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Marion sighed again and lifted her trembling fingers to stroke her husband’s damp hair and press his face to her naked shoulder, the unhurt one, relieved by the sensation of his warm breath against her naked cleavage.
“Thank God,” Simon murmured, breathing out with a gust of warm breath. “I thought I lost you.”
“I thought I lost you, too.”
Marion felt tears flood her eyes quickly and she tangled her fingers in his hair, squeezing him close. The warmth of his face, the feeling of skin on skin contact after the slaps, the bruises, the cuts and the kicks of the afternoon, was glorious. She knew in her heart that this would help her heal quicker than any doctor’s attention.
There was a knock on the door and they broke reluctantly apart. Without Simon’s warm face and breath pressed against her bare skin, Marion shivered in the cold in just her shift and stays, but Simon quickly drew the warm woollen blanket up to cover her. He looked at her, eyebrows raised, and she knew he was asking for her permission. She nodded.
“Enter,” Simon called.
The doctor came in, smiling down at them with the gentle ease of a medical man. Marion recognised him as Doctor Fuchs, the doctor who had guided Eleanor through her pregnancy with the twins and had even treated Marion in the past for agues. Marion smiled at him, her mouth hurting slightly as her lips tugged at the bruise on her cheek.
“Good afternoon, My Lady.” Fuchs nodded to her kindly. “And to you too, Lord Reading. I shall examine your wife now, if you are happy for me to do so.”
“Of course, Doctor,” Simon said, rising from Marion’s bedside, but instead of leaving the room, he simply crossed to the other side of the bed and sat half on the bed beside her, his hand reaching out to hold hers gently. “But I shall keep my wife company, if you don’t mind.”
Marion suspected that Nathan had already prepared Doctor Fuchs for this possibility, as he did not seem even the least bit surprised. He simply nodded curtly, crossing to Marion’s bedside and opening his doctor’s bag.
“The Countess of Brixton has given me some insight,” Fuchs said gently, turning Marion’s face one way then the other, examining her cuts and bruises. Marion felt Simon grip her hand even tighter. “But I am afraid I shall have to ask you for more specific details.”
Marion sighed, feeling like she did not have the energy to relive it. Luckily, Simon stepped in.
“She was whipped around the face with a pistol.” His voice was taut as piano wire. “She was struck many times, she was kicked in the stomach repeatedly. I am perhaps most concerned about that.”
“I see,” Doctor Fuchs looked intensely saddened by Simon’s report. “Anything else, My Lady?”
“The back of my neck,” Marion whispered, “where the gun…where the gun was held—”
She could feel herself getting overwhelmed, but Simon was there, holding her hand. His eyes were dark and flinty with possessiveness and sadness.
“It is alright,” Fuchs said, “I shall not be long, My Lady. Then I shall give you something to help you sleep.”
The examination was as brief as the doctor could make it, but it was still hard and difficult. Marion was almost brought to tears of relief when he examined her abdomen, where dark bruises were beginning to flower, and declared that he could see no reason why she would not be able to bear children. She heard Simon’s sigh of relief at those words and they looked at each other, the tremulous gratitude of it rushing between them. Then the doctor administered Marion some bitter, sickly laudanum that she choked back, thankful it was over and she and Simon were once again blessedly alone.
“That was good news,” Simon murmured, shifting his body closer to Marion and allowing her to rest her head on his chest.
“Yes,” Marion sighed. “I would be heartsick not to be able to provide you with the heir you have always hoped for.”
“Marion,” Simon’s voice was gruff, and she felt his lips pressed against the top of her head. “All I have hoped for, all I have prayed for this day, is to have you in my arms again like this. Safe.”
Marion held her breath as strong hands stroked her hair softly.
“When you said…in that room…that our marriage was only one of convenience, that I - I don’t love you—” Marion’s heart skipped at the roughness and emotion in his voice. “I hope you know—I hope I have proven—that I love you. Most ardently. Marion, I—”
“I love you, too,” Marion whispered, wrapping her arms around him, not wanting him to suffer or struggle for words. She appreciated the words—they filled her up with liquid completeness—but they just fulfilled something she already knew. From the moment she had been taken, from the moment she had seen Simon’s flinty, stormy eyes gazing down at her as he pulled her up from the floor of that horrible room, she had not doubted her feelings for him or his feelings for her. Something inexplicable had passed between them—they knew one another’s hearts, knew them tenderly.
“Thank God.” Simon let out a raggedy breath, and she could feel his heart thundering inside his chest and listened to it eagerly. She knew he was not thanking God that she had spoken, as if he had not known the truth of her already, but thanking God that they were together, and alive. How wonderful it was to lie here with him and feel the love radiating from him. They had survived. Marion felt tears of joy pricking behind her eyes. She sucked in her breath tightly and pressed her forehead into his shirt.
“You are not ashamed of me? A woman who - who is the daughter of no one?” she mumbled into his chest.
“You are your mother’s daughter,” Simon said. She felt him rustling in his pocket for something and then, in front of her eyes, he produced the crumpled letter. Marion saw her maiden name written on it in an unfamiliar, scrawling hand. “As for your father…the man who took you wasnotyour father. Do you want to know who your father is? We - we don’t have to read it.”
Marion sighed, looking at it, trying to understand the swirling emotions inside her. Perhaps it was the laudanum, but all her feelings were starting to feel very far away.
“You read it to me, my love,” she whispered, laying her head back down.
Simon opened the crumpled paper and read, in a rough, emotional voice.
