“That’s right. I must not be thinking clearly. Perhaps I do have a fever.”
“Truly?” An anxious frown wrinkled Juliette’s brow as she reached out to touch him. She sighed with relief. “Not yet.”
“No?” His eyes remained closed, but he smiled, curiously, Juliette thought.
“Not yet,” he murmured. “Someday…”
Jean Marc’s temperature began to rise in the late evening.
Juliette bathed him with cool water and tried desperately to keep him from tossing and spilling out of the bed onto the floor.
During the middle of the night the fever receded and severe chills took its place. The chills racked him, and his great convulsive shudders worried Juliette more than the fever had.
“I—have—no liking—for this.” Jean Marc’s teeth were clenched to keep them from chattering. “It should teach me well the foolishness of—” He broke off as another shudder ran through him. “Give—me another blanket.”
“You have three already.” Juliette abruptly made a decision. She stood up. “Move over.”
“What?” He gazed at her blankly.
She drew back the covers, lay down beside Jean Marc, and drew him into her arms. “Be at ease,” she said impatiently as she felt him stiffen against her. “I’m not going to hurt you. I only seek to warm you. I often held Louis Charles like this when he had the night chills.”
“I’m not a child of two.”
“You’re as weak as a puling infant. What difference does it make?”
“I believe a great many people would be happy to enumerate the—differences.”
“Then we shall not tell them. Are you not warmer with me here?”
“Yes, much warmer.”
“Good.” His shivering had almost stopped, she noticed with relief. “I’ll hold you until you go to sleep.” She reached up and gently stroked his hair as she did Louis Charles’s. A few minutes later she said impatiently, “You’re not at ease. I can feel you hard as a stone against me.”
“How extraordinary. Perhaps I’m not accustomed to females slipping into my bed only in order to ‘ease’ me.”
“As you say, the situation is extraordinary.” Juliette levered herself up on one elbow and gazed sternly down at him. “You must not think of me as a female. It’s not good for you.”
His lips twitched. “I’ll endeavor to dismiss your gender from my mind. I’ll think of you as a thick woolen blanket or a hot, warming brick.”
She nodded and again lay down beside him. “That’s right.”
“Or a smelly sheepskin rug.”
“I do not think I smell.” She frowned. “Do I?”
“Or a horse lathered from a long run.”
“Do you have the fever again?”
“No, I was merely carrying the image to greater lengths. I feel much more comfortable with you now.”
“You laugh at the most peculiar things.”
“You’re a most peculiar fem—sheepskin rug.”
“Youarefeverish.”
“Perhaps.”
