said.

“Those bandages were the only thing keeping the swelling down.” Dr. Bridges gestured toward MacLean. “Look at him! Now that you’ve removed them, he’s puffing up like a toad.”

He was, and Enid’s heart sank. If only she’d had time to finish assessing MacLean before facing her opponent and her judge. “I’ll pack him in ice to keep the swelling down. Mr. Throckmorton, can you commandeer me ice?”

“Indeed.” Mr. Throckmorton walked to the stairs, called down and gave the order, then returned to watch Enid and the doctor, weighing them both with austere resolution.

Mr. Kinman returned, looking a little less ill and a great deal more interested in the conversation. He set the basin on the bedstand and offered clean rags and a small towel filled with ice. When she took them he offered a quick nod of encouragement.

He didn’t like the doctor, either.

Mr. Kinman stepped back to stand by Mr. Throckmorton.

She placed the towel across MacLean’s nose and over his eyes, taking care that it should not block his airway. Wetting the rag, she stroked it over MacLean’s
thigh. She could clearly see the scarring where the bone had protruded through the skin. Yet the bone had set straight and true. If he survived, he would walk again, and she recognized that miracle.

“Fresh air. While you bathe him!” Like a spectator in a tennis match, Dr. Bridges looked from window to window. “The chill will kill him.”

Enid’s indignation rose anew. “This chamber was like a mausoleum, not a sickroom. How is MacLean to know when to wake if he’s held in a prison?”

“Wake? You think he’s going to wake? We can scarcely get water into him, and I’d like to know how you’ll do better, young lady!” The doctor’s whiskers quivered with resentment. “You’ve unwrapped his leg. I hope you haven’t ruined that, too.”

Dabbing the leg dry with a towel, Enid considered the situation. Mr. Throckmorton had no reason to trust in her skill, while Dr. Bridges held a degree from the most prestigious medical school in England. But Enid
had
to stay with MacLean. He needed her if he was to survive. More than that, the unconscious, emaciated form on the bed tugged at her soul. She didn’t know why; he should be no more to her than any other patient.

In fact, if MacLean lived, she would still be bound to him, and if he died while in her care, she would be free. Yet something about this man tugged at her senses. Even unconscious, he exuded an aura of strength, of power, of irresistible allure. So she would do anything—beg, fight, even appease the doctor—for a chance to drag MacLean back to life. Nothing else was acceptable.

So although conciliation stuck in her throat, Enid offered an olive branch. “You did an excellent job with the leg, Dr. Bridges.” Amazing though it seemed, he had. “A difficult break. Congratulations.”

A profound silence settled on the room, and she glanced up from her ministrations.

“An Arab physician set the bone,” Mr. Throckmorton said.

Dr. Bridges whirled to face Mr. Throckmorton. “He’s going to die anyway! What difference does it make?”

Mr. Throckmorton’s expression stilled. His eyes grew so cold that the temperature in the room dropped perceptibly. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve been treating
my friend
inattentively because you believe he can’t be saved?”

Dr. Bridges wasn’t an intuitive man, for he dared to answer, “I’ve done what I can for him, but I’ve never seen such dreadful wounds. Of course he’s doomed.”

Mr. Throckmorton snapped his fingers, then moved to stand beside Enid.

Taking the protesting doctor by the arm, Mr. Kinman hustled him down the stairs.

“I requested the best,” Mr. Throckmorton said, chill fury in his tone. “And that’s what I got?”

The anxiety that clutched at Enid’s throat relaxed, and in a careful, nonjudgmental tone, she said, “Dr. Gerritson, the man who trained me, used to say trouble comes when the physicians believe in their own infallibility.”

“Your Dr. Gerritson sounds like an intelligent man. How did you come to train with him?”

“After MacLean abandoned me, I had to pay off his
debts. So I assisted the village doctor with all manner of injuries and illnesses. I didn’t faint at the sight of blood—I’d seen too much at the orphanage to get queasy about anything. After I helped him set the hostler’s collarbone, he offered me a place working with him. His wife said he was too old to work so hard. She was right. He died three years later, and here I am.”

Mr. Throckmorton watched in silence as she bathed MacLean’s wounds. “Will
you
be able to save MacLean?”

“I don’t know.” MacLean was so ill. “I don’t even know if I can keep him alive through the night. But I will try.”

