Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
M argaret blinked once…twice.
She was lying down. Inside.
In her bed, to be exact.
Heavens, but her head ached. What had happened?
Her gaze roamed over the ceiling above her and across the tops of the draperies encircling her bed. Her thoughts were unclear, and several memories muddled together. It was as though she were swimming through them. Instead of seeing any one memory clearly, they all flowed together into a senseless pool, and she couldn’t make sense of any of it.
And, now that she thought more carefully about it, hadn’t she been swimming?
No—she’d been trying to swim. But her legs had been tangled up in her skirts, and she hadn’t been able to kick right.
Panic tiptoed through her chest as she thought about the partial memory.
Margaret squeezed her hand into a fist, forcing her mind to focus on the feel of fingertips against her palm. Whatever had happened, she was safely in her room now.
She took in a deep breath and tried to lift her head to better see about her.
The light from the window was soft and tinged heavily with orange. Dusk, if she had to guess. Her memories were still quite foggy, but she felt certain she’d been in bed for several hours if it was already evening.
There was a roaring fire in the hearth past the foot of her bed, and a maid sat near it, using its light to sew by.
Margaret thought about calling out but didn’t feel she had the strength just now, so she rested back against her pillow again.
She let her head roll toward the other side of the room.
There, head bent low as though he were sleeping, sat Mr. Rockwell.
Even asleep he looked terribly handsome.
Why had she insisted on ignoring the fact that he was the finest looking man she’d ever known? Ten years ago, she would have set her cap at him and pursued him with near scandalous fervor.
Maybe she should regardless.
Margaret closed her eyes and silently berated herself. Her thoughts were muddled, her emotions running high, and she could tell she wasn’t thinking rationally. Whatever had happened that day, she would wager someone had given her laudanum. That would account for all of it.
Her best course of action would be to keep her eyes closed and let sleep claim her once more. The last thing she wanted was to get swept up in the moment and say something embarrassing that she could never take back. And she would, too. If she allowed herself to get lost in thoughts of firelight playing across Mr. Rockwell’s face, or memories of him holding her last night…
Hold on.
Her eyes flew open.
She could remember him holding her, but they weren’t memories of last night.
When she’d been drowning, it was his arm that had wrapped around her and pulled her up. She vaguely remembered being pulled out from the pond, coughing so hard her lungs screamed in protest.
And the cold.
She certainly remembered the burning cold.
But then, Mr. Rockwell had been holding her again. This time he’d been running. Even though she had been numb with cold, had had very little feeling in her arms and legs, Margaret could still recall the steady thrum of his heartbeat as her head had rested against his chest.
They’d traveled together for over four months now, and not once could she recall him so much as taking her hand.
Yet, since coming to Mondstein Herrenhaus they’d seemed to repeatedly find themselves in situations where he was holding her.
A broad smile spread across her lips. There were many a worse way to spend the Christmas holiday.
But she was feeling giggly and loopy and properly ripe for embarrassment, so she most certainly needed to fall back asleep before she did or said anything she might regret later.
Margaret forced her eyes closed once more and tried to settle in, to get comfortable and relax. At her shifting around, the bed creaked.
Mr. Rockwell was awake and alert before the sound even had time to stop.
“Margaret,” he said, the slight slur in his voice the only indication he’d been asleep moments ago. “How are you feeling?” He leaned forward, placing his elbows against his knees.
Honestly, how had she managed to ignore such a fine face for so long?
Now, she just needed to get through the upcoming conversation without making herself appear an idiot. Otherwise, handsome or not, there would be no possibility of a connection between them.
Not that she’d ever considered one before. Was she considering a connection between them now?
No. That was just the laudanum talking.
“Margaret?” Mr. Rockwell leaned in a bit, studying her face closely. “Are you all right? Do you need some tea?” He spoke slowly.
It reminded her a bit of how she’d heard her father’s groomsman talk to a spooked horse when she was a little girl.
She hadn’t thought back on those memories in forever.
But now probably wasn’t the time. Mr. Rockwell’s expression was growing steadily more and more worried.
Forget saying something embarrassing—getting lost in childhood memories and staying silent was going to make her seem like even more of a fool.
“Yes,” she said. But the word came out rougher than she expected.
Why was it so hard to talk?
She scowled and tried again. “Yes,” the word came out a little stronger this time. “I am fine. At least, I believe I am.”
His expression softened, and he even appeared to be smiling slightly.
It was such a rare sight that she couldn’t help but smile in response.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked, his voice soft.
