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He moved to the bed and gently took her wrist. Her eyes fluttered open.
“It isn’t you,” she said.
“Of course it is,” he said. “Your pulse is strong.”
“You’re holding my hand,” she said. And smiled.
He brought her hand down to the bedclothes and released it. This wasn’t what he wanted to do. He wanted to hold on and keep her alive through sheer force of will. He was, in truth, afraid to let go, lest she slip away from him forever.
But that was illogical, superstitious thinking. He had to remain detached. Emotion led to panic, which led to mistakes in judgment.
“Tell me how you feel,” he said.
“I’m dreaming,” she said.
“That’s the laudanum.” It wasn’t the ideal medicine at this stage of the illness, but it was the only relatively safe way Davis had of relieving the pain.
“Do you really think so?” Clara said. “I don’t feel so sick now. Was I disgusting?”
“Entirely repellent,” he said. “I couldn’t bear it. I ran out of the room, and vowed to find another, less revolting girl to look after.”
“Are you looking after me?”
“No one else wanted the job,” he said. “Especially the doctor.”
He heard a shadow of a laugh.
“Are you hungry?” he said.
She started to shake her head, then winced and stopped. “No.”
“I’m going to send for more broth,” he said. Typhus caused severe dyspepsia, among other symptoms. He knew she wouldn’t want to eat or drink anything, but he needed to get something into her, or the disease would weaken her fatally.
“I’ll see to it,” Davis said. She set aside her knitting, rose, and went out of the room.
After a moment’s hesitation, he took the maid’s chair. “You must try to take nourishment,” he told his patient. “You must do exactly as I say, and get well, because I’ve promised you would and if you don’t, I shall be disgraced, and then—”
“I know. Your career will be ruined. You’re so charming.”
“Everybody says that,” he said.
“No, they don’t. Never. No one has ever said that about you in all your life, I’ll wager anything.”
“Perhaps they did not exactly say charming,” he said. “Perhaps . . . Yes, now I recollect, the phrase was ‘tolerable in very small doses.’ ”
“And yet I missed you,” she said. “Fancy that.”
She made it so difficult to stay detached. At this moment, it was impossible. He couldn’t stop his other self from getting a word in. “I missed you, too,” he said gruffly.
“Of course you did,” she said. “Because I’m so lovable.”
“You are not lovable,” he said. “You are excessively annoying. And managing. But I’m accustomed to hardened criminals and half-witted judges, and being with you reminds me of home at the Old Bailey.”
Such a smile, then, more like her usual one.
He hadn’t realized how leaden his heart had become until now, when the weight lifted, though not fully. Now he knew the weight would be with him until she was well and going her own obstinate way, challenging him and driving him more than a little mad.
“Only you would say that,” she said. “I read about ravens. They’re so clever. Even when we don’t see them, they see us. The best way to watch a raven is to lie flat on your back.”
“Well done,” he said. “Though you could be a little flatter.”
“He never comes straight on, but by maneuvers, and he’s nearly impossible to catch.” Her eyelids drooped. “I’m tired, Raven.”
“You’re talking too much,” he said. “You won’t have the strength to take your pitiful spoonful of broth.”
She closed her eyes. “Yes. So clever of me.”
He sat by her while she slept, until Davis returned.
Then he moved away, to a far corner of the room, and looked out into the garden while he listened to the maid coaxing her charge to sip: “A small taste, my lady. Come. Another drop. Yes. A little more. You can. You’ll feel better, I promise.”
It washed over him all at once, an ocean of weariness. The worry and missed meals and missed sleep took hold of him, and he sank under the weight. He dropped into the nearest chair and was asleep in an instant.
Davis woke him.
He didn’t know how long he’d slept. Hours, it must have been. The windows were dark. Only one candle burned, light being painful to the patient.
“She was better for a time, sir,” Davis said softly. “But then she had a bad pain in her stomach. I fear to give her more laudanum. It quiets the pain and helps her sleep, but I know it cramps the bowels.?
?
Radford went to the bed.
He laid his hand over Clara’s forehead. It was hot. Clara lifted her hand and laid it over his and pressed. Her hand was hot as well. The fever was climbing.
She said something he couldn’t understand.
“Your head?” he said. He bent his head, to bring his ear close to her mouth. Her voice was so weak and listless.
“Cut if off, please,” she said.
“Does your back ache?” he said.
“Take that, too.”
“Legs?”
“Those as well.”
He had only a confused recollection of his own miseries during his bout with typhus. His father’s sufferings, however, were sharp in his memory. Impossible to find a comfortable position. Every motion so painful.
Though George Radford never complained, he hadn’t been able to conceal the evidence of his distress. Radford retained a powerful memory of the aged face, so taut and white, the tightly compressed mouth, and the deep lines radiating from his eyes. Radford remembered as well what he’d felt as he watched: his insides so cold and hollow with the fear of losing him.
“She needs to sleep,” he told Davis. “So do you. You’ve been up with her, I don’t doubt, since the minute she fell ill, and if you’ve had a wink of sleep that’s all you’ve had.”
“I can’t rest while my lady lies so ill,” she said.
“Tell me what good you’ll be to her if you’re too weary to think or even see properly,” he said. “I’ve had rest. I can do what needs to be done. I’ve nursed before, and I’m not squeamish. Has Westcott sent my things?”
They were close by, she told him, much to his surprise. He’d expected to be exiled to one of the cell-like rooms on the upper floors, where hostesses customarily crammed low-ranking bachelors. Instead Lady Exton had given him the next room but one. Doubtless she’d bestowed the privilege because George Radford had won her difficult theft case. He’d called it “quite a pretty puzzle,” which meant the average barrister would have deemed it unwinnable.
