Valentine (45 page)

Theo wriggled between the sheets, sliding over to make room for him. “Just until I’m ready,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed with a mock sigh. “Until then.”

“Perhaps we could try your method now.” Her hand moved seductively over his body as he came in beside her. “I’d really like to see how it works….”

T
HEO AWOKE TO
bright sunshine. Sleepily, she hitched herself on her elbows to look at the clock. It was almost ten. How could she ever have slept so late? But then she remembered. She lay back on the pillows, her hands drifting over her naked form, reminding her skin of the touches that had brought so much pleasure during those joyous hours before dawn.

She turned her head and frowned at the empty space beside her. When had Sylvester left her? Presumably he’d woken long ago; he rarely slept after the sun came up. She closed her eyes again, running her hand over the sheet where he’d lain, over the pillow that still bore the indentation of his head.

He claimed to care for her, yet he demanded that she keep her distance from him in all but passion. What kind of love was that? But, then, perhaps no one had ever loved him, so he didn’t know how to express such an emotion.

She thought of Lavinia Gilbraith, mean-spirited, carping witch that she was. It was impossible to imagine her loving anyone, even her son.

She would just have to teach her husband herself … by example.

On that energetic determination Theo sprang from bed, guiltily thinking of her mother-in-law, who was presumably waiting for her hostess’s attention. She hoped the cabbage roses in the pink bedroom hadn’t upset Mary’s delicate digestion. After pulling on her dressing gown she reached for the bellpull to ring for Dora.

She heard Henry’s voice in Sylvester’s room next door. It was pitched very low. Then she heard a sound that sent chills down her spine, and her hand dropped from the bellpull. It was an inarticulate, animallike moan of pain, interspersed with the dreadful sounds of helpless dry retching.

She crept to the wall and pressed her ear against it. What was happening? Was Sylvester ill? The dreadful moan came again, a sound that chilled her blood, it was so filled with despairing endurance.

Sylvester had that headache again. That other part of his past—his precious privacy—that was forbidden to her.

She went out into the corridor and tried to lift the latch on Sylvester’s door. The door was locked. In the name of goodness, she thought with a surge of exasperation, how could he expect to spend a lifetime with her, to grow old with her, all the while keeping the most vulnerable parts of himself secret from her? And most particularly this hideous curse?

Back in her own room, she stood thinking for a minute, then went to the window. There was a narrow iron balcony, little more than a foothold outside. Its twin was outside Sylvester’s room, a large sideways footstep away. Curzon Street was two floors below. A barouche bowled down it at a fast clip as she leaned out. She craned her neck and saw a scrap of curtain at Sylvester’s window flutter in the wind. The long window was cracked open.

Without conscious decision she ran to the armoire, pulled out her riding habit with the divided skirt, and dressed rapidly.
She braided her hair, slipped a pair of light, soft-soled slippers on her feet, and returned to the window.

Heights had never bothered her. For years she and Edward had clambered over the cliff face at Lulworth Cove searching out gull rookeries without once considering the crashing surf and jagged rocks beneath them. But a busy London street below was unnerving in a way surf and rocks had never been.

Theo turned her back on the street, faced the wall, and threw her leg over the low ornate railing, feeling for the brick ledge that ran between the two balconies. Her foot found it, and she straddled the railing, taking a deep, steadying breath. She’d have to bring her other foot over, and for a minute she’d be standing on this narrow ledge that would accommodate only her toes. But her hand could reach the other balcony. She stretched her arm, and her fingers closed over the iron. She would have a firm grip on both balconies while her feet were in no-man’s-land. Once she’d got her left foot onto Sylvester’s balcony, she’d be home and dry.

It was pure craziness. It was exhilarating. More than anything, though, it was necessary. Sylvester needed her. She had opened herself to him. He must open himself to her.

