Chapter Thirty
The household had been walking on eggshells around Cassandra all morning.
Avoiding eye contact, they spoke in whispers, as if she were on the edge of a cliff and one wrong word would tip her over.
It wasn’t until noon, when a wrought-iron bench appeared at their doorstep, that it occurred to her what day it was.
Thursday.
With a backrest of roses and daisies, Seth’s wedding gift sat like a skeleton in the sitting room, surrounded by wilting plants. She wanted to fall to the floor and weep. It wasn’t fair. She should be walking down the aisle right now, seeing love and forever in Seth’s blue eyes.
And now they were closed.
Cassandra sat by his bedside and willed them to open again. She wrung warm water from a washcloth into a basin and ran it over his brow.
The surgeon had called it a miracle that the round missed Seth’s liver and major arteries.
He was lucky that it ‘only’ left an open wound on his right side, leaving them to fight fever and infection around the clock.
Cassandra found nothing miraculous about it at all, when his survival was so uncertain.
The miracle she needed was for Seth to wake up.
From time to time, his eyes would open, but he was delirious. He writhed from fretful nightmares and would need to be held down and force fed drops of laudanum. Cool washcloths on his face and the sound of her voice seemed to soothe him, so she seldom left his side.
Having nursed their mother through a long illness, it was simple enough for the Coopers to fall into their old rhythm. They transformed their parent’s old bedchamber into a sick room and brought in a sofa so they could take turns caring for him and sitting vigil.
Time was no longer measured in minutes and hours, but in spoonfuls of broth and sips of willow-bark tea.
The clock chimed reminders to change bandages and bedclothes in a loop that bled one day into the next.
When she was exhausted, one of her siblings would watch over him for a few hours to allow Cassandra to rest. Caroline enjoyed talking to him, gossiping about the kitchen staff, and inventing wild theories about Trevor’s ‘dark past’.
Which, frankly, was a concern of Cassandra’s as well.
Trevor was surprisingly helpful with wound management.
He mixed garlic and some of the medicinal herbs Seth gifted her to create a foul-smelling poultice that was effectively treating Seth’s infection.
However, the boy was disastrously unhelpful in the kitchen, and somehow managed to burn tea, toast, and his fingers in one swoop.
“You know,” Matthew had said. “I don’t think that boy has ever worked a day in a kitchen in his life.”
Cassandra heard a heavy knock on the front door downstairs and frowned. Members of the ton visited by the droves, like buzzards swooping in to pick at their misfortune, hungry for scraps of gossip to spread around. They came with flowers and well wishes, and all were turned away.
The knocking stopped, and she returned to her task.
She ran the washcloth over Seth’s bare chest, and her heart wept for him.
With reverence, she trailed her fingertips over his skin.
Scars extended over his chest, shoulders, and most of his back, as if he donned a cape of fire. And wore it while he saved nine men.
In a practiced maneuver, Cassandra lifted Seth enough to place a pillow underneath his neck, allowing room for the basin below his head. Collecting a handful of water, she ran her fingers through his hair.
“You don’t know this, but we were supposed to be married today.” Her voice caught. “Wait until you see the dress Aunt Valentine designed for me. You’ll laugh, but be nice. She means well and she helped save your life, so you’ll have to thank her.”
She reached for a bar of soap from the bedside table and lathered her hands with rosemary-scented suds. As she washed his hair, she massaged his head with the pads of her fingers. His eye twitched. She stopped and waited.
Seconds went by without further movement, and she continued, “It’s not too late. You can wake up right now, and the priest can come to us. Save me from the dress, save you from the hassle.” She whispered into his ear, “Or we could elope. Take Sabre and ride to Gretna Green. What do you think?”
As she rinsed his hair, she ran her fingernails along his scalp.
He made an “mm” sound and the corners of her lips lifted.
“I knew you would like that. Gretna Green it is. We’ll leave tonight.
” She toweled his hair. “All you have to do is open your eyes.” She pressed her lips to the center of his warm brow.
Holding his face in her hands, she whispered, “My love, open your eyes and look at me.”
A sharp rap on the door frame startled her, and she turned to a man in the doorway.
Cassandra stood in front of Seth and crossed her arms.
“If you’ve come for him, you can leave.”
