Page 133 of Regency Whispers: Scandalous Matches

‘I can send for the doctor if you would like some opium, or perhaps just the laudanum he offered you yesterday.’

‘No,’ Alice said quickly. ‘I just need to change position. Will you help me?’

‘Of course.’

She was light and easy to manoeuvre, and slowly they managed to get her sitting up a little more. He regarded her with a frown. She was still terribly pale, but it was good to see her alert and able to focus on him.

‘I am awfully thirsty.’

‘Would you like water? Tea?’

‘Just some water.’ He poured her a glass from the jug in the corner of the room and held it to her lips as she took small sips. ‘Have you been here all night?’

‘Yes.’

‘That is kind. Thank you.’

‘I could not have been anywhere else,’ he said, hearing the anguish in his own voice. He didn’t want to examine what it meant. He didn’t want to acknowledge the deep panic he felt at the idea of losing Alice. It was as though she had buried into his heart and become part of him.

‘I feel better knowing you are here,’ Alice said as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep again.

Chapter Nineteen

Alice spent an entire week in bed, and by the end she could quite happily have never seen another pillow or bed-sheet again in her life. Around day two the wound on her abdomen had reddened and grown tight, pulling at the stitches. Dr Black had visited, a grave expression on his face, asking to speak to Simon privately after he had examined the wound. Later Simon had told her of the doctor’s concerns of infection and that if the redness and swelling did not settle, he might have to snip the stitches to let the accumulated pus out.

Thankfully the swelling had not worsened and after another day began to subside, and Alice did not succumb to a fever as they feared she might.

Dr Black was cautious and had insisted she stay in bed for the whole week, but today was her first day of freedom.

‘I see that glint in your eyes,’ Simon said, shaking his head. ‘Do not think you are going to be running around this house just because you have been given permission to get out of bed.’

‘If I stay in this room one day longer, I think I will go mad.’

‘Dr Black said you could get up and sit in the chair, not go charging round the house like an excitable dog who has not seen his master for days.’

Alice sighed. She had hoped to make it downstairs. It would be wonderful to sit in the drawing room, perhaps in a chair by the window as she watched people on the street outside go about their lives.

‘Let me help you,’ he said, and he leaned down so Alice could slip an arm around his neck. He lifted her smoothly and then helped her to gently set her feet on the ground.

It felt strange to be standing again, and for a moment Alice’s legs felt weak and wobbly, but Simon was there, as he had been this entire past week. Not once had he left her alone for more than an hour, using the time when she slept to bathe and change clothes and conduct the urgent bits of business that could not wait.

She had grown used to his constant attention, and his presence had made a difficult week much more bearable. They had read together, he had taught her to play chess, he had told her of his childhood, of the happy memories with his parents and his brother, and she had shared more of what her life had been like growing up in Bamburgh. She had thought at some point he would pull away, especially when it became more and more certain that she would make a full recovery, his duty done. Yet he had not. Each morning he was there in the chair beside her bed, and each evening he leaned over to kiss her, passion bubbling under the surface, barely restrained.

It was a stark contrast to the week they had spent prior to Alice’s injury, unable to keep their hands from one another. Yet despite her injury Alice found she had enjoyed this second week together almost as much. She had a deeper understanding of her husband now, and she felt he had truly relaxed around her.

He settled her into the chair they had positioned by the window and took a seat beside her then closed his eyes and let out a jagged sigh.

‘Is something amiss, Simon?’

He shook his head, but for a moment he did not look at her.

‘You do not know how worried I have been,’ he said quietly. ‘When I saw you with that knife sticking out of you...’ He shook his head.

‘I know,’ Alice said, biting her lip at the memory of the panic she had felt when she had looked down and seen the knife in her for the first time.

‘I thought you were going to die. People who get stabbed do not often survive, especially if they are stabbed in the abdomen.’

‘I am lucky, I know that.’ She reached out and gripped his hand, waiting until he looked at her to continue. ‘But the worst is over. Dr Black said so. The wound is healing well, and in a few days he will come and remove the stitches. I will have to avoid heavy lifting and strenuous activity for a while, but it will not be for ever.’