With a swift prayer to the gods, who certainly owed her something, Theo swung her other foot to the ledge and for a terrifying second was poised above the street, her toes clinging to the ledge, her hands, white-knuckled, gripping the balcony on either side. Her heart thudded in her throat as she gingerly raised her left foot. Now she was held by five toes and ten fingers. She swung her left leg sideways, over the rail behind her left hand, and as the cold metal touched her calf, she heaved a sigh of relief. The rest was easy.

A minute later she was standing foursquare on Sylvester’s balcony, easing open the window.

Soft-footed, she stepped into the darkened bedchamber that, despite the slightly opened window, felt as stifling as a greenhouse.

“Who’s there!” Henry spun from the curtained bed, his
eyes glowing in the dimness, his outraged whisper hissing in the quiet.

“It’s me,” Theo said calmly, crossing the room. She had very little to do with Henry—none of the household did. It was accepted that he had a special relationship with the earl, one that Theo decided was more intimate in essentials than her own. But that was going to change.

“My lady!” His outrage was superseded only by his astonishment as he gazed at the window behind her, the curtain fluttering in the breeze.

“What is it, Henry?” Sylvester’s voice was a cracked thread, like the voice of a very old man. It put Theo in mind of her grandfather in his last days.

“It’s all right, m’lord, don’t go fretting now,” Henry said, laying a hand on Theo’s arm. “You must leave here at once, my lady. His lordship can’t have visitors.”

“I’m not a visitor, Henry.” She shook his hand off her arm, and her eyes flashed in the darkness, her voice frigid in contrast. “I am his lordship’s wife.”

“My lady, I must insist!” He renewed his hold on her arm.

“Take your hand away, or I might break your wrist,” Theo said with the same soft, cold ferocity. She raised her free hand, the edge of her rigid palm hovering like a steel blade above the wrist of the manservant’s gripping hand.

The dreadful dry retching came from the tented bed, and a groan that filled Theo with a horrified pity, but she maintained her menacing stance, and after a second Henry’s hand dropped from her arm.

“Thank you,” she said, brushing her sleeve pointedly. “You may remain if you wish, but I will be responsible for nursing Lord Stoneridge, as is my duty.”

Henry stood openmouthed as she walked quickly to the bed, gently drawing aside the curtain at the head.

Sylvester’s face was a pale shadow on the pillows, gray and waxen, his right eyelid so swollen that it was almost closed.
Lines of pain etched his brow and ran down his nose to his mouth, as deep as the furrows of a plowshare.

His hand moved, shuffling to the bedside table where the bowl and a glass of water stood. She took the glass and gently slipped an arm beneath his neck, holding the glass to his lips.

“Theo?” he croaked. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hush,” she said. “Henry’s right, you mustn’t become agitated.”

“But how in the devil’s name did you get in here?”

“I flew through the window,” she said, bending to lay her lips on his forehead. “I wish I could take it away.”

His mouth twisted in what might have been a gruesome travesty of a smile, but whatever he’d been about to say was lost as he groaned and reached for the bowl.

Henry jumped forward, but Theo forestalled him, holding the bowl until Sylvester fell back on the pillows, racked with renewed torment.

Theo wiped his mouth, gently bathed his face, and laid a lavender-soaked cloth on his forehead, ignoring the hovering Henry.

“Theo, go away,” Sylvester murmured after a minute. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I don’t want you … don’t want you here, seeing me—”

“Hush,” she interrupted with quiet force. “You’re my husband, and I
will
be a part of your suffering. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway.”

Whether through weakness or acceptance, he ceased to object and lay still and silent, wrestling with his agony.

Theo moved away from the bed and whispered to the still outraged Henry, “I have to go down and see Lady Gilbraith, but I’ll be back directly. You’re to leave the door unlocked.” There was such crisp authority in her eyes and the set of her jaw, such an edge to her soft voice, that Henry bowed and moved to open the door for her.

Theo sped downstairs. She could hear her mother-in-law’s irritable voice from the hall.