Earl Bolderwood entered the room.
“Do you think you can stop me?”
“No. But I also don’t think you would hit a woman. Believe me, my lord, it’ll come to that if you try to take him.”
“I have a team waiting outside to transport him.”
“Send them away.”
“It isn’t clean here.” His lip curled. “He’ll receive better medical attention under my roof.”
“He is getting the best medical attention here, by his family. We’re keeping him clean. You risk opening his wounds and further infection by moving him. I won’t allow it.”
“You can take him to Gretna Green, but I can’t take him from this room?”
He tried to move around her.
She blocked him with her hands on her hips.
“That’s correct.”
Cassandra returned his glare with one of her own as he stepped forward.
“Stand aside.” Lord Bolderwood towered over her. “He isn’t your husband, Miss Cooper.”
“Not yet! Married or not, he’s still mine.” She pointed to the door. “You can leave the way you entered, my lord. I trust you know the way.”
After a long stretch of silence, Lord Bolderwood took a step back and laughed, a deep booming sound. “No wonder he’s so besotted with you. If I had ten men with your pluck, the war would be over within a week.”
Cassandra considered whether this was a trick, and then the man smiled at her. “You can lower your guard, Miss Cooper. I won’t take him from you. Your brother has been keeping me informed of his progress, but I wanted to see him with my own eyes. Does he wake?”
Cassandra sat on the sofa and sighed. “Yes, but he isn’t lucid when he does.”
Lord Bolderwood approached and gestured to the sofa. “May I?”
She nodded, and he sat beside her. Spine straight, shoulders set, he watched the rise and fall of Seth’s chest. In Lord Bolderwood’s eyes, she saw that same faraway look that Seth would get in the mornings, with the exact same shade of blue.
It was some time before he spoke.
“Not many remember, but I had a sister like you. Defiant. Intelligent in none of the ways that mattered. Too accepting of those below her station. Reckless with her affections.”
Cassandra scowled, but stopped as he continued, “Her name was Rebecca. I adored her. Almost thirty years ago she ran away with a blacksmith from Ringwood, and was never seen again.” His shoulders sagged and his brow lowered.
“Years later, I was told she had died in childbirth, her lover had long since disappeared.”
Cassandra met his eyes then, to find them lost and swimming with grief.
“That blacksmith’s surname was…”
“Reeves,” Cassandra finished.
“It took years to find him.” He pulled a silver locket from his chest pocket and handed it to her. Inside was a miniature painting of a young woman with long black hair and an innocent smile. There was a familiar, mischievous twinkle in her piercing blue eyes.
“He looks like her.” Cassandra smiled and handed the locket back.
“By the time I found him, he was riddled with bad habits. He was rebellious, as she had been. He needed discipline.” He frowned. “Hollingsworth men have an obligation to make their mark on this world in service to others. As his wife, you’ll do well to keep that in mind.”
“He needs freedom,” Cassandra said. “He wasn’t meant to be caged in, my lord. It stifles him. I’ve known a different Seth than you have. It is cruel to clip his wings.”
“Freedom is a child’s dream, Miss Cooper. He needs to grow up. He’s lazy.”
“He is not lazy.” She laughed. “If you wanted to raise a hard worker, you overshot your mark, my lord. I’ve never seen a man pursue what he wants as hard as Seth does.”
“If he’s properly motivated,” Lord Bolderwood said.
“Is that what I am to you? Proper motivation?”
“Balance,” he drew the word out. “Your father told me once that family is essential to a well rounded man, but the opposite side of that coin is duty, Miss Cooper. A mind like his is unique. It is selfish to the highest degree to allow it to rot in Lincolnshire.”
“He isn’t an asset, my lord. Is it not selfish what you have done? Training and treating him like a dog, breaking him to do your bidding?”
He narrowed his gaze. “If you knew the impact that his work could have on your country—for our soldiers—you would not be so quick to judge my callousness.”
Seth grunted in his sleep, drawing their attention. His eyebrows moved and his fingers twitched. Reaching forward, Cassandra held his hand in both of hers and waited. Seth didn’t wake. Cassandra released a breath at the same time as Lord Bolderwood.
“Even so. There is much that I regret,” he whispered.