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“She’s not moving anywhere. She’s warm where she is.” He didn’t want her out of his reach, not when she was so wan and lifeless. He’d come so close to losing her, and it was all his fault. If not for that bloody horse, they would be planning a funeral. They would never have found her in that blasted hedgerow, not until daylight had melted the layer of snow.
He went back to the bed and helped the housekeeper clothe Gwen in her warmest flannel gown, a red, beribboned nightmare that made her look even paler than she already was. Gwen stirred as they laid her back down, the first sign of life she’d shown since he brought her inside. He lay beside her and caressed her cheek, and fought back terror.
“As soon as you are better,” he whispered, “I’m going to kill you.”
“It’s c-cold,” she said in a hoarse stammer. “So cold.”
* * * * *
A fever afflicted Gwen in the middle of the night, raging hot and relentless. She suffered paroxysms that terrified him, and then fell into a torpor-like sleep. The physician came again and checked her heart and listened to her lungs, and told Aidan he must control the fever and make her drink. So Aidan spooned liquid into her mouth, bit by bit, weak, cool tea and broth which she would not keep down. He sponged her and soothed her, the ladies taking over for him when he thought he would lose his sanity.
It went on like that the entire next day too. Her long, slender limbs trembled and her cheeks burned. He lay beside her on the bed and whispered that she had to recover, that he couldn’t live with himself otherwise. He watched her chest rise and fall and imagined her breath extinguished. When the fever let her sleep, he held her hand and prayed in a mindless terror, Give me another chance. I’ll try harder this time. I’ll never stop trying, if you’ll only let her live.
But his prayers seemed to do nothing. He ate and drank only to sustain himself enough to tend her. She suffered into the night, until the ladies had to rest, and the housekeeper took over with her trusted staff.
“When will you sleep, dear man?” asked Aurelia before she left with the others.
“When she is better.”
“When she is better, she will need you to be strong and rested.”
“No. She needs me to be strong now,” he said. “Now, when she is in danger.”
“She is in good hands with Mrs. Fleming. At least go down and speak with Townsend and the others. They’re worried too.”
He’d forgotten his friends were even here, but of course they would remain until the end of the crisis. He still hadn’t thanked Townsend for finding his wife. He took a last look at Gwen and headed downstairs to the parlor. Exhaustion dogged him but he couldn’t sleep, not until her fever broke. The men looked up at his appearance.
“How is she?” Warren asked.
“Struggling. She won’t drink. She can’t keep anything down, and the fever won’t break.”
“She’s a strong woman,” said Townsend. “She’ll pull through this.”
Aidan started to pace. “Damned little fool, setting off in the cold of night like that.” He turned back to Townsend. “Thank you for warming her the way you did. The doctor said she might have lost her fingers to frostbite otherwise. Thank you for…bringing her back to me.” His voice went ragged on the final words.
“You ought to thank her horse,” said Townsend. “But you are welcome. Eira is fine, by the way. We went to check on her after luncheon. She’s being spoiled rotten with brushing and treats.”
“I almost got rid of that horse. She was so difficult to train.”
“Why don’t you sit down?” said Barrymore, when Aidan resumed pacing. “Rest for a moment.”
Instead, Aidan walked over to the large, rectangular parcel propped near the doorway, leaning against a pair of chairs.
“What is this?”
“Oglesby’s painting of you and Gwen. It came a couple days ago, the night...” Townsend didn’t finish the sentence.
Aidan turned to them. “You haven’t looked at it?”
The men exchanged glances. “It didn’t seem the thing to do,” said Warren. “With her struggling so terribly upstairs.”
“She’s not going to die.” That was what they meant, that they hadn’t looked at it because they might be looking at a ghost. He hated Warren in that moment, hated them all for having healthy, happy, well-adjusted wives. “Gwen’s going to recover. We’re going to hang this damned thing over the fireplace.”
“Of course you will,” said Barrymore. “We just didn’t want to look at it without you.”
Aidan tore the wrappings back. Barrymore came over to help him, collecting the paper, and holding the painting while he studied it.
Master Oglesby had a gifted hand. He had captured Aidan’s likeness exactly, and Gwen’s too, down to the otherworldly luminescence of her gaze. He stepped back to study the two of them, taking in every detail. His medals, her curls, the drape of his cape, and the tension of her gloved fingers upon her lap. Her expression, which was not quite a smile but not quite a frown.
“It’s handsome,” said Warren. Townsend and Barrymore agreed.
Aidan said nothing. He did not find it handsome. He found it far too representative of the chasm between them. She sat directly beside him, beneath him, and yet she might have been a thousand miles away. His expression was one of haughty disconnectedness. Lord of his manor, master of his wife. He shuddered and shut his eyes, and opened them again. It looked the same, only worse. The painter had captured everything that was wrong between them.
Without thought, on pure impulse, he attacked the horrid thing. He tore at it, shredding the image and ripping it from the frame. The canvas rent in great swaths, across his chest, down to her lovely sad face. Bits of paint peeled away, melting on h
is fingers. He realized he was shouting at it, no, no, no. Damn you.
His friends pulled him away, hauled him back by his flailing arms and pinned him to the floor.
“Easy, man,” said Warren as he kicked to be let free. “Rest a minute. You’re beside yourself.”
He saw Barrymore’s white face beyond him, and the butler’s. Townsend brought a drink but he wasn’t thirsty. “Let me up,” he yelled.
“In a minute,” said Warren. “When you’re calm. I think you haven’t been sleeping, Aidan. I think you ought to go to bed for a while, and see how you feel after a few hours.”
“She’s not going to die.” He said it loud enough for the whole house to hear. He wanted them to know it. “She’s not going to die from this. I won’t let her.”
“No,” said Townsend on the other side of him. “But you have to rest, for your wife’s sake.” He helped him up with Warren’s assistance. “Rest here before the fire. We’ll have the painting taken away.”
“No!” It was all he had of her, the only likeness, aside from the sketch he’d made in the meadow. “Don’t take it away. Put it up in my room.”
“You’ve shredded it, man.”
“I don’t care. I still want it.” He made it to the sofa and lay down, then lurched up and grasped Warren’s coat. “You come and get me if she needs me. Tell Mrs. Fleming. And wake me up in an hour.”
“Yes. We certainly will. Sure you won’t have a drink?”
Townsend held it out again and Aidan took a deep swig to mollify him. Beneath the burn of the brandy, he detected the sweetness of laudanum. Aidan glared at his friend, too furious to speak. “Just a little,” Townsend said in apology. “The tiniest bit.”
“I’ll have you arrested,” he said.
“Later. You can have me arrested later. For now, get some sleep.”
Chapter Sixteen: Love