“I cannot think how a household can be run in this fashion. It’s past midmorning, and there’s no sign of either Stoneridge or his wife.”

“I do beg your pardon, ma’am,” Theo said, jumping down the last two steps. “Sylvester is ill.”

“Ill? What on earth do you mean, ill? He’s never had a day’s illness in his life. And what kind of a slugabed are you, girl, to appear to your household at this late hour?”

Theo ignored this latter complaint. “Sylvester has a war wound that afflicts him with severe headaches,” she said with an attempt at patience. “I’m afraid I must leave you to your own devices today, I’m needed at his bedside. Please feel free to order things as you wish, and, of course, if you’d like to take the air, or pay some calls, then the barouche is at your disposal. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Goodness me, gal. If the man has a headache, it’s ten to one he dipped deep in the cognac last night. He should take a powder and sleep it off. There’s no need for you to dance attendance on him, and I wish you to accompany me on some errands. Mary’s too busy sniffling and moaning to leave her bed.”

“My apologies, ma’am, but I must beg you to excuse me. Foster will attend to everything for you.”

Lady Gilbraith’s complexion turned a curious mottled salmon color, and she began to huff, but Theo didn’t wait for the head of steam to burst forth. She turned and ran back upstairs.

Henry looked up from the bedside as she came quietly in, but he moved aside when she came over.

Throughout that interminable day, and half the next night, she sat beside the bed, offering what little relief she could, concealing her horror at the hideous pain that turned a powerful, self-determining man into an inarticulate, groaning husk barely capable of raising his head from the pillow.

Henry, initially tight-lipped, changed his attitude as the hours went by, and she didn’t flag, didn’t shrink, from per
forming whatever service was necessary, and didn’t hesitate to ask his advice. He found himself telling her of how he’d found the major in the prison transport, barely alive, his head wrapped in foul, blood-soaked bandages. He described the hellhole where they’d languished without medical attention or supplies for the best part of a twelvemonth.

Theo listened, and a few more pieces of the puzzle that was her husband fell into place.

“Were you at Vimiera with his lordship?” she whispered when they’d drawn away from the bed and were eating supper over by the open window, so the smell of food wouldn’t increase his misery.

Henry shook his head. “No, ma’am. But his lordship talked of it during his illness.”

“What did he say?” Theo tried to hide her intense curiosity.

“Oh, he was out of his head mostly, ma’am. It was all disjointed, like. Couldn’t make hide nor hair of it, mostly. Besides, he couldn’t remember what happened before that damned Froggie bayoneted him.”

“Oh.” Theo was disappointed. She returned to her vigil beside the bed.

“We’ll give him the laudanum now, my lady?” Henry spoke softly behind her. “It’s been all of fifteen minutes since he last vomited, and maybe he’ll keep it down long enough to fall asleep.”

“Will that be the end of it?” she asked anxiously, watching as he measured a few drops into the glass of water. Sylvester seemed barely conscious, although his swollen eyelids jumped and twitched.

“Please God,” the manservant said. “Here, my lord.” He slid a strong arm around his neck and lifted him, holding the glass to his lips.

Sylvester swallowed the opiate without opening his eyes. He seemed no longer aware of either of his attendants and lay still on the pillows.

Henry stepped back, drawing the curtains around the bed again. “You’d best get some rest yourself, my lady. I’ll sleep on the truckle bed in here.”

Theo was dead tired; last night had been a very short one, but she looked doubtfully at the shrouded bed, listening as Sylvester’s breathing deepened.

“He’ll sleep now, my lady,” Henry said insistently.

“Yes,” she said. “Did he have these attacks when he was a prisoner, or did they come on afterward?”

“No, he had them even worse in France,” Henry told her, his face screwing into an expression of loathing. “Damned French wouldn’t give him anything, not even a drop of laudanum. And he’d be screaming … screaming that name all the time.”