Chapter 11 #2
“And thankfully so.” Reaching for Emma’s hand, his father proceeded to bark orders like the man Chris remembered so fondly. “Get him to his room so that his wounds can be cared for properly, and send for a physician, an apothecary, anyone with healing knowledge. Find Mr. Havisham!” he bellowed.
At the mention of the vicar’s name, Collins’s voice snapped. “Prepare to transport Sir Christmas. Gently, gentlemen,” he directed. “He hasn’t been delivered back to us only to be mistreated in his own house. Come along.”
Chris searched the room for Emma and his father, unable to see past the hulking bodies of astonished servants and friends. Men grabbed his legs, the pressure under his arms and the contortion forcing him to relax his neck back as he floated across the carpet, causing immense pain.
“One more trip until you are settled,” Daniel reassured him.
Settled. He wanted to flee. The way Emma and his father had looked at him broke his heart.
The immense size of the house overwhelmed.
He was accustomed to small spaces. An itch to escape mounted, every movement jarring, every sound and nostalgic smell—beeswax and lemon and a faint hint of evergreen—stimulating his senses.
Part of him wanted to break free, to run, even though he couldn’t.
The other part longed to be wrapped up in the peace the word home promised.
He pondered the plasterwork on the ceiling, Adams’s work.
He contemplated the intricate details on the staircase banister and marveled at the array of colors spilling through the landing’s stained-glass windows.
His life had been devoid of color and joy for far too long.
He was no longer a viscount’s son, but an animal, caged and beaten but never defeated.
Only need and want existed within, filling his days, one to the next.
Gilded paintings of his ancestors lined the staircase, each portrait mawkish as if he’d passed some sort of test. Had he failed to meet expectation? Were his scars despicable?
“You’ll never attract a woman now,” his guards had mocked, shoving a mirror before his eyes. The shock of the wound, and the sight of the discolored and swollen flesh on his face, would be forever entrenched in his memories.
He couldn’t breathe. The room went dark. He must have lost consciousness because when he next opened his eyes, he saw not the hell he’d awoken to, but a glorious sight.
Radiant light beamed through the windows of the room that had served him since childhood. Warmth heated his skin. He was abed. Someone or something stroked his face. Was it a rat? He angled his head, prepared to fight, jerking when a finger traced his scar.
In France, someone always ended up dead come morning.
Then he saw her, brilliant beams of light haloing her figure. An angel. Emma. His heart clenched, his stomach twisting cruelly. A voice deep inside told him he wasn’t worthy. He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight, hoping in vain for his misery to end.
“Shhh.” Lulled into a peaceful state, he opened his eyes. She sat by his side, her hand lightly caressing his face. “You are safe. No one will ever harm you again.”
Emma? He struggled to swallow. No. It couldn’t be.
He was past succumbing, wishing, longing— This dream seemed so tangible, and yet too magnificent to be real.
Heat flushed his skin, the sudden awareness that he wasn’t shivering or cradling his body to generate heat brought him round to reality.
His rigid body began to relax, his weight sinking into a .
. . mattress, his backside not stabbed or jarred by stone. Why, he hadn’t slept on a mattress for—
“You are home,” she said, her angelic voice soothing him in a way nothing had before. Home.
He mouthed the word. “Home.” There had to be some mistake. He’d tried to escape and failed, time and time again. What made this moment any different?
Emma, or at least his imagined version of her, pressed something cool against his forehead, soothing him with soft words and gentle motions. He dared not believe what his eyes and his senses revealed. It was too much too soon, this overwhelming kindness and generosity.
It undid him.
A sob wrenched from him, incredibly gutless and pitiful.
He barely recognized his own decline. “Stop.” No.
He grabbed hold of her hand, hating to put an end to her machinations.
Damn, his throat was as dry as a dead man’s bones.
He could bear much, but not this. Her scent.
Her voice. Her nearness. Her compassion.
It wasn’t real. None of it could be real.
“You are home,” she repeated as if knowing he didn’t believe her. “Your long journey is over, my love. You are here—with me, where you should be, where you should have always been. I am, and always will be, yours.”
“Emma.” His voice croaked as he tried to cry out her name through his anguish. “Emma?”
What was true? What could he believe?
Something fired in his brain. He stumbled through the fog, trying to grasp it, daring to open his eyes and test the truth of it, fearing she would disappear as she had on every other occasion.
Damn me, I won’t survive this if she does. He squeezed his eyes closed, unwilling to open them for fear she’d disappear. “Emma?”
Her voice cut through his stupor, answering the building fire igniting inside him, a fierce forgery of fact and fairness mixed with shame. “I am here, Sir Christmas.”
He had escaped. The galley had arrived. Captain Ransome and his crew had made the deal that freed them. After years of combat, defiance, and despair, with barely any blood left to flow through his veins, he was in his native land.
“You are home,” she echoed, stroking his cheek. “You got out of France alive.”
Let it be so. Let it be so.
He opened his eyes, hardly comprehending her beauty. He’d tried in vain to reach her, to escape France three times before and paid a horrible price. If it wasn’t for—
Chris raised his head. “Barrett?”
“The lieutenant is well,” she said. She.
Emma, her blonde hair as golden as he remembered, her blue eyes still carrying the same spark.
She caressed his cheek, her fingers slender and strong against his skin.
If this was death, give him more of it. She pointed to his left.
“Your friend is there. And he has my everlasting respect and gratitude for saving your life.”
We saved each other’s lives in as many lifetimes.
Barrett was a surgeon, one of the only reasons he still breathed life-giving air.
Surgeons were necessary hostages when prisoners no longer performed, and sickness rooted in unsanitary conditions.
The good doctor was his friend, a loyal companion who’d fought diligently to get him out of trouble, threatening to kill himself if the Frenchies executed his captain.
Barrett had tended his wounds, every time he’d tried to escape, telling him how important it was that he survived so that he could keep Barrett alive.
He swallowed thickly, unable to speak, his joy at seeing the lieutenant sleeping in a chair by the fireplace overwhelming by far.
Relaxing, he eased his body back onto the mattress, fighting for the right words.
Nothing seemed appropriate. What did you say to a woman you’d promised to marry?
He hadn’t come home. Years had been wasted.
He’d deserted her, and failed her miserably.
Would she ever forgive him?
Did he want her to?
He grabbed her hand as she pressed a cool glass to his lips and lifted his head to help him drink, her lemony scent rolling over him like a wave at the unexpected intimacy.
She smelled fresh and clean, making him feel somewhat civilized.
Suddenly, he wondered how she would feel molded against him in the throes of passion. Oh, how long he had envisioned it.
He drank her in, glorying in her nearness, afraid to release her lest she dissolve into the ether, leaving him crouched in a stone cell as cold and lifeless as ever, Morpheus’s mocking laughter deafening his ears.
“Drink,” she urged him. He obeyed, enjoying the smoothness of spring water—clean water—as it trickled down his parched throat. “Slow down. There is plenty more. You have all the time in the world to get well.”
Plenty. Of. Time. The truth began to sink in.
She raised up to set the glass down on the bedstand.
He nearly toppled it as he reached for her, fearing she meant to leave.
God in heaven, he never wanted to be parted from her from this moment forward.
That was his desire, his earnest wish. But what did she want?
Surely not the wreckage of a man he’d become.
“Don’t go,” he finally said, more emotionally than intended.
That was what he feared now more than anything.
Would she ultimately reject him? While memories of Emma had kept him going, the last thing he wanted was for her to feel trapped, agreeing to marry him out of obligation.
He wanted no one’s pity. And yet—he wanted to live.
But everything had changed, especially him, inside and out. Why would Emma want to marry him now?