AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Thirteen
‘Sophie.’
Her head snapped up from the mattress where it must have fallen forward. Her eyes blinking away the darkness in case the voice she had heard hadn’t been in her dream as she groped for her aunt’s hand. The fingers moved against hers. Tried to grip back but lacked the strength.
‘I am here, Aunt.’ Without letting go she scrambled to her feet, ignoring the protests from her spine after goodness knew how many hours sat hunched in the same chair, while she turned up the lamp on the nightstand enough to see her aunt’s pale face. Her eyes were still closed but the slackness which had been around her mouth and features was gone.
‘Sophie?’ It was barely a whisper. A scorched, dry rasp but her heart still soared with hope.
‘Shh...rest easy.’ She smoothed her hand over the older woman’s face, sensing her panic and disorientation and not wanting to put any more strain on Aunt Jemima’s heart than it had already endured. ‘You’ve had one of your turns, that is all.’ That is what they called the little bouts of light-headedness, tiredness and confusion which had plagued her since her health had begun to fail. Minimising and glossing over the important as usual because that was easier. ‘But it is over now and Dr Able has assured me that there is nothing to worry about. He wanted to see you when you awoke, no doubt to fill you with new pills and potions to add to your collection.’ Aunt Jemima had always put great stock in both, seeing them as categoric proof over the years that all of her many invented ailments were real. Up until her heart condition was diagnosed, they had all been gentle herbal tisanes which he brewed and labelled specially with fanciful scientific names that sounded impressive. ‘I shall just fetch him and be back in a moment.’
Unsure of the hour or of who might still be up, she dashed into the dimly lit landing and summoned the footman Rafe had put expressly on the watch in case she needed something and dispatched him to send for the physician. Perhaps ludicrously, and despite the servant informing her that it was two in the morning, she also ordered tea simply because her aunt also put such great stock in its restorative powers. By the time she returned a mere minute or two later, Aunt Jemima’s eyes had opened enough to see that she wasn’t in her own bed.
‘You are at Hockley Hall.’ Sophie smiled as she hastened towards her, thinking on her feet but clueless as to what the older woman remembered or not. ‘The doctor was worried about the cold at home and...’ She would hide the awful truth about the rest of their predicament for as long as she could. What her aunt did not know couldn’t hurt her and the whole truth would likely kill her right now. ‘We both agreed you would be better off here for the night.’
If that seemed far-fetched after the Riot Act had been read at the barricade and she had gone to bed with Lord Hockley very much the enemy, her aunt was too weak and too ill to notice. Instead, she closed her eyes once more while she allowed her niece to feed her sips of water from a spoon.
For the next twenty minutes she lapsed in and out of consciousness, the disjointed periods of lucidness marred by obvious signs of physical discomfort and distress which Sophie did not have the skills to alleviate. As time ticked by with excruciating slowness, and the bouts of discomfort became more protracted, all her initial relief was eaten away with an overwhelming sense of impotence when all she could do was watch. There was laudanum on the nightstand, but Sophie did not dare give it to her aunt until the doctor had made his assessment in case that did more harm than good. Aunt Jemima had been unconscious for more than twenty-four hours. Too much of that potent drug might well send her back into oblivion and possibly for ever.
When she could stand it no more and was about to march out to scream for answers, she heard the sound of footsteps near the door and almost sighed aloud. Except it wasn’t the doctor who entered the sickroom. It was Rafe.
‘The doctor will be here presently—or so he said to my man.’
‘I hope so...she’s in such pain.’
He glanced at the bed where Aunt Jemima had lapsed back into unsettled, laboured unconsciousness, then back to Sophie as if he could sense all her fears. ‘I am no doctor—but on the battlefield it was always the casualties who made no noise which we had to be most worried about. It might not look it at the moment, but her current distress is a good sign.’ He moved closer to lay a hand on Sophie’s shoulder, the reassuring weight of it making her yearn to lean against him again to absorb his strength. ‘It means her body is fighting again—at last.’
‘Of course it is.’ As the emotion threatened to bubble to the surface, it took all she had to keep it locked inside.
She made the mistake of glancing his way and her gaze locked with his much too intuitive one. He squeezed her shoulder in sympathy and solidarity and just that nearly undid her. She wanted to look away—but couldn’t. Told herself to pull away but couldn’t do that either. As if he could see into her mind and her heart and her soul, his intense blue gaze softened and he stroked her cheek, and against her better judgement she leant against his palm, allowing her eyelids to flutter closed to prevent the hovering tears from forming. Yet they did anyway. With such speed and decisiveness, she was powerless to stop them.
‘Soph...’ Her aunt’s feeble whisper, broken in half by a racking, dry cough, snapped her back a split second before she disgraced herself and fell apart.
She leapt to her feet and directed all her attention back to the older woman in case he saw how close she had come to the edge of her reserves. Yet once again Rafe was right there beside her and used his good arm to help lift Aunt Jemima enough from the mattress that the coughing could be productive. To her complete horror, as the hacking subsided, the residue left in the handkerchief was gritty and black.
As her aunt collapsed exhausted back on the pillow, he stroked Sophie’s arm, his reassurance a whisper now in case it distressed the woman in the bed. ‘Trust me, that is a good sign too. I had the same.’
That was when Dr Able arrived, took stock of the situation and shooed them both from the room so he could get to work.
After an eternity of pacing the landing while Rafe sat silently watching her from the footman’s abandoned chair, the physician finally emerged from the bedchamber and shrugged. ‘It seems the immediate crisis has passed. Her pulse is stronger. There are no signs of fever or infection. Her breathing is still laboured—although that is to be expected—and both her eyes and her throat are red raw. But those will ease with time. And his lordship is correct, your aunt has inhaled a great deal of smoke and soot which her lungs are working hard to expel now that she has emerged from the coma. Such things, in my experience, are always better out than in.’
All music to Sophie’s ears. ‘Will she make a full recovery?’
Dr Able shrugged again, his expression wary. ‘I think it’s still too soon to make long-reaching predictions—especially given her underlying heart condition—but the initial signs are encouraging. Much more than they were this time yesterday. Things could change though so we must always err on the side of caution.’
‘Oh.’ Deflated, Sophie sat in the chair Rafe had just vacated. ‘So the crisis hasn’t passed completely. The worst could still...’ Rafe’s comforting hand landed on her shoulder again.
‘This time yesterday, you weren’t certain Sophie’s aunt would ever regain consciousness or even survive the night and yet here we are. Another night later and she is still going strong and fighting to be awake. Surely that is more than encouraging, Dr Able, and surely you can give Sophie a tad more encouragement than you just have?’
‘Medicine is never an exact science, my lord, so I cannot in all good conscience promise a complete and miraculous recovery so early in the day. Especially in a body of such advanced years...but...’ He sighed under the weight of Rafe’s glare. ‘I am prepared to concede that I am hopeful that things are progressing in the right direction and her current condition suggests she could make a reasonable recovery at this stage although not perhaps a complete one.’
‘That is good news.’ Solid, capable fingers squeezed her arm in reassurance.
But Dr Able still tempered it with caution. ‘At her age, she will not bounce back as rapidly as Lord Hockley has. She was in the smoke for longer, so there will be more in her lungs and I will have no way of knowing how extensive the damage has been for several weeks yet, or whether it has all had an adverse effect on her heart. The next few days are critical and they will not be easy. Her body has taken a battering and we need to build her strength up.’
All very worrying but at least with glimmers of hope, so Sophie decided to focus on that.
Her aunt began to cough again, and Dr Able rushed back inside to tend to her, insisting on doing it alone, leaving Sophie with Rafe.
