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“Oh, Heath, your back,” his mother said tearfully. “I didn’t want to believe it was true. How could the king do this?”
“He’s let his fears drive him past reason,” growled Heath’s grandfather. “And it’s going to push us all into disaster.”
“Heath!”
The new voice caused Heath to look up, confusion once again cutting through his foggy mind.
“Laura?”
“How many times do we have to see you carried in half dead by that dragon?” she demanded, sounding as close to tears as her mother.
“I’m not half dead,” Heath said wearily, hardly aware of his surroundings as someone lowered him onto a long settee. He heard his mother sending a servant to fetch the local physician. “It hurts like dragon’s flame, but I’ll be all right. How are you here so quickly?”
“We didn’t come for you, although we would have if we’d known,” Laura told him. “We were already here when Grandmother and Grandfather came. We arrived last night, a few hours after you left for Bryford. We didn’t know where else to go for protection. Heath, King Matlock is going to…is going to…”
“So you know.” Heath nodded wearily as he stretched out on his side, laying his pounding head down with relief.
“How do you know?” Laura demanded. Then he heard her sharp intake of breath as the pieces connected. “Heath! Is that why…was that what you said to—”
“Being frustrated with Percival I can understand,” Heath said, his eyes sliding shut. “I want to smack him upside the head often enough myself. But targeting little Jacqueline and Germain?” He shook his head, subsiding quickly as the movement sent pain shooting through his body.
“Oh, Heath,” Laura whispered.
He heard her drawing closer, and the next thing he knew, something warm was bundled next to him on the settee.
“If he understood what was happening, Germain would want to thank his Uncle Heath,” said Laura, her voice firmer now.
“Laura.” Heath’s mother spoke admonishingly. “We’re all extremely fond of Germain, but Heath’s in no state to hold a baby.”
Laura shook her head stubbornly. “It will make him feel better, Mother, trust me. Germain has a way about him. I can’t explain it.”
Heath put his arm instinctively around the infant. He’d been too out of it to even realize Laura was holding one of her babies, and he was inclined to agree with his mother that he was much too likely to drop the child off the settee in his current condition.
But as his nephew snuggled into him, he found to his surprise that Laura was right. There was something incredibly comforting about the child nestling there. Was this why Laura seemed to love motherhood so much?
A picture flashed before his mind, not farsight, just imagination. A child with Merletta’s brown skin and dark eyes, sitting in Heath’s lap in the shallows, splashing gleefully. Belonging to both sea and land.
He shook his head slightly to clear the image. When Merletta had been here with him, he’d allowed himself to imagine that kind of a future. But it was painful to think of it now, when everything had fallen apart so spectacularly.
To his relief, the movement of his head didn’t cause it to throb nearly as much as before. In fact, as he lay quietly, waiting for the physician to arrive, and letting his mother and grandmother fuss over him, he found that the aches in his body lessened rapidly. Much more rapidly than he would have expected. His back still stung viciously, but his bruised muscles were inexplicably soothed.
And with the gradual lessening of the pain, his mind began to clear as well.
“Where’s Percival?” he asked suddenly. It was an hour since Reka had brought him home, and the physician had finally arrived. Heath glanced around the room. “And Father?”
His mother and sister exchanged tense looks, but before they could respond, the physician clucked his tongue disapprovingly.
“You need to hold still, My Lord,” he scolded Heath. “These wounds are in serious danger of infection. They should have been treated immediately. I have no idea what you’ve been doing since receiving them to make them look like this.”
“Just some cliff diving,” Heath said flippantly. His eyes sought his grandmother, deciding she would be most likely to tell him the straight truth. “Where are Percival and Father?”
She drew in a slow breath, glancing at her husband. “They rode for the capital not long after we arrived.”
Heath sat up straight, eliciting another protest from the physician. “But Percival’s under house arrest! Surely Father would have stopped him from leaving.”
His grandfather shook his head, his expression somber. “Norik didn’t blame Percival for wanting to challenge the king, and neither do I.”
“I’ve never seen Father so angry,” Laura agreed. “He was already worked up over Edmund’s and my predicament, and then when Grandmother and Grandfather arrived with news of what the king had done to you…”
