That Kind of Woman (34 page)

Fear unlike anything he had known followed him all the way into the house and surged relentlessly through him as he ascended the stairs two at a time. He swung on one hand around the door jam and stopped short. His child’s shining blond hair spilled across the pillow, matted in blood. It was as if his nightmare had been made real. Her face, so beautiful, so like Caroline’s, was pale as marble and just as still. He couldn’t move. In battle, there was the urge to run, tempered by the courage to fight. At this moment, he could do neither. Never in all the mayhem of war had he felt so utterly powerless. Finally, his feet dragged him to her bedside.

“Is…is…oh, God.” The words wouldn’t form in his mouth.

The physician, who had arrived before him and sat next to the bed, looked up. “She’s alive. The bleeding has slowed considerably. Head wounds often look worse than they are.”

“But she’s not moving.” It was hard to talk when his mouth felt like it was filled with cotton.

“Then again, sometimes they are every bit as bad,” the doctor replied. “I need to stitch the gash. The bleeding has slowed, but the wound is substantial. I’m afraid I’ll have to shave around it.”

Andrew nodded. What was a little hair? It would grow back. But when the doctor began and the blood-encrusted locks fell away, Andrew stepped over to retrieve them, tucking them into his pocket. Finally, he noticed Henry and Lettie standing on the opposite side of the bed. Henry’s face was dirty and smudged, like he had used a filthy hand to wipe at wet cheeks.

“What happened?” Andrew asked.

“I-I’m not entirely certain,” Henry answered. “We were riding. R-racing. I was ahead of her. I think a dog ran into her path. She screamed, and I heard a dog yelp. I stopped, but she was already in the middle of the road. I didn’t know what to do. I picked her up and took her back to the stable.”

Andrew nodded, and then the physician picked up the tale. He sat next to Emma on the bed and kept his eyes focused on the bare patch of her scalp as he carefully sewed the wound closed. “I came the moment your man found me. There’s not much I can do except to stitch this up and let her rest.”

Andrew nodded again. Emma was unnervingly silent and unmoving as the needle pierced her skin over and over again.

“Keep her still. A little broth if she wakes—no more,” the man continued. “I’ll turn her over when I’m finished, then leave her on her stomach a while. A head wound can make her vomit, and we don’t want her choking.”

“I know,” Andrew said. He’d seen just about every wound known to man. He knew about head wounds. Sometimes they just rattled a person for a while. Sometimes, they changed a person forever. His heart actually hurt—a deep, physical kind of pain.

The men were sent from the room, except the doctor, who supervised while Lettie and Emma’s lady’s maid removed her riding habit and tucked her into bed. The pillow was removed so that Emma lay on her stomach with her head flat.

In the meanwhile, Andrew and Henry wandered down the hall into Andrew’s sitting room, where Andrew placed his hand on Henry’s shoulder. “I want you to know that I’m proud of you. I know how easy it is to panic, but you did the right thing. You took care of my little girl, Henry, and it means the world to me.”

Henry squeezed his eyes shut and fought to control his voice. “I shouldn’t have been so bent upon winning. She’s a little girl! Who would have cared that I could beat a little girl in a ridiculous race?”

Andrew went to the cabinet and poured two liberal brandies. “If I know Emma, she thought it was great fun. She needed the diversion. God knows I haven’t been helping her any in the last few weeks.”

He handed a glass to Henry, who pushed it away. “No. No, thank you.”

“Come, Henry. This is different. It’s just to settle your nerves. You’ve been through a hell of an ordeal.”

Henry looked at him, his green eyes filled with worry. “What if I
had
been drinking? I was just about to have a drink before we left. It would have been two or three if I had. One just never seems like enough anymore. I always want to feel it, just a little.”

“But you didn’t?”

Henry laughed, but it sounded more like a sob. “Emma had a fit. She said I would have used it as an excuse if I’d lost. And I would have. For a second there…no, more than a second…I didn’t know what to do. There was just all this blood, and I didn’t know what to do.”

“You did the right thing.”

“But what if I had been drinking?”

“You hadn’t.”