She thought briefly. “I’m cold,” she said at length.
He chuckled slightly—actually chuckled.
Why would he laugh at such a statement?
Only then did she realize that he didn’t have his jacket on, only his shirtsleeves and waistcoat. She looked back toward the roaring fire. The maid sitting beside it ran the back of her hand across her forehead.
He laughed because the room was very hot. Only she was cold.
“Well, I did just fall through the ice,” she said in her own defense. At the memory, an intense shiver ran through her, shaking her frame and reawakening pains across her arms, legs, and torso. Especially in her lungs.
“How can I still be cold?” she wondered aloud, turning once more toward Mr. Rockwell. “And it’s not a normal cold either. I feel it deep down in my bones. As though they have been frozen and are frozen still.”
“Do not worry, that will pass. You just need a bit more time.”
Another memory suddenly sprouted in Margaret’s mind. “Was the doctor here?” She could remember a man who’d spoken only German, leaning over her. She had been shaking and coughing something terrible.
“He was,” Mr. Rockwell said. “He said you did not hit your head when you fell through the ice, thankfully. He predicts you will regain full health soon enough.”
“I can only recall bits and pieces since falling through,” Margaret said. She tried to push on the memories, get them to unfold fully and tell her more. But mostly they were just snippets, and no matter how she tried she couldn’t force them.
“I am so sorry that happened to you.” Mr. Rockwell reached for her, but just before he placed his hand atop hers, he pulled back quickly and, turning slightly away, coughed hard. When he finished, he folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.
She’d much rather he’d have taken her hand. But, for whatever reason, he seemed determined not to now.
“Do you know what I was thinking while in the pond?” she said, the words spilling out before she could catch them and hold them back.
He lifted a single eyebrow in question.
“I was thinking,” she continued, apparently unable to stop herself just now, “that I still have not yet purchased a present for Lizzy. I’ve been in and out of so many stores,” she shook her head at herself, “and I haven’t actually gotten her anything.”
“You were most likely about to die, and your single, most urgent regret was not buying your niece a present?”
Margaret lifted a hand to her head. Her fingertips felt strangely fat and awkward. “I’m certain if I thought hard enough, I could think of a more noble regret, but I hadn’t the time just then.”
“I think it’s a testament to your character that, in such a situation, having not purchased a present for your niece is what occupied your mind. It proves what I have long since guessed—you are a good woman who has lived a life following her heart and not tolerating regrets.”
Margaret wrinkled her nose. “You make me out to be some kind of saint.”
“Hardly,” Mr. Rockwell said. “A saint would have known better than to skate where the ice was thin.”
Margaret laughed softly. It made her lungs hurt, but it also made her heart happy. “It wasn’t as though I knew where the ice was thin.”
“And yet, you found the only spot on all the pond where the ice was dangerous.”
“Of course,” she said, her eyelids growing heavy and shutting for a moment on their own. “I knew you would be there to save me if anything happened.”
She couldn’t exactly remember having those precise thoughts when the ice beneath her cracked and then broke. But, in her heart, she could feel that she’d known he’d come. Somehow, she’d known.
Mr. Rockwell hadn’t said anything to her last sentence.
Margaret forced her eyes open and looked over at him.
He was watching her, and if the laudanum wasn’t playing tricks with the light, there was no small amount of fear and relief shining through his eyes.
The fog around her thoughts seemed to lift, and the weight of what she’d just gone through hit her forcibly.
She’d almost died.
Another minute or two, and no one could have saved her, even if they had gotten her out of the pond.
How blessed she was Mr. Rockwell had dived in after her when he had.
“What were you thinking?” she asked him softly. “When you were in the pond, what passed through your mind?”
He didn’t answer right away. The wheels were turning in his head—that much she could see. He was thinking over his answer carefully, though his expression gave no more than that away.
At length, he said, “I was thinking I probably ought to have had a second helping at breakfast. If it was going to be my last meal, I shouldn’t have skimped.”
Margaret laughed again, and this time it didn’t hurt quite as bad. “Come, now, a man of your experience and worldly knowledge? I am convinced that wasn’t it.”
Mr. Rockwell held up a hand. “Any man can tell you that food is very important and always near the front of our minds.”
“You probably thought you should have just stayed inside as planned. Then you wouldn’t have been in the freezing water in the first place. That you ought to have left me to my foolishness.”
She’d meant it as a tease, but instead of laughing, Mr. Rockwell’s expression turned sincere.
“No,” he said, his voice low. “Certainly not that.”
