Eight Hunting Lyons (The Lyon’s Den Connected World)

Chapter Sixteen

D aniel’s chest ached. And his hands. And his legs. And bloody hell, who had been using a cricket bat on his head?

He made a sound. He knew that because it echoed in his head like the bang on a large gong. Then someone lifted him up and pressed a glass to his mouth.

He drank, the first swallow feeling like knives along his throat. The second was only marginally better. The third exhausted him.

Someone settled him back on the bed.

It occurred to him that this particular situation had happened before. He hurt. He drank. He slept. Except this time, after a few breaths, he opened his eyes.

Li-Na was sitting down beside him, and he thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Flawless skin, long black hair, and a serenity that made him drink in her presence as if she were the water he’d been needing.

As he watched, she picked up a brush, dipped it in ink, and stroked it across a page. He couldn’t see what she painted. Only her. And for a moment, that was enough. But only for a moment.

“You…painting?” he rasped. Then he swallowed. “ What are you painting?”

She looked at him. “Do you think I could tend you for three days and night and not paint you?”

Three days and nights?

“May I see?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because it is not you. It is fever and sweat. It is the prickliness of your beard, and the sound of your moan.”

Now he had to see it. He tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness flattened him. Worse, when he’d moved, she’d matched him, pressing her palm against his chest to keep him down.

“Do you need to use the privy?”

He didn’t have the strength.

“Mrs. Hocking’s son will be here soon. He has been helping.” She looked at him. “You have been paying him well for the work.”

“I have?”

“Yes. If you didn’t want me to pay your helpers, then you should have locked away your money.”

He waved her statement away. Or he tried. His index finger wiggled. “Don’t beggar me.”

She smiled. “That was my fear as well. So I have looked at your ledger to be sure I did not ruin you.”

Of course, she’d looked. His books were in the same room she worked. If she’d found his lockbox, she’d found his ledger. “Have I enough left to pay Mrs. Hocking?”

“Yes,” she said, a laughter in her voice. “You do.”

“Excellent.” He ought to have enough on hand to pay the entire village for six months’ work.

He slept.

The next time he woke it was to find his sister-in-law sitting beside him. She was embroidering another seat cushion, but she looked up when he whispered her name.

“Are you alive, then?”

“Where’s…Li-Na?”

Nessie set down the embroidery and crossed to the table where she poured water into a glass. A moment later, she helped him drink. It wasn’t quite like swallowing knives, but it came close. When he was done, she sat back down.

“Li-Na is resting now. She and I have come to an understanding. I will allow that she is a worthwhile addition to your household.”

So many words to sort through. “You disagreed with her?”

“I said we have come to an understanding.” She gathered her embroidery but didn’t look at it. “Her paintings are very odd, and I find the sound of that abacus very irritating. But she has cared for you well, and I will not gainsay a useful servant. Indeed, I have even seen the worth of Mrs. Hocking. She has been invaluable these last few days and her soups are excellent.”

He scratched at his chin, pleased to realize he could move his arms without pain. Indeed, beyond a general weakness, he felt much better than he had in a long while. “My head is better.”

“Good.” She straightened off her chair. “I will call Mrs. Hocking’s son. He will tend to your other needs.” She pulled a watch out of the folds of her skirt. “It is time I returned to the inn. Li-Na will see to you after that. I will tell Mrs. Hocking to heat up more broth.”

He nodded. He knew that when Nessie became perfunctory like this, it was best to agree with everything she said. She was under the strain of too much emotion to suffer any debate. Or questions.

“Thank you, Nessie,” he rasped.

“You’re welcome. Don’t you dare do this to me again.”

Seeing to his basic requirements exhausted him. He managed a full cup of broth then dropped into an exhausted sleep. He woke hours later in a room that was mostly dark. A single candle flame flickered to his right, and he turned toward it in hope.

“Li-Na,” he said.

She looked up and smiled. “Do you need help with the privy?”

“I need to see what you’re painting.”

She shook her head. “The light is not good here. I am drawing the sound of your snores, nothing more.”

“Show me. Please.”

“Only when you are snoring.”

He grinned and snored in a loud, shuddering breath that hurt his throat. She arched her brows at him, but he would not be deterred.

“I am snoring. Show me your work.”

“It is a trifle.”

He snored again, this time even louder.

“Stop!” she said. “You sound like a choking tiger. And it probably hurts your throat.”

It did. “I won’t stop until you show me.”

She sighed. “Such a commotion over something I do to pass the time.”

He snored again, and she abruptly flipped the paper around. He lifted up to see better, and he wished that the light was not coming from behind the paper. Or perhaps that added to the design because what he saw was layer upon layer of jagged marks radiating out from two heavy dots. It wasn’t a painting in the typical sense, but it intrigued him. He saw very light gray strokes around the two, evenly spaced black dots, shaping the central image as if they were eyes. And then the jagged strokes radiated outward like lightning or, as she said, snores made into brush strokes.

“Bring it closer,” he said as he dropped back onto the mattress.

“I will not,” she said as she set the painting aside. “You need more broth and perhaps to—”

“I can use the privy myself, thank you.” At least, he hoped he could. Gathering his resources, he pushed himself upright on the bed. He went slow and was grateful that his head did not swim with the motion. She got everything ready, then stood by. At his dark look, she backed out of his bedroom, but she did not close the door.

“I am here if you need help. Do not be ashamed. You have been very ill.”

He wasn’t ashamed. He was embarrassed by his uselessness. “I haven’t needed help with this since I was four.”

“Four?” she asked, her voice light. “By the way the people here speak of you, I expected you were born walking and talking.”

Good lord, what had people been saying? “I think they were speaking of my brother. Peder was the darling of Cornwall.”

“English may not be my first language, but I do know the difference between Peder and Daniel.”

So did he, and it was not a favorite topic.

He accomplished his goal and eventually managed to return to his bed. It hadn’t been easy, but at least he had not humiliated himself.

“Very good, my lord,” Li-Na said from outside the room. “I’ll be right back with more broth.”

“I’m hungry,” he said. “Get me a meat pie.”

She returned with broth. “Tomorrow you may have gruel.”

“Gruel? Is that what that damned doctor told you? Supercilious ass, I wouldn’t trust him with a half-dead cow.”

She grinned at him. A full, stunningly beautiful grin. “I am happy to hear you say that. Mrs. Hocking and I believed that the doctor should not be in charge of your care. We convinced the countess.”

He looked up in surprise. That asinine man had been physicking his family since he’d been a boy. He wondered how they’d gotten rid of him. “I’m glad I got better on my own.”

“You took teas prescribed by the Woman in the Woods.”

“What? The witch?”

“The Woman in the Woods,” she repeated, her tone more stringent. “The countess said she treats the poor and the superstitious in the area.”

“Of which I am neither.”

“And yet you are better.”

He frowned at her. “You really called the…the…” He couldn’t say the word anymore.

“She made sense. Your doctor did not.”

Well, he could hardly argue the results, though most likely the illness had simply run its course. Either way, he was more interested in Li-Na than any witch.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Three days.”

“And you sat by my side? Managed the doctor?”

“The countess and I did.”

“Thank you.” It was all he had the breath for. He was rapidly tiring. A moment later, Li-Na brushed her hand across his forehead.

“You need to rest, Lord Daniel.”

What he needed was to see her painting again. But for now, he would sleep and pray that she was the one beside him when he woke.