Tempting the Bride (11 page)

They were speaking of her in present tense—of course they were. But to Hastings’s ears their words seemed to carry every characteristic of a eulogy. He felt like a hollow shell, nothing inside but fear.

“I’m sorry,” said Millie. “I didn’t mean to disrupt your reading, Hastings. By all means, continue.”

He rubbed the heel of his hand across his forehead. “She should have awakened.”

“It wasn’t just Miss Redmayne who said her life is not in immediate danger,” Venetia reminded him, even though anxiety tinged her own voice. “Fitz’s physician, Lexington’s, and your own—they’ve all said the same thing.”

He knew what they’d said—words that meant nothing to the fear inside.

“There is someone very well spoken of in Paris for this kind of trauma,” Lexington said quietly. “Shall I cable him?”

Hastings turned gratefully in Lexington’s direction. “I
would be most obliged, sir. I’d like to know that we are doing everything possible for her.”

Chances were the Parisian fellow would not be of any more help than the London doctors. But sending for him would give the illusion of action and alleviate the futility of waiting.

“I will compose a telegram,” said Lexington. “May I have use of pen and paper, Lord Fitzhugh?”

“Call me Fitz. I’ll show you to my study. And, Venetia, why don’t you come down with us? You haven’t eaten anything all day—that can’t be good for the baby. Millie, you, too.”

“I’ll stay here,” said Hastings. “I’m still full from my tea.”

Fitz clasped a hand over Hastings’s shoulder. “We’ll be back soon.”

The room emptied, except for the nurse. “Would you care for a bit of supper, Nurse Jennings?” Hastings asked.

“Oh, no, thank you, your lordship, I had a plentiful tea,” replied Nurse Jennings. She had a deep, scratchy voice. “But…if your lordship don’t mind, I could do with a few minutes of fresh air.”

“I don’t mind at all.”

“I won’t be but five minutes.”

When Nurse Jennings had gone, his gaze returned to Helena. “I think Nurse Jennings was hurting for a cigarette.”

She remained as silent and still as Sleeping Beauty, caught in a cursed slumber.

“Wake up, Helena.
Wake up
.”

Not a muscle moved in her face.

He fought back sudden tears and looked down at the
book in his hands. “I’ve—I’ve lost my place. What do you want to hear? The section on advertisements to be placed in the books? The use and abuse of reviews? Trade prices and discounts?”

It didn’t matter, of course. She already knew everything—they were her words, her expertise. He only thought—idiotic of him—that she would hate the smothering silence as much as he did.

He took hold of her hand. “Come, wake up. Tell me to keep my hand to myself. Tell me to get out of your room. Tell me to—”

This time he could no longer hold back his tears. And with them came words that he’d never been able to say to her his entire life. “I love you, Helena. I have always loved you. Wake up and let me prove it to you.”

T
wenty-four hours later, she was still unconscious.

The bruises on her face had turned purple and green. The swelling had gone down, but her cheeks and firmly closed eyes were beginning to look sunken—they’d not been able to feed her much, not even water.

She’d always been slender, but there had been an energetic strength to her—a presence that was greater than her size. Now, for the first time since he’d met her, she looked frail, as if she might float away without the bedcover keeping her in place.

Hastings stood in a corner of the room, his arms crossed, one shoulder against the wall. He’d finished reading her book on publishing. He’d read the entirety of the day’s newspaper. He’d grown quite weary of the sound of his own voice.

Venetia was out in the passage, weeping in her husband’s arms. Fitz’s eyes were red-rimmed, as were Millie’s. Hastings hadn’t cried again, but he had taken to drinking quantities of strong spirits out of Fitz’s view—Fitz had warned Hastings not to bring a bottle near him, as he hadn’t been so tempted in years.

More of London’s best physicians had been in to see her, as well as the expert from Paris. They all said the same thing: The family must wait and see. Lexington had summoned another expert from Berlin; Hastings doubted the fellow would have a different diagnosis to offer.

From time to time she shivered and mumbled, and they’d all rush to the edges of her bed, calling her name in unison, willing her to awaken. But invariably, as if caught in the sticky grip of a nightmare, she’d sink back into the void that incarcerated her. Ice and heat had both been tried. Venetia and Millie rubbed her hands and forearms. Once, Venetia, feeling desperate, even slapped Helena, only to burst into tears herself.

