Chapter 36
Emerald was cold all over. Chills raced down her body and raised the fine hairs on her arms. She wanted to pull her bedcovers higher, tighter, but her body was so heavy she couldn’t even lift an arm. There was a quiet whine of defeat—her own, she surmised—followed by someone saying her name.
The voice was familiar—calm, rhythmic, the same bristle as a dry brush. A voice she knew would always reach her through time and space. Beau. Her lips wouldn’t cooperate when she tried to form his name. All that came out was a low, ineffectual groan from somewhere deep in her throat. On her forehead, she felt his hand, firm, searching, heating her through like the July sun.
‘Christ.’ He sounded displeased, and Emerald wondered if his brow had wrinkled like a crushed sheet of hot-pressed paper. If she could lift her arm, she could smooth the unhappy lines on his face, hold his hard angles between her palms. ‘Gwen, Allard left ice in the kitchen. Put some in a bowl, fill the bowl with water, and bring it up.’
‘Right away, my lord.’
Minutes later, Emerald was still struggling to sort out what her maid was doing in her dream, or what the odd dream was all about, when something as frigid as one of Beau’s imperious looks landed across her brow.
‘It’s all right, my love. I’m here. I’m here.’
Who was his love? The cool cloth was a horrid surprise. Emerald no longer cared for this dream and commanded herself to wake up several times, only to be disappointed when she remained in the same ethereal state.
‘Shall I tell you a story, dear one, about a foolish man and a brave woman?’
Yes.She would listen to him read Fordyce just to hear him speak. Near her hip, an opaque kind of pain, fuzzy at the edges, burgeoned. Beau was close, but she wished him closer still, close enough to curl herself into him as she’d done in the portrait gallery.
His fingertips began to trace light patterns on her wrist, the back of her hand, over her knuckles, and she cursed her sleep-laden body for preventing her from reaching out. If it was her dream, she ought to be able to do as she pleased.
He was talking, his words rolling into one another as her mind crawled along the fringes of consciousness. How fine he sounded. How soft and gentle. She was drifting away on the soothing undulation of his voice, the wisp of a memory, the whisper of a promise if only she could wake herself up.
‘Beau.’Louisa’s voice was hushed in the dim room. ‘Go rest. Let me stay with her.’
He shook his head. He’d been at Emerald’s bedside for three days.
‘Then may I sit with you?’ She waited for him to nod his consent before placing a chair on the opposite side of the bed. ‘Mama told me everything.’ When he didn’t offer so much as a nod in response, she tried again. ‘It sounds like a very exciting way to live. I see why your work kept you from us.’
‘Do you?’
‘If you have forgotten our conversation in my gig, I have not. You are a man considerate of the language he uses. There is much to glean in what you don’t say, what you don’t contradict. You ought to have returned home sooner, but how is it possible to find fault when you were protecting King and country? When you dared to do something as rebellious as design your own future?’
‘I apologised to Mama and to Emerald. I owe you one as well.’
Louisa shrugged dismissively. ‘There’s something cosy, peaceful even, about a household comprised only of women. It’s not easy for me to explain.’
‘Would you like it if I went away again?’
‘You are being flippant, but no—and neither would Emerald. She’ll be all right, brother.’
Beau squeezed his fatigued eyes shut. He was so disconsolate even his veins throbbed. ‘You can’t be sure.’
‘When has she ever let you down?’
Whether his sister’s words were meant as a mild chastise or not he didn’t ask. She rose from the chair and asked if he wished for Saunders or Gwen so he might rest for an hour or two. He had not slept, could not, while his love tarried between two worlds.
‘No. The house has gone to sleep, and besides, there’s nothing to be done.’
‘I’ll check on you both in the morning.’
Louisa slipped out. When she was gone, he folded himself over the edge of the bed, bowing his head on his hand where it rested over hers. He’d seen too much, done too much, to continue as a steward of religion, but he could pray to her, to her courage, her kindness, her spirit and fortitude. With incantations on his tongue and tears hanging from the crooks of his eyes, Beau fell asleep.