His intensity earnestly touched her, and suddenly Margaret found she was silently crying. Gracious, her thoughts were clearer now, but her emotions continued to be unpredictable. The laudanum must still be affecting her.
She blinked a few times and lifted a hand. Bumbling though she felt, she motioned for him to come nearer.
Mr. Rockwell scooted the chair a bit closer to her bedside.
Once he was close enough, she rested her hand atop his. “Words are not enough to say how grateful I am you did come join us at the pond. I will never forget what you did for me.”
He brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead, his fingertips leaving a trail of heat across her skin. “It is as you said,” he whispered. “I will always save you.”
He was quite near to her. Close enough she could have easily run her fingers through the waves in his hair. Close enough she could see flecks of lighter colors in his dark brown eyes.
Close enough to spot something she’d never noticed before now.
There were narrow streaks of skin along his jawline that were lighter than the rest of the skin around it. They were slightly raised, too.
Curious, Margaret lifted her hand and gently placed her palm against his jawline.
She could feel the difference beneath her hand. Some of his skin was rough with stubble, while other parts were smooth and almost appeared silky in the firelight.
“You were hurt,” she said, not as a question but as a statement.
He gave a small nod. “Burned, at the Battle of Aspern-Essling.”
The look of concern that filled Margaret’s gaze nearly left him breathless. However, unlike a few minutes ago when he’d succumbed to a fit of coughing, this time he was able to manage the tightness in his lungs. For which he was grateful, since he had no intention of pulling away from her touch just now.
“Was it severe?” she asked, her fingers trailing over the uneven ripples of skin along his jaw.
“Yes,” he said. He would never be considered a man of many words, not in the fairest of conditions. But in this moment, with her touch undoing his every objection and her gaze melting any lingering resistance inside him, speaking was proving even more of a challenge than usual.
“How severe?” she asked in a soft voice.
“I almost didn’t survive.”
“I can’t tell you how glad I am that you did.”
There had been moments since that battle when he might not have agreed with her. But right now was not one of them. “So am I,” he said.
Her gaze dropped to where her hand rested against his jawline. “Does it hurt anymore?”
“No. Not here, anyway,” he said, motioning toward his face.
“Elsewhere?” Then, before he could say anything, her hand dropped from his face to his chest. “Such as when you cough?”
If he had to guess, the laudanum administered to her a couple of hours ago was still affecting her—otherwise he sincerely doubted she would be acting toward him with such familiarity.
However, regardless of the medicine, she was still as astute as ever.
“Yes,” he said again. “My lungs were gravely damaged by smoke. Enough that I was ordered to retire.” He tried but couldn’t keep the bitterness fully out of his tone.
“But you would have preferred to stay a soldier?”
The corner of his lips ticked upward. He’d only said this much to a few other people—his brother and sister-in-law, Haverford, and a couple of good men he’d served alongside—and all of them had responded the same way. They’d congratulated him on finding his way to an honorable retirement at so young an age. They’d said he ought to be happy.
But not once had they truly asked if he was.
Not so with Margaret.
“I would have,” he said. “It’s the only life I’ve known since boyhood. I found purpose as a soldier. I liked the structure provided by the discipline, the orders. I felt made to be a soldier. But then…”
“Then they wouldn’t let you anymore.”
Benjamin shook his head.
“Is that why,” she asked, “you were willing to come on this trip with me? I have been wondering since you’ve made it clear watching over me is not something you’ve enjoyed.”
Not something he enjoyed? Oh, if only she knew how wrong she was on that score. “I suppose so,” he said, answering the heart of her question without the risk of speaking to the commentary she’d added at the end.
“What do you plan to do when we return to England? Find another foolish and headstrong woman with a brother worried over her every decision?”
“Are there many more?”
“No,” she said lightly, her eyes fluttering shut briefly. “I’m unique among women.”
“That you are,” he whispered.
She smiled but also blinked a few times, and she fidgeted a bit where she lay. She seemed to be struggling to stay awake.
“I will go if you wish it. So that you may sleep.”
“No,” she said, though she was quickly losing the battle of keeping her eyes open. “Stay here a little longer.”
She rolled onto her side, tucking an arm beneath her pillow. She may wish him to stay, but she clearly wasn’t going to be conscious enough to know if he were present, not for much longer.
“I feel safe when you’re here,” she said so softly he almost missed it.
Her words, delicate and ephemeral, sank deep into his heart, planting themselves where he knew he would never be able to uproot them.