“
But what if I had!
” Henry cried. “What would I have done? Would I have sat in the middle of the road and wept while she bled to death? I almost did anyway.”

Andrew was an army commander now, not a father, and Henry was a soldier, unnerved by his first battle. “A head wound can be a frightening thing, Henry. There is often a great deal of blood. It’s all right. You were afraid, but you rose above it. That’s all that matters.”

“Well, I’m not drinking anymore.”

Andrew put Henry’s glass down on the cabinet but drained his own.

“What if she dies anyway, Andy?”

He wanted to say, “She won’t.” He wanted to believe it. But people died. Very young people died. They often died for no good reason. He didn’t say anything at all.

The moment that they were allowed back into Emma’s bedroom, they sat vigil on either side of her. On and off, Henry prayed. In the past, Andrew had prayed over too many dying soldiers to do it anymore. God did whatever He damned well pleased. It had been a very long time since Andrew had wasted his breath begging for mercy.

What he really wanted was comfort. He longed for a gentle touch, not just for him, but for Emma. If Emma could feel anything, he wanted her to feel the tender care that a mother would have given her. When he was a lad, he had come down with a raging fever, but his own mama had died the year before, and he had missed her sorely while he had tossed and turned in his bed. Really, he remembered missing a mother more than having one.

He leaned over and ran the backs of his fingers over his daughter’s still, pale cheek. Her skin was cool.

He may have missed having a mother, but there
had
been someone there for him. He hadn’t been alone when he was sick. George took care of him all those years ago. He helped keep cool, damp cloths on Andrew’s forehead and was the only one who could coax him to take sips of water. Later, when Andrew was on the mend, George waged tin-soldier battles with him across the hills and valleys created by the bedcovers. He read aloud to him and made up stories to pass the time.

Their father was alive at the time, but he was more inclined to dole out discipline than comfort. As a grown man and the newest earl, Andrew could understand their father’s predilection toward order and responsibility. As a boy, he’d occasionally chafed under the discipline, but he never resented the lack of camaraderie, for George had taken him hunting and fishing and taught him to shoot and swim. George had held the basin and laughed at him when he’d gotten drunk for the very first time and suffered the consequences. And George was also the one who’d helped Andrew hide the incident from their father.

He regarded Emma’s still form. If George were alive, Lettie, Society, the whole world would demand that Andrew banish his brother, and for what? Honor? Honor was nothing when faced with the thought of losing his only child. No, if George were here right now, and Andrew knew everything that he knew now, he would still say, “Help us, George. We need you.” And George would do it.

Instead, his brother had left Andrew his wife in his place, and Andrew had given her up for his family’s reputation. The sacrifice hadn’t been worth it.

The hours passed. Henry finally fell asleep in his chair. Andrew just sat and looked at Emma, as though through staring at her and transmitting his will to her, he could make her open her eyes. He couldn’t lose one more person. He just couldn’t.

In the wee hours of the morning, he opened the drawer of Emma’s writing desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. Then he dipped a pen into her inkwell and began to write.

My dearest Miranda…

Emma felt like she had been swimming in pea soup for years. Everything was thick and murky. Sometimes she heard voices calling to her—
Emma, Emma, darling, wake up. Shh, baby girl, shh. We’re right here, Em. We’re all here…

The voices were Papa’s and Henry’s and Grandmama’s. She had wanted to answer, but it was as if she weren’t fully inside her body. On several occasions, she had tried to open her mouth, but she couldn’t feel her jaw. She couldn’t feel a thing except the incessant pounding in her head.

Now, she heard Randa’s voice. “Emma Louise, what you won’t do to get out of practicing your—music.” Randa sounded just like herself, brisk and no-nonsense, but she choked on the last word.

I really am dying this time,
Emma thought.
Drat!
The unfairness of it all finally forced a tiny squeak from her parched throat.

“Did you hear that?”

That was Randa’s voice again.

With all her might, Emma tried to open her mouth, and she actually felt something happen. “Randa?” she asked, but even she could tell that what came out was a hoarse monosyllable. The effort left her in blinding pain.
What’s wrong with me?
She wanted so badly to ask someone, but the mere thought of trying to make another sound made her want to cry.
Why can’t I talk?

