She bit her lip. “You have it often?”
“Heaven knows when I first got bitten, but yes. The first time, it held on for over a month. It came back when I caught the Cairo packet, some three weeks... what day is it?”
“The twenty-fourth. I beg your pardon, but how did you treat it before? If we knew what to do—”
“You have not asked me about my eye,” he interrupted.
She blinked. “I did not suppose you would wish to speak of it.”
“Wicked luck, that. I was hit by shrapnel during the ambush. Would you believe it? I saw a mere fifteen minutes of action before a little thing like that rendered me a washed-up old campaigner.”
Her hands knitted uncomfortably in her lap. “I am sorry. It must have been terribly painful.”
He grunted and passed a hand over the bandage the doctor must have applied. “Healed now, though. I had a leather patch. It was not much, but smarter looking than this. I wonder what came of it.”
Her shoulders rocked, and she offered a thin smile. “You must have had someone looking after you when you were...” She cleared her throat. “I am glad of that.”
He dropped his hand abruptly. “You haven’t said what you are doing here.”
Her head bobbed, and she bit her lip again. “Do you remember my letter?”
He winced as he tried to adjust his seating to see her better. “Letter? I sent you one from New York. Did you get it?”
“Yes, and I replied. Your fever—you may not recall just yet.”
He frowned in thought. “I never had word from you. As far as I knew, you were safe and well—I assumed you would become a teacher, like you talked of. I thought your father would—”
She sucked in a broken gasp and put a hand to her eyes. “Papa is dead.”
“What? How?”
She shook her head. “Please, we will speak of it when you are better.”
“I would hear it now if you please. When did you come to England?”
She swallowed. “Last July.”
He sat up straighter and earned a perilous wave of nausea for his effort. He put out his hand to steady himself. “Why? What happened?”
She looked down, and her cheeks flinched. “If you do not recall, I ought to wait and tell you after you have regained your strength.”
“Recall what? What is there to know?”
She rubbed the back of one hand with the other and looked uncomfortable. “I wrote to you in Africa, and your general sent the letter back with your belongings. I know you must have had other concerns, but I would not have presumed to come without writing.”
“Believe me, if I had a letter from you, I would have remembered. I never saw anything.”
Her brow furrowed. “But it was opened. You must have received it.”
“There is nothing wrong with my memory,” he retorted, a bit defensively. “I may have been delirious before, but... how long have I been here?”
“Three days. The earl had a letter saying you were at an inn in Liverpool and he had you brought here.”
He sagged in dismay. “I need to get back there. I cannot stay.”
She tilted her head in that innocent way he remembered from different days—days of desert sky and open spaces, when the darkest thing plaguing him was a rank horse or an uncouth American. “Why?”
“As you say, the story is a long one. The mere fact that I am known to be alive puts me in danger of death all over again.”
