Tray in both hands, she went down the hall to the study.
His eyes were still closed, but she could tell from the set of his jaw that he wasn’t asleep anymore.
“I need you to eat,” she said from the doorway.
His eyes opened. In the soft illumination — she’d turned on the desk lamp earlier — his face looked less gaunt and more angular, a natural configuration rather than thinness due to starvation. His white hair, lank and unwashed as it was, caught the light and turned from dull to almost luminous.
He would be handsome when he recovered, Roslyn realized then, although she filed the thought away almost immediately, telling herself it was something she’d noticed the same way she might take note of his weight or his pallor or anything else that could affect his physical condition.
“I’m not hungry,” he told her.
“That doesn’t matter,” she replied briskly, then came over and moved aside a stack of papers so she could set the tray on the desk. “Your body has been in starvation mode for months and months, so your hunger signals are being suppressed. You won’t feel hungry for days or possibly weeks, but if you don’t eat, the refeeding process will be a lot more dangerous. You need small meals at frequent intervals, starting now.”
He looked down at the tray. She watched his gaze move from the bowl of rice to the mug of broth to the mashed beans with their gloss of olive oil, and something in his expression changed. It wasn’t anything she could call a softening, but at least it had shifted from its default position of watchful control to something a little more open.
“You used the preserved lemon,” he said.
“It was in the pantry,” she replied simply, and hoped he could hear the context beneath those words.
I’m going to use whatever I find in this house to make you better.
A pause, followed by, “Yes, it would have been.”
Another hesitation, and then he reached for the mug of broth, which told her he had better instincts about his own body than she’d given him credit for — liquid before solids when you were dealing with a starved stomach. He drank slowly, both hands wrapped around the mug in a way that made him look strangely younger.
“The rice should be eaten in small bites,” she told him, using the no-nonsense but still warm voice she always employed when working with patients. “If you feel nauseous, stop and wait ten minutes before trying again. The beans are a source of protein. You need them, but they can wait until you’ve kept the broth and rice down for at least half an hour.”
One eyebrow lifted. It was dark, a stark contrast to his pale hair, and she wondered if his hair had been dark when he was younger, if somehow the strange artifacts that surrounded him had made it turn white prematurely.
He remarked, “You have a gift for making dinner feel like a medical procedure.”
“In your case, it is a medical procedure,” she replied smoothly.
The corner of his mouth moved. It wasn’t anything close to a smile, but she guessed that it was an acknowledgment of their exchange, a concession that something she’d said had registered as worth responding to.
And, thank the Goddess, he ate. He did so slowly and carefully, but he was eating. She watched him from the chair she’d pulled up to the corner of the desk, monitoring for signs of distress — nausea, cramping, the blood sugar spikes that could accompany refeeding after prolonged starvation. Her healer’s gift, still in contact with his damaged system from the examination earlier, fed her a steady stream of information that her conscious mind translated into clinical shorthand.
Heart rate elevated but stable, blood pressure low but improving, no signs of acute gastrointestinal distress.
He finished the broth and most of the rice before he set down the spoon and leaned back in his chair, moving with deliberate care.
“The beans can wait,” she said.
Those dark brows pulled together. “I believe I just said that.”
“You said you weren’t hungry,” she returned. “I’m saying the beans can wait because you’ve had enough for a first meal, and pushing further could cause problems. There’s a difference.”
He regarded her for a moment. His expression wasn’t hostile but attentive, as if he was reexamining first impressions and adjusting them slightly.
“Your first treatment session will be at seven tomorrow morning,” she said as she rose from the chair. “I’ll bring breakfast before we start. Tonight, you need to sleep — actual sleep, not whatever you’ve been doing in that chair. It might be hard to get you up there, but the bedroom upstairs — ”
“I don’t sleep upstairs,” he broke in.
For a moment, she paused. That had sure looked like a master bedroom to her, but she decided it was probably better to leave the questions for later.
So she went on, “Then you’ll sleep on the settee in the parlor next door, or on the floor, or anywhere that allows you to lie flat. Your hip injury won’t heal properly if you keep sitting upright, and your circulation is already compromised enough without adding positional stress.” She picked up the tray but left the plate of beans on the desk. “Eat the rest of those in an hour. Small bites.”
She left without waiting for his response, mostly because she was already learning that giving the Collector the last word was a mistake. Doing so would only allow him to reestablish the illusion that he was in control of the situation. Roslyn knew she couldn’t afford to let that illusion take hold, not because she wanted power over him, but because his recovery depended on him following her directions to the letter. The second he convinced himself that her authority was negotiable, he’d start making decisions that would set his treatment back by weeks, if not more.