He didn’t reproach her. Instead he asked, “What can I do to assist?”

If only all men were so astute! “I need an attendant, a sturdy woman of good size and sense who’ll help me move him, give him water and feed him should he come to consciousness.”

“I’ll send Mrs. Brown to you. She’s our nursemaid, and a more sensible woman I’ve never met.”

“I hate to deprive your children of their nursemaid.”

“My daughter and my niece, and I assure you, my fiancée will be thrilled to have the children to herself.” Mr. Throckmorton’s smile twisted up on one side and down on the other, and he looked like a man who didn’t know whether he was delighted or deprived. “My fiancée was formerly their governess, you see.”

Enid didn’t see, but she didn’t care, either. As long as Mr. Throckmorton filled her needs, he and his betrothed could do and be whatever they wished. “If Mrs. Brown is the best to be had, I’ll take her and gladly. I want maids to clean this room so I can bring some kind
of order to the unguents and linens and . . .” She gestured at the clutter about her. In the face of such a vital task, she needed sanitation and organization or her methodical soul would rebel.

“Maids. Immediately. I need herbs.”

“My gardener will attend you.”

She nodded, well-satisfied, and leaned over MacLean again.

“I would ask while you’re here that you stay within the confines of the cottage unless accompanied by one of my men.”

She glanced at him sharply. More precautions. “I can’t imagine I’ll have the desire to go anywhere until MacLean’s on the mend.”

“A walk in the garden every day will be a requirement, I think.” Mr. Throckmorton took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “Since Mrs. Brown is not yet available, I’ll help you change the sheets.”

As they worked, sliding the dirty linens out from beneath MacLean, replacing them with clean ones, rolling MacLean from side to side with utmost care, the late afternoon sun shone in the window and slowly climbed the bed, at last reaching MacLean’s face and resting on the rugged features.

And with a long, rasping gasp, MacLean opened his eyes.

His distinctive, green-and-gold eyes.

Chapter 4

Each time MacLean awoke, he could see her, shining like a candle in the darkness. At first she hurt his eyes, glowing as she did with that inner radiance, but he looked as long as he could before sliding back into the void.

Later he heard a woman’s voice talking to him, and he knew it was her. She filled his mind with images of trees pink with blossom, of people gruff and joyous, of songs sung on a Saturday’s eve. Each image slipped away as soon as he tried to grasp it, and any effort brought pain. Pain in his leg, his chest, his face. He was tired of fighting the pain, so he sought refuge in the void.

Then she scolded him, called him, and the memory of that glowing face brought him back. Each time he opened his eyes, there she was.

Always she pounced on him, lifting him, filling him with fluid of every sort. Such activity vaguely troubled him. His body didn’t crave anything. But his mind demanded
to see her, and if being fed was the price he had to pay, he would do it.

He always fulfilled his obligations.

Usually he came back in the sunshine, but once he heard the roar of thunder, and he opened his eyes to the night.

She was beautiful then, too, the brightest flame in a room full of candles. She moved with such grace, leaning over him, her ruffled pink wrapper loosely tied, her hair braided into an ebony ripple. Her very skin gleamed like fine pale velvet, with a shimmer of pink about the cheeks, a deeper rose dusting the full lower lip, a faint golden sheen on the vee of her chest. Each lightning flash illuminated more of her: the delicate shells of her ears, the divine compassion of her fingers.

That night, for the first time, he discovered he wanted to be raised up and given water, or broth, or anything she chose to stuff down him. For if she held him, his head against her bosom, her arms around him, he could die happy.

He frowned.

Die? He wasn’t going to die.

There was never a question of that.

“A beautiful morning, miss, after that storm last night.” Mrs. Brown bustled into the sunlit room, white apron smoothed over her brown cotton dress, Enid’s breakfast tray in her hands. “The old men in the clouds were playing hard at ninepins last night.”

Arms raised, Enid turned from the small mirror on the wall and faced the woman who had been her greatest support during the long, grim fortnight. “I was
awake.” And she couldn’t wait to share her news—although not all her news. Some things were meant to be kept secret.

