Page 26
She heard a rumble from the other room. Anna held her breath. It was the first time she’d heard any sound at all emerge from the room next to hers.
Getting out of bed, she tiptoed, barefoot, to the connecting door and placed her ear against the wood.
There it was again. A dull thump as though something was falling over, a piece of furniture, a heavy sack of oats or…a body?
She held her breath.
Silence.
She stared at the wooden bolt securing the door. Before she could convince herself that it was a bad idea, she lifted the bolt out of the door and set it aside. With a big breath, she pushed against the door, expecting resistance from the other side. Yet it swung open easily.
* * *
The earl’s room was semi-dark, and in the shadows, she could identify the shape of a canopied bed similar to hers. On the floor, a candle had fallen down, and thankfully snuffed out. How easily it could have set something on fire, a carpet, a curtain… She lifted her own candle. There, next to the candle on the floor lay a dark shape, motionless.
St John.
She rushed over and prodded him on the shoulder. “My lord. What is the matter?”
He groaned.
She lifted her candle further, and he winced. “Put it away,” he said hoarsely, “it hurts my eyes.” He flinched and shied away from the light.
Anna set down the candle on a side table, far enough to keep it out of his face, yet close enough to give her some light. He was wearing a loose linen shirt, half-unbuttoned down to his hairy chest. Anna averted her eyes hastily. She prodded his arm again, but he curled up sideways away from her.
“We must get you back to the bed.” Anna looked at the curled-up figure helplessly and wondered whether she should ring for Marks. Just as she was about to reach for the bell pull, he grabbed her hand and attempted to lift himself up. Anna grabbed him by the elbow to support him and helped him back into the bed.
He leaned back into the pillows, groaning.
“How can I help you?”
She had to repeat the question two more times before he answered. “Keep it dark. Quiet.”
She looked down at him helplessly as he gripped his head. He seemed to be in terrible pain.
Anna took the candle and returned to her own room to the dresser with the pitcher and the bowl. She poured water in it and dipped a linen handkerchief into it and wrung it out. Returning to the earl’s room, she placed it on his heated forehead.
His eyes were closed. He had deep eyes with long lashes, a strong forehead and an aquiline nose; gentle lips with the lower lip fuller than the top one. There was a slight scar on his left temple and a small mole on his right cheekbone.
He muttered something, made an impatient movement and swept the handkerchief to the ground. She attempted to put it back, but he shook his head.
“Too cold,” he rasped.
What then, what could she do to help him? She gazed down at him helplessly and, when a groan again escaped his mouth, she instinctively placed her hand directly on his forehead. His skin was hot and dry.
When Anna attempted to remove her hand, his own shot up and held it in place. “Leave it.”
Anna sat there feeling rather foolish. Now what? Shouldn’t she at least say something rather than sit there in complete silence? She wasn’t certain what to do. He’d insisted on silence, at first, but she felt compelled to say something.
“Would you like me to speak, or to remain silent?” She kept her voice to a low and hopefully pleasant murmur.
There was no response.
“Very well, so unless you’d prefer me to remain silent, I will tell you a story. Let me see. The story of a little girl and her twin brother in France, mere babes, before all hell broke loose… Would you like to hear that story?”
She seemed to detect a faint nod.
“Very well, so I shall continue. The little girl and her brother, who were born in a fairy-tale castle in a fairy-tale land, we shall call them prince and princess, were born to a beautiful king and queen who loved each other dearly. There was no couple on this earth who’d loved as much as they. They lived in a castle surrounded by a beautiful park, and all was well with their little family, and the birth of the babies was the crowning of their love. And then, one day, as it must happen, evil broke into paradise and ruined it all, tore down the walls of the castle park and seeped into the castle, and they took away the king and the queen to put them to an ignominious death…” Her voice hitched. “And how happy they were, the minions of evil, to have torn to shreds their happiness. But what they did not know was that the nursemaid smuggled the prince and princess out of the castle, and out of the country, and they escaped all the horror and the evil and grew up to be a fine man and woman, those two. In their hearts, bearing the love that had been given to them by their parents, glowing like a flame deep within. They grew up in a strange country with a strange language, with the nurse as their new mother and her husband as their new father, and they were good parents, raising the babes with all the care and love they could muster, so they had a happy childhood after all.” Anna stared sightlessly into space. “Until the nurse and her husband died.” She heaved a heavy sigh that lingered in the air. “And life would change once more for the little prince and princess.” Her voice petered out. Was he listening? Probably not. It was more likely he was sleeping. She watched him breathe, at first shallowly, then deeper…until he’d fallen asleep. She remained sitting next to him, not daring to remove her hand even afterwards, not even when the light of the candle sputtered and died and she sat in the dark. She listened to his even breathing.
