“If anyone can keep him with us, it is you, dear Lady Barrington.” She blinked back tears and explained how Jacob’s fever had not lessened any, nor had he woken in days.
“Why me?” She struggled to find her voice. Tried to grasp what they were telling her. Jacob was still alive? He had not left her yet?
“Because I believe you have kept him alive thus far,” Mr. Donal said softly. He opened Jacob’s bedroom door and gestured at the sizeable box at his bedside. The one in which she had put her own unsent letters. A box Agnus must have provided him.
“I hope you do not mind, but I read them to him the moment he began fighting fever and would no longer open his eyes,” Emma said. “He mumbled your name often, so I suspect they kept him with us somehow.”
Of course, she did not mind. Anything to keep him here. She went to Jacob, cupped his fevered cheek, and bit back tears. “I will stay with him. Read more to him.” She spoke to anyone listening. “Get me a cold cloth straight away.”
After that, she was aware of little else but Jacob over the next few days. She pressed a cool cloth against his hot forehead. Read the remaining letters she meant to send but never did.
Much like his correspondence, they spoke of day-to-day things she thought he might find trivial. Then others, further along, talked of fearing her love for him. The last letter was more poignant than the rest. She could hardly believe Agnus had handed it over but knew she had to read it. Jacob needed to hear what she had written right before heading to MacLauchlin Castle.
So she took his hand and read.
22 June 1816
My Dearest Love,
I have been debating for days whether I should go to the MacLauchlin’s Midsummer Ball because I fear how to respond to you. A fear like you cannot imagine. Why, you ask? Quite simply. What if I say yes and become caged again by marriage? Or so I thought that was my singular fear.
You see, in the end, I realized there was more to my hesitation.
Rather, it occurred to me my greatest fear was losing who I had become over the past several months. I once affiliated marriage with the loss of who I had once been. What it turned me into thereafter. Worried that somehow, someway, I would become that hardened, cruel woman again if I ever remarried.
Yet with the revelation of my greatest fear came peace and certainty. Not only because I would never allow myself to go there again but because you, my love, would see that woman freed if she ever dared return.
She laid down beside him and rested her cheek on his chest. Willed his heartbeat to get stronger as she continued reading.
So now I ready myself to come to you at MacLauchlin Castle, where you can rest assured, I will be counting down the minutes until I join you on our battlements. Those precious moments when I say yes, my dear duke, I will become your wife. I only hate I waited so long to say so, my love.
She set aside the letter and spoke close to his ear so he might hear her clearly. “Yes, Jacob, I will marry you. Over and over, time and time again, so come back to me.Staywith me.”
While she liked to believe he stirred, when she looked at his face, he remained still. And he continued to stay that way for days on end. Days during which she rarely left his side. She cared naught what people thought. Not in the least.
The only time she left was to bathe, after which she allowed Emma to give her brief tours of the castle so she might tell Jacob what she thought. How she envisioned him showing her around, instead. From the armory hall with its twenty-one-meter-tall ceilings and more weapons than one could count to its exquisite state dining room. She was shown the stunning Parisian-style tapestry drawing room and the saloon with its grand pianoforte. Afterward, she would chat with him about the discussions they might have. Which parts of the castle she suspected he liked best. Which parts she favored over others.
She also commented on the touching paintings in his bedroom. Ones that warmed her heart and told her so much. How could they not, considering how familiar they were? While not exact replicas for obvious reasons, one depicted a torch-lit battlement with a couple embracing in the shadows. Another, of the same shadowed couple sitting in a study by a crackling fire. The third of the couple picnicking in a sunlit oasis nestled in the woodland.
Prudence knew nothing about nursing but learned. Made it her mission. Trickled water and cooled soup down Jacob’s throat. He would not like her seeing to more private matters, so she left that to others but always returned to his side afterward. She read to him late into the night and kept him abreast of castle happenings to the best of her ability.
“Will he lose his arm?” she asked the doctor almost a week later. “Or is it healing?”
Emma made it clear the doctor should answer any questions Prudence might have. She was considered next of kin. To that end, the doctor responded after examining him and was more hopeful than either of them expected.
“I would have thought it unlikely a week ago,” the doctor confessed. “But now, I think otherwise. The skin is healing. Color is beginning to return.” He looked from Emma to Prudence. “While I cannot speak to him waking again, I dare say there is reason for hope now. Reason I thought lost to us.”
After she and Emma glanced at each other with much-needed optimism, Prudence resumed sitting by his side. Chatted about anything she could think of. Her estate and their time there. Moments yet to come. Then more about his castle and their years ahead there, too. How beautiful it was with its sweeping Gothic Revival architecture and vibrant gardens. How proud he should be that he was its laird, as they said here in Scotland. From what she had heard, he had been an excellent laird thus far too. A truly admirable duke.
Keeping that in mind, she spoke of all the good things he had done and all they might do going forward together. How he might take her to surrounding towns so she could get to know his people better.Theirpeople. How they would continue resurrecting Scotland with not just his time and money but hers as well. How they might also find a way to create more jobs. Commerce and opportunity. Help those in need, as she knew that weighed on his mind.
As she did every night, she crawled into bed beside him and held him. Pressed cool compresses against him. Willed him back to her. It was on the eighth night, though, that she felt confident enough to do something she had not done thus far.
Something she prayed finally brought him back to her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Crestfallen over Prudence’srejection, Jacob had left the MacLauchlin’s Midsummer Ball that very night, eager to get home. Or should he say desperate to get anywhere that allowed him time alone. Away from anything that reminded him of her. Clear of the heartache and terrible sense of loss he felt when he watched her carriage pull away.