Mrs. Brown placed the breakfast tray on the table by the window and hurried to help Enid put up her hair. The dark, abundant fall, which extended past Enid’s hips, waved with a life of its own, but Mrs. Brown hadn’t raised nineteen children for nothing. The tall, sturdy woman twisted the tresses in her strong hands until Enid’s eyes slanted and she came up on her toes from the pain. She didn’t complain, though; the novelty and joy of receiving motherly care far exceeded her discomfort.

As Mrs. Brown arranged the snood and secured it with pins, she asked, “Did the storm disturb him, miss?” Her broad face was serious as she nodded toward MacLean, silent and unresponsive on the bed.

Enid grinned with excitement. “I woke at midnight, and his eyes were open.”

“Ah, is that the truth, then?”

Mrs. Brown acknowledged the report with her typical serenity, but Enid saw the satisfaction in her kind eyes. Mrs. Brown’s endless good sense and cheery attitude had kept Enid going when exhaustion and discouragement would otherwise have brought her to tears. Mrs. Brown looked after Enid, too, sending her on walks, directing the undermaids to fetch and carry, to carry the linens and laundry and iron Enid’s gowns.

“That’s good news.” Grasping Enid by the shoulders, Mrs. Brown steered her toward the breakfast tray. “He’s never come awake without ye talking at him before.”

“Very good news, I would think.” Enid glanced at his still form as she seated herself.

“Your letter is here,” Mrs. Brown said.

Enid snatched up the white sheet of paper and broke the seal. She scanned the first few lines. Lady Halifax claimed to be well, and, in fact, was well enough to make acerbic observations about her new nurse, the household and the state of the world in general. The weekly missives kept Enid’s conscience at bay and the old lady’s wit always made her laugh. She placed the letter on the table. “I’ll write her this afternoon.” Shaking out her napkin, she said, “I think MacLean is improving.”

He
was
improving, for when she had finished feeding him his broth and she’d leaned over to tuck him in, he’d slid his hand inside her wrapper and cupped her breast! Not tentatively, not with trepidation, but with the smooth confidence of an aficionado of women.

She had jumped back and gasped, and as if the effort had exhausted him, his hand had fallen to his side and his eyes had shut.

She’d stood well away from the bed, holding the edges of her wrapper and saying aloud in a shocked tone, “Sir! That is uncalled for.” As if he could hear her. As if he would care if he did.

And where had MacLean learned a move like that? His rampage through life had included a rampage in the marital bed, and he had usually left her behind in his frenzy and his rush.

“No doubt he is getting better, miss. He responds to ye. Yer voice.” Mrs. Brown pulled out the chair and removed the covers from the food. “Yer touch.”

“I believe you’re right.” An uprush of joy buoyed Enid. She had succeeded. MacLean had touched her. MacLean was definitely going to live.

“Eat yer breakfast. Esther sent along the season’s first peach just fer ye.”

Esther, the cook, sent the best produce and the finest cookery to Enid three times a day. Sometimes a plate of warm biscuits or a cool slice of pie arrived in between meals. Milford, the gardener, brought whatever herbs Enid required for her medicines, and every day the sickroom received a bouquet of flowers. Mr. Kinman appeared frequently to check on Enid, although he never stayed long enough to observe any sickroom rituals, and the three other gentlemen who guarded the cottage were deferential and kind.

But Enid concentrated on her patient. Even now, as she ate pork and potato pie and washed it down with apple cider, her gaze lingered on MacLean. He came to consciousness usually once a day, usually in the evening when sunshine touched his face. He stared fixedly at her but never spoke. He drank whatever water and broth she poured down him, but he never lifted a finger to help himself. It was as if his body demanded attention and he responded, but never did his mind surface to perform the functions necessary to his continued existence.

Mr. Throckmorton was frankly discouraged.

But MacLean was in there. Enid knew he was. She sensed a life in him, a spirit of strength and determination. She spoke to that spirit every day, telling him the story of her life, reading him the newspaper, commenting on the weather, giving her opinion on politics. At first Mrs. Brown had acted as if Enid were a
little touched, then slowly the ample woman with the graying hair and the soft face had become convinced he did hear. When Enid would go for her daily walk, Mrs. Brown would converse with him about events on the estate and in the village. “But he likes to listen to ye best, miss,” Mrs. Brown said often. “I can just tell.”

