He mumbled something, but I didn’t catch it.
“Where are you going? If you are still ill tomorrow, is there someone I should contact?”
He stiffened slightly at that and, as if it took all the energy he had left in him, he forced his eyes open and shook his head. “My ... I’m going to get ... my ... ” His eyes met mine and something sparked in them, a flame as bright as those from the fireplace. “Wife,” he finally finished with a croak and then his head fell back to the floor and another fit of shaking overtook him.
4
EVELYN BLACKWELL
His. . . wife?
He was married?
A strangled laugh rose from my throat and I dropped my head in my hands. The man looked to be about thirty, perhaps even several years past it. Of course, he was married. Most men were married by then, weren’t they? There was no reason I should have assumed he didn’t have a wife, yet she was a surprise to me.
Did I think simply because I’d undressed a man he would be unattached? Ridiculous.
I dropped from my knees to a sitting position. It was better he was married, certainly. It wasn’t good to be stuck in this situation with any man. But if that man was married and obviously distressed about reaching his wife, our situation was safer, wasn’t it?
I snorted. His wife might disagree.
I stood and took several steps away from him, then curled up in a sitting position on the other side of the fire. When the fire burned low, I added another log and then went back to my side of the fireplace. The man, whose name I still did not have, continued to shiver and mumble and sometimes flail about.Several times I had to rewrap my dressing gown over him. And then, perhaps an hour after he arrived, he just ... stopped.
He went still. Deathly still.
My heart did the same. For the second time that night, I creeped carefully near him and placed my hand upon his chest. I held my breath and only released it when I once again felt the rise and fall of his breathing.
He was still alive. I hadn’t managed to kill him yet.
I heaved a shaky sigh of relief and sat down on the ground next to him.
His skin had a strange sheen on it, and even though his shivering had stopped, he looked, if possible, even worse than he had when he crashed into the croft.
My eyes went to his chest again, watching for each rise and fall. He had a wife he was trying to get to, and I didn’t even know her name. I would have no way of contacting her if he died. I narrowed my eyes and glared at him.
“Listen to me,” I said, my tone as commanding as it had been when I’d told him to march. “You aren’t going to make that wife of yours a widow. Not tonight.”
He didn’t move.
He wasn’t going to die. Not if I could help it.
A few moments later, he jerked, one of his hands pushing out from underneath the dressing gown. I reached for it to tuck it back underneath, bracing myself for the feverish heat of his skin, but his hand was cold. As hot and stiff with shaking as he had been before, now he was only clammy and listless. I hurriedly covered him back up.
It couldn’t be a good sign, could it? That he was so cold now?
I continued my vigil, watching every breath, but each one seemed to come a bit quicker. After what seemed like hours but must have only been a few minutes, he started speaking.
But not as he’d been speaking before. He made no sense—it was all mumbling and halting, incoherent exclamations. And then the thrashing began.
He threw off my dressing gown and sat up. His eyes found mine and widened, not in recognition of our inappropriate situation, but as if I were an enemy who’d come too close to him in battle. “Hold the line,” he said with frantic distress. He put both of his hands behind his back and crawled crab-like away from me, never taking his eyes off of mine.
What should I do? He was icy cold, and he’d thrown off the only dry piece of clothing he had. He’d gone to the far side of the croft where the light was dimmest and the floor was damp. His eyes were wild, darting about the room and searching for heaven knows what. I picked up my gown and walked slowly and carefully toward him.
“You need to put this on,” I said softly, as if I were talking to a scared kitten.
He blinked at my words, but didn’t respond.
“It is cold, and you aren’t wearing anything but damp breeches. You need to put this on and come back to the fire.”