Miss Redmayne had pulled the family aside and spoken to them of the need to start tube feeding her, should her coma persist. Hastings had listened with what had seemed to him tremendous stoicism. Only later did he realize he had been shaking.

He’d known a few medical students during his time at Oxford. On long-ago nights of drinking and merrymaking, they used to regale him with the more outlandish aspects of their knowledge. Tube feeding involved the insertion of a tube lubricated with glycerin inside the patient’s nostril. He’d laughed then at the oddity of such a procedure; now the thought of it terrified him.

Because
she
would be terrified. And she had to know,
somehow. Imprisoned inside her mind, she must be beating at the bars to get out, to be once again mistress of her own fate.

And while they could keep her alive, her muscles would waste away from inactivity. She would become a breathing corpse, someone whose biological functions persisted even though the spirit had fled.

Out in the passage Lexington was gently calming Venetia—persuading her to take a few hours of rest, if only for the sake of the baby. And she was reluctantly agreeing. Inside the room, Fitz and Millie sat shoulder to shoulder on a small chaise, holding on to each other.

Hastings’s own fear was riddled with regret. No more. No more lies. No more cowardice. No more hiding his true sentiments behind mockery and derision. If she’d only awaken, he would become a man worthy of her.

If she’d only awaken.

H
e read her
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
and gave each character a different voice.

The White Rabbit babbled in a high-pitched squeak. The Cheshire Cat purred languorously. The Queen of Hearts brayed with impetuosity and high passion. Alice herself he made impish, with a touch of both bravado and naïveté.

He didn’t know why he bothered. Helena had shown no sign of having heard a single word he’d uttered. But he did it all the same.

At the end of a chapter, Fitz asked, “Are you not tired, David? Your voice must be worn-out.”

His voice
was
worn-out, but he shook his head. “I’m
all right. I don’t want her to feel as if we are sitting here in a silent vigil.”

“We have not been a cheerful bunch, have we?” Fitz sighed. “Thank you, David. None of the rest of us would have read half as well.”

“More like none of us can read a quarter as well,” Venetia corrected him.

Hastings closed the book. By now Helena must have sickened of his voice—she’d never have consented to listen to him for hours on end if it weren’t for her incapacity. He only wished she could have told him to shut up herself.

“Go have your supper, all of you,” he said to the gathering. “Especially you, Duchess, you should be eating for two.”

There was a round of desultory agreement. “Come with?” said Fitz.

“I had mine two hours ago. You go on without me.”

When her family had gone downstairs, he asked Nurse Jennings whether she’d care for some fresh air. Nurse Jennings agreed readily and made haste to rendezvous with her cigarette.

He took Helena’s hand in his and brushed his fingers against the uninjured side of her face.

“It will be a gloomy supper downstairs,” he told her. “I’m not sure whether you heard the conversation earlier. We’ve been giving you water and bits of mush, but that’s not enough to sustain you. Tomorrow morning they will administer the tube.”

He had to take a deep breath before he could continue. “I told them this is not you, Helena. You will not allow yourself to remain in this vegetative state. You will come around. You will speak; you will walk; you will dance.
You will publish a thousand more books. You will live life as it is meant to be lived, on your feet, making your own decisions.

“Wake up, my love. I have loved you for a very long time, and you have never been anything but supremely obstinate. I need you to be more obstinate than you’ve ever been, Helena. Wake up. Everything depends upon it—my entire life included.”

S
omeone was using a chisel on Helena’s skull. She winced and slowly opened her eyes. A plaster medallion greeted her sight—a plaster medallion three feet across in diameter embedded in an unfamiliar ceiling.

Where was she? At a relative’s house? Did her Norris cousins have such a ceiling? Or her Carstairs cousins? She tried to sit up, but her body was heavy and unwieldy, and it took a surprising amount of effort to raise herself to her elbows. The strain hurt her shoulders; the movement made her head throb harder.

The source of illumination in the room was a wall sconce that had been covered with dark paper. She stared at this light—there was something odd about it: It didn’t flicker, but burned with a disconcerting steadiness. Was she—was she looking at an
electric
light?