Going now to the bed, Mrs. Brown laid her hand on his forehead. “No fever.” She frowned down at him as she poured her palm full of oil. “My fingers itch to wash his hair, really wash it in a basin. ‘Tis so filthy I can scarcely tell the color.”

“It used to be a rather sandy blond.”

Mrs. Brown squinted down at it. “Underneath all that oil, it looks to me to be an auburn.”

“I suppose it’s darkened as he aged.” Memory brushed at her, and Enid chuckled. “He always thought he was losing his hair. He used to stare at the hairs in his brush and complain vociferously.”

“It appears he was wrong.”

“When he wakes and can move, we’ll give him a bath in a tub.” Enid brushed the rosy skin of the peach with her fingers and sniffed the ripe, sweet smell. “I imagine he’ll be happy about that.”

“Men are odd creatures. I had a son who went a month without changing his underwear, and protested when I burned them afterward.” Mrs. Brown spoke in a slow, measured tone, like a guide providing a tour of male peculiarity.

Enid wrinkled her nose at the thought. “MacLean will be so weak he won’t be able to fight us.”

“I imagine he’ll be so weak he’ll scarcely be able to lift his own head.” Picking up his arm, Mrs. Brown
massaged the limp muscles. “We’ve got to get ye into shape,” she addressed him. “A big, strong man like ye alyin’ in bed for nigh on to two months. Ye must be bored to tears with yerself.” Her big hands moved up to the shoulder and across the scarring of his chest, then moved and stretched his arm. They exercised him twice a day to slow the inevitable atrophy of muscle.

Enid watched pensively. Even now, with the weeks of service, she still scarcely recognized him as her husband. The swelling in his face had subsided under the steady application of ice. The scars on his chest and his right shoulder had faded from red to pink, and occasionally a shard of glass worked its way to the surface. All his bruises had healed, and she moved his leg cautiously, but with more confidence every day.

But his features, mangled by the explosion, had changed almost beyond recognition. Only the curve of his cheek and the set of his ears, always too big and far too protuberant, were the same. And his eyes, of course. She could identify those eyes anywhere—as pale green as spring grass, shot through with rays of golden sunlight. It was his eyes that she’d first noticed nine years ago, and his eyes that she prayed, every day, would open and gaze on her again with cognition.

“Ye’d be happier, sir, if ye’d wake and eat, too.” Mrs. Brown gently hefted him onto his stomach and rubbed his back. “A man like ye wants potatoes and beef, not these tit-baby cups of broth we keep pouring down ye.”

“Mrs. Brown!” Enid choked on a bite of the peach.
“He would not like being called a tit-baby, I can tell you.”

“Then he should wake up and tell me so.”

“Yes, he should.” Still eating the fragrant fruit, Enid wandered over to the bedside. His head was turned sideways on the pillow, his cheek crushed into the clean linen. “I think he could tell us a lot if he only would wake.” She waved the peach under his nose. “Smell that, MacLean. Doesn’t it smell like summer mornings in the orchard? Don’t you remember what it’s like to pick a bushel of peaches, and feel the fuzz float down your back and collect in the creases of your neck and itch? Don’t you wish you were out there, stretched in the grass, eating a peach fresh from the tree and watching the sun filter through the leaves while a faint breeze dusts your cheeks?”

Mrs. Brown’s hands moved slowly along his back as Enid talked.

Caught up in the picture she had created, Enid knelt beside the bed and spoke softly, insistently, into his ear. “It’s so beautiful outside. A summer like no other has been before, or will be again, and you’re wasting it in the sickroom.” She brushed his hair back from his face, wanting nothing so much as to see him open his eyes and hear him speak. She had worked too hard to return him to health to let him languish in this unconscious state. Beneath the surface his mind was stirring, and she longed to communicate with him, to discover if his aura of power and honor was a true representation of his being . . . or whether she had stitched it up from fragments of longing and threads of loneliness. She tried to lure him with voice and words and touch. “We could laugh together—lazy fools that we are—and tell
stories about other summers more grand than this, but we would know we were lying, because this is the best time in the world. The sun is ours, the sky is blue,
the scents are lush and full of fruit so ripe it hangs from the trees and flowers wild with bloom. Come back to me, MacLean, and I’ll take you there.”

Then he opened his eyes and said, “All right, you can take me there. But first, tell me—who are you?”