Madeline stepped forward. “Doctor, you couldn’t make me leave if you tried.”
He nodded approvingly at her and began to roll up his loose linen sleeves. “I’m afraid this is going to take a while.”
As soon as Charlie was wrapped in a blanket and nursing a cup of hot broth in the kitchen, Adam hurried upstairs to check on Diana and Madeline. The door to Diana’s bedchamber was closed, John was sitting on a chair in the dimly lit hall, and there was an eerie howling from the wind outside. Rain was beating the windowpanes and something was knocking somewhere—a barn door perhaps, swinging open and banging against a wall.
Adam paused at the top of the stairs, imagining what was going on behind Diana’s closed door. He glanced at John. “What’s happening?”
“The doctor is setting her leg. She still hasn’t woken up.”
“I suppose that’s a good thing at the moment.”
They waited silently in the hall. Adam recalled his last conversation with Diana, how he’d broken off their engagement and admitted he was in love with her sister. If he had known how angry she would be, or how determined she would be to find Madeline, he wouldn’t have left her alone.
A moment later, the door opened slowly and Madeline appeared. Adam took an anxious step forward. John leaped from his chair.
Madeline still wore her wet clothes. Her hair had fallen out of its knot on her head and hung wet and limp upon her shoulders. Her face was pale and ashen. She staggered to the side.
Adam lunged forward to grab onto her at the same time John did. They each held one of her arms.
“Sit down, Madeline,” Adam said. They helped her into the chair. “What’s happened? How is she?”
Madeline slid a hand over her hair, pushing it away from her face. “She’s still unconscious, but we managed to set the broken bones in her leg.”
Relief washed through Adam.
Madeline continued. “But the doctor’s not sure if…if she’s going to be able to keep her leg. We’ll have to wait and see. Even if she does keep it, she might not be able to walk again. At the very least, she’ll need a cane. That’s the most we can hope for, and we’ll be lucky if she manages that.”
The idea of Diana having to learn to walk again, or being confined to a pushchair for the rest of her life was like a knife stabbing Adam in the gut. He was responsible for this—for bringing Diana here to this strange land, for breaking her heart and crippling her at the same time.
“I just wish she would wake up.” Madeline sobbed with despair.
Adam knelt before her and squeezed her shoulder. “She will. We must all pray, and have faith.”
Madeline covered her face with hands that were shaking violently. “This is all my fault.”
“It’snot.”
“Yes, I went for a walk without telling anyone and I stayed away too long. With the storm coming, Diana must have been worried about me and gone searching. It was wrong for me to go off like that, not thinking about anyone but myself.”
Adam pulled her hands away from her face. “It wasnotyour fault, Madeline. I assure you.”
“But you were looking for me, too!”
Adam gazed into her beautiful pain-filled eyes and knew he had to convince her that she was the most innocent in all this. He glanced up at John, who was watching uneasily.
“John, will you excuse us? I need to speak to Madeline privately.”
God, Adam did not want to tell her now, not like this. But he could not let her go on thinking this was her fault. He had to take control of this situation and, no matter what the consequences, confess the truth.
Chapter Seventeen
John left Madeline and Adam alone in the upstairs hall outside Diana’s room. Madeline watched Adam rise to his feet and felt a prickling of uneasiness, for he looked as if he were going to deliver shocking, terrible news. Though what could possibly be worse than what had already occurred that day, she could not imagine.
Adam held out his hand. “Come with me.”
Despite her uncertainty, she accepted his hand and followed him to the reading corner at the end of the hall. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases surrounded them, and Adam lit the candles. He sat down in an upholstered chair opposite Madeline, just as he had sat opposite Diana earlier in the day.
“I must tell you something, Madeline.”