Surely not. Electric lights were what inventors demonstrated
to curious crowds, not something to be found in an ordinary dwelling.

She forgot about the oddity of the sconce when she realized that she was not alone. A woman in a green dressing gown slept with her head and her folded arms on the edge of Helena’s bed. Venetia. But she looked…older. Quite a bit older.

Behind Venetia was a man Helena had never seen before, sleeping in a chair, his shoulder leaning against the side of a wardrobe. Helena recoiled in alarm and was just about to shake Venetia’s arm when she saw another man dozing with his head tilted back, on a small chaise opposite the bed.

Her mouth opened wide as she recognized
Fitz
. The difference in his appearance was stark. His face, covered with dark stubble—stubble!—had elongated and sharpened from what she recalled. He no longer looked like the boy she remembered, but a man well into his twenties. To compound her shock, a woman was on the chaise with him, sleeping with her arm around his knees, her head on his
thighs
.

Was she still
dreaming
?

She must have made some sound, a whimper perhaps, at the prodigious strangeness of the tableau before her. Her family remained asleep, but a figure in the corner she hadn’t noticed before stirred. The person rose and stepped toward the bed. Another man—was there no end to the irregularity of the situation?

His clothes were crumpled, his necktie unknotted. He was unshaven, his hair longish and messy, blond curls that hadn’t known the comb for a while. And there were circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept for days.

“Helena,” he said softly. “You are awake.”

His voice was oddly familiar. But as she had no idea who he was, she couldn’t possibly have granted him the intimacy of addressing her by her Christian name. She was about to demand his identity—and chastise him for his boldness—when Fitz’s voice came, still slow with sleep. “You are already awake, David? What time is it?”

Helena turned toward him. “What is going on, Fitz? Why do you look—”

“My God, Helena!” Fitz sprang up before he remembered the woman on his lap. He shook her. “Millie, Millie, wake up. Helena is awake.”

The woman bolted upright, nearly banging into his chin. “What? What did you say?”

Fitz was already pulling her to her feet, dragging her to the edge of the bed. He grabbed hold of Helena’s hand. The fine-boned, fine-featured woman he called Millie wrapped her own fingers around their clasped hands.

Her eyes shone with tears. “We were so worried. I cannot tell you how happy I am you’ve come to.”

Helena was shocked to see that Fitz’s eyes—at least his eyes still looked the same—were also damp. And he seemed utterly incapable of speech. Her stomach twisted. “What is the mat—”

Before she could finish her question, Venetia squealed. “Helena! My goodness, Helena! Christian, she’s awake!”

The man behind Venetia, whom she’d called by his given name, stood up from his seat to help Venetia rise. He smiled at Helena. “Welcome back.”

“Welcome back, indeed,” echoed Millie.

They all seemed to know her very well. Why didn’t she know them in return?

“I would hug you so hard, my love, if I weren’t afraid of hurting you,” said Venetia, taking Helena’s other hand. “Shall we put a few pillows behind your back so you can be more comfortable?”

“That won’t be quite necessary.” The very thought of having to move made her stomach protest. “Would someone please tell me what is going on?”

Venetia’s hand went to her throat. “My goodness, you don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Your accident, of course.”

Accident?
She looked about her and noticed yet another woman in a corner—this one in a nurse’s cap and uniform. Were the other men in the room physicians? The one Venetia had called Christian certainly had that air of cool competence about him. She glanced toward the one named David. He stared at her as if she were the Koh-i-Noor itself, a thing of infinite beauty and worth.

She looked away, discomfited and perhaps just a little flattered—for all his dishevelment, he was not an unattractive man. “When was this accident? And what kind of accident are we speaking of?”

“A carriage accident,” Fitz answered. “It happened three days ago and you’ve been unconscious ever since. We were beginning to wonder”—his voice caught—“whether you would ever wake up again.”

The accident would explain all her pains and discomforts. A three-day coma was a decent reason for tears and high emotions upon her reawakening. But it still didn’t account for the familiarity with which all these strangers treated her; nor was it reason enough for Fitz and Venetia to have aged ten years overnight.