“I think she tried to say something.”

That was Randa again. Emma felt fingers in her hair, softly stroking.

“She’s in pain.”

Papa. She recognized everyone’s voices, but couldn’t so much as crack open her eyes.

“But she made a sound.”

Henry—his voice was shaking.

“Yes. That’s good.”

Papa again. He sounded self-assured, as always.

Maybe she wasn’t dying after all. Despite the pain, she forced her jaw to move again. “Pa-ah.”

“Oh, God, baby.”

She had never heard anything like it before, her father’s voice choked by tears. Big, warm fingers wrapped around her hand. She could feel her hand! She
was
still inside her body!

“Emma! Emma, darling, I’m here!” Randa cried. “I’m never leaving again. I promise you! Please, forgive me and just open your eyes.”

Behind her lids, Emma tried to roll her eyes and was rewarded by a searing stab of pain. If she could open her bloody eyes, she would! It had taken everything she had just to squeeze out that last pathetic attempt at speech. And forgive Randa for what? Emma had no idea where she was or what had happened. She couldn’t remember much of anything clearly. Her head held a mixed-up jumble of images and thoughts. Maybe she and Randa
had
quarreled. It seemed like something was just on the edge of her memory, but it was lost in the muck.

It was all too exhausting. With the very last of her energy, she squeezed her father’s fingers and drifted back to sleep.

*

Miranda watched Emma’s hand contract around Andrew’s. In the two days she had been at Danford, these tentative, agonized whimpers and that slight movement were the first signs she had seen that Emma might ever wake.

Andrew took a ragged breath that ended in something that sounded very nearly like a sob. “She was awake.”

“Very close,” Henry agreed, hope lighting his face for the first time since he had lifted Emma’s inert form from the dirt over a week ago.

“No,” Andrew argued, “not close. She was awake. Those sounds, that squeeze—they were conscious efforts.”

Miranda knelt next to the bed. “Emma…”

“She’s asleep again,” he told her. “Listen to her breathing.”

It was deep and even, and Miranda nodded. “Does this mean that she’ll come out of it?”

Andrew rose from the bed, where he had been sitting next to his daughter. Gently, he lay her hand back atop the counterpane. “I’ll send for the doctor. He can take a look at her. I think we’ve had some good signs here, but if she ever does come fully awake, we mustn’t get our hopes up right away. We may find her quite changed.”

“She knows who you are,” Miranda said. “She tried to say Papa.”

Andrew tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth trembled. “I’d like to think so.”

“She did!” Henry insisted.

“Perhaps,” Andrew conceded. He was exhausted. Just standing left him feeling weak-kneed and light-headed.

Miranda saw the color drain from his sunken face, and she turned to Henry. “Why don’t you go and tell Lettie the good news?” With an enthusiastic nod, Henry skipped out of the room.

“I hate to get the boy’s hopes up,” Andrew said after Henry had left.

“He needs hope. We all do,” Miranda replied.

Andrew leaned over and ran his fingers through Emma’s hair again, his eyes drawn to the bare patch of scalp and the ragged but painstakingly sewn gash. The flesh around it was still swollen into a purple lump that strained the stitches.

“She’s been out so long…”

“Well, I intend to cling to whatever assurance I can until I know for certain that I must let go of it.” She lifted her hand and ran her fingers through the rumpled tumble of hair that spilled over his brow, mimicking the loving gesture he used to soothe Emma.

Andrew reached up and took Miranda’s hand. He felt like he could, now. She was right; there was hope. From the moment she had answered his summons and arrived upon his doorstep, they had spoken only of Emma. He hadn’t dared to speak of anything else. Even as he had penned that letter, he hadn’t been able to shake the fear that if he lost his baby girl, he would never be able to feel anything for anyone ever again.

But now there was a light in the darkness, and in its warmth, however fleeting it still might be, he could take Miranda’s hand and press a kiss to her palm.

Miranda gave a little sob and pulled him to her, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her cheek to his. “I won’t leave you again. Either of you. I’ll be your mistress. I’ll sleep in your bed. Life is too short and love to precious to care what other people say.”