I shuddered and a wracking sob made it past my throat. I couldn’t contain my tears any longer. I dropped my head until it was almost resting on his. I didn’t want to watch this hearty young man die in my arms. I wanted him to live, I wanted his May to greet him in their doorway and for his children, if he had any, to gather around his knees and welcome him home.
I let my tears fall. He was too far gone to notice, and at least with my vision blurred I could no longer look to the side and see clearly enough to watch his chest. I was so tired and heartsore and I simply couldn’t continue on with a brave face any longer.
Hot fingers touched my cheek and I opened my eyes to find his face much closer to mine. He’d lifted his head off of my lap. “Don’t cry.”
His eyes were so intense, so focused, I thought for a moment he was truly speaking to me, but he wasn’t, of course. He was still delirious. I tried to lift my head away from him, but I was so exhausted from fighting him all night my efforts were weak. I had no fight left in me.
His free hand slid up my arm, along my shoulder and onto my other cheek, cupping my face with such tenderness, I froze. No part of him was thinking of me. He had no idea who I was, even though I had garnered a few things from him based on his ramblings. He was a soldier, he’d been gone from his family, and he wanted nothing more than to reunite with his long-suffering and patient wife, May. He was looking at me, but based on the tenderness in his eyes, he was seeing her.
And perhaps I could be her for a moment—believe that this man had fought wars and crossed countries in order to hold my face in his hands like this. It was a thought born of exhaustion and heartbreak and the kind of yearning to belong to someone I only entertained when I was particularly scared or lonely. And so when he pulled my face down to his and kissed me, I wasn’t Evelyn, I was May, and I allowed myself the small comfort of his touch.
I pretended this was a kiss of reunion, not one of loss.
But I was delusional. I didn’t even know this man’s name, I’d never been kissed before, and I certainly had never expected my first kiss to be alone in a broken-down shepherd’s croft with a dying, married man. I was not this man’s wife. I wasn’t any man’s wife, a fact I’d been completely content with before I’d seen the way this man longed for his.
I pulled gently away and he didn’t fight me. He didn’t have the strength for it. Both of his hands fell to his side and his head landed once again in my lap.
“Thank you,” he mumbled, his speech slurred. “For staying. For not leaving.”
His words were too similar to something he could have said to me, about this night, and I shook my head trying to reorient myself to who I was. “I won’t leave you.”
I steeled myself and returned my fingers to his hair. If he wanted to believe I was his wife while he took his last breaths, that was something I could do for him. I would simply comfort him in ways that wouldn’t require any more kissing.
“I’m here. Rest now.” I kept my back straight, my face far from his. “I’ll stay with you.”
He shuddered and took one of the short, gasping breaths that echoed of dying. A tear escaped one of his eyes. He never reached for me again. He settled deeper into a sleep that I wasn’t certain would cure him.
I didn’t want this soldier to die, but I no longer wished he hadn’t stumbled into the croft. If he was going to die tonight, at least he wouldn’t be alone. Each time I thought he’d breathed his last breath, I reminded him that I was here and he would continue on.
Perhaps Papa was right. I was stronger than I thought.
5
CAPTAIN JOHN CALDER
It hurtto open my eyes.
I tried it experimentally and then thought better of it.
The rain had stopped. Or was I inside somewhere? Had Scout made it to a village? I tested my limbs. They were shaky and weak, and my arms and back were bare and pressed against a hard stone floor.
I forced myself to crack open one eye. I was in a small, empty room. Warmth came from a fireplace only a few feet to my left, even though most of the fire had gone out. Light shone through the window in front of me and I winced. How far had I made it? This wasn’t Applewood. I hadn’t made it home. The distance would have been impossible in that storm. I must have found a place during the fevered stage of my relapse. Thank the heavens.
Had I taken care of Scout? Was he still saddled and sore? I forced my head up and turned to look for a door, and I found it.
But that was not all.
Sitting on the ground with her legs folded into her body and her arms wrapped around her legs was a young woman in a white nightdress. Her dark hair was loose, tumbling down her shoulders to her waist. Her eyes—gray as the sky through the window—were fixed on mine, but she said nothing.
I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking she had to be an apparition, a leftover vision from my episode, but when I opened them, she was still there, clothed in white like an angel. I was alive, wasn’t I? People who died couldn’t be this thirsty and weak.
She inspected me thoroughly, perhaps even more thoroughly than I was inspecting her. Had she just stumbled upon me in the cottage? In those clothes? Certainly not.
What was this young lady doing here alone? The shelter was bare, with nothing to indicate she or anyone else lived here. There wasn’t even a door in the frame. Perhaps she lived at a farm nearby? Had I been found and cared for by a young farmer’s daughter? And if so, where the devil were her clothes?
I glanced around again, certain someone else must be here as well, perhaps outside, when I saw both a dress, a fine one it seemed, and my coat, shirt, waistcoat, and overcoat spread out behind me near the fire.
What the devil had happened?
