Chapter 1 #2
Cassandra gave her the same efficient smile she’d offered to the butler. ‘It is all right. I am here. You can go now.’
The girl looked from her to the butler in the doorway. ‘The doctor told me to wait. To summon him if there was any change.’
‘And now I shall be the one to do so,’ Cassandra said with a firm nod.
She went to the bedside and looked down at the injured man, doing her best to hide her worry.
She laid a hand on his forehead, gauging his temperature, and felt the beginnings of a fever.
It was good that she had come. He might not have survived the night with only a maid to tend him.
She glanced back at the butler. ‘Could you have someone bring a full kettle and a cup? I have feverfew and willow bark in my bag and will get him to take a little, if he wakes.’
‘Very good,’ the butler said and gave a sharp nod in the direction of the maid who hurried off to get the water, relieved to have something constructive to do.
‘You needn’t worry,’ she said. ‘I will watch over him and do everything I can.’
‘Thank you.’ His anxious tone surprised her.
It was not often that she heard such a servant reveal anything like real emotion, especially not with a stranger in the room.
For a moment, he looked down on the man in the bed with an almost fatherly affection.
Then, he withdrew, leaving her alone with her patient.
She turned back to Westbridge, allowing herself a more thorough examination. Loss of blood had left him worryingly pale and as still as a statue, his skin alabaster, his lips almost blue.
But the injury had done nothing to spoil his looks.
He had the sort of classical profile that a sculptor would have loved.
His blond hair had not been combed. It swept back from his face in waves, revealing a noble brow.
His cheekbones were high and his chin strong, sharp accents framing a sensual mouth.
There was something about those lips that gave her pause.
A sense that they’d known pleasure and given it, as well.
Though they were tight with pain, the creases at their corners said he smiled often.
She imagined the expression: knowing, ironic, perhaps just a bit uneven to take the sting from the wickedness of it.
He would have the sort of smile that could make a woman do things she might never risk for another, less beautiful man.
She shook her head and looked away for a moment, gathering her thoughts. She had come here to tend his injury, not to daydream in the nighttime. She had best get down to the business of nursing him.
She pulled back the covers, looking at the bandage that covered the wound on his shoulder. It could use changing, but it appeared that the bleeding had stopped. Why was he so pale?
Then, she stared down at the marks on his arm.
It appeared the surgeon had been bleeding him, which was the last thing he needed after such a serious injury.
He must have been trying to keep the fever away, but Cassie had her doubts that it would do any good.
Infection came from the dirt in the wound, and removing the blood from his arm would not help at all.
She sighed and replaced the sheet, looking at his face again. Though he was sinfully handsome, sleep revealed an innocence that tempted her to touch him. She wanted to smooth the furrows in his brow to hide the evidence of the pain he was in. There had to be a way to ease his suffering.
As if he sensed her presence, his eyes opened and he stared up at her, confused.
They were very blue.
‘It’s all right,’ she said softly, as she surrendered to the desire and laid her hand on his stubbled cheek. ‘You are home. I will take care of you. Now, rest.’
He turned his face into her hand, nuzzling against it for a moment, a wounded animal seeking comfort. Then, he closed his eyes and settled back into an uneasy sleep.
* * *
He had expected there to be flames.
There was torment, of a sort. His shoulder throbbed with a pain greater than he’d ever experienced. But he was chilled rather than burning and floating in a darkness so profound that he feared there was no end to it. Perhaps this was the true nature of hell: cold and isolation for all eternity.
Sebastian Morehead had known that he was damned, even before he’d provoked the duel.
One could not lead a life of debauchery and not pay for it in the end.
He had clinched the matter by picking a fight with Septon.
Julian was a devil with a saber and Sebastian a middling swordsman, at best. The duel had been close to suicide, an unforgivable sin that should have ensured damnation.
He had been cowardly, as well. A brave man would have shot himself and not left it to a friend to murder him in the name of honour. That was one more thing added to his crowded ledger when he met St Peter. He would plead guilty on all counts.
But there had been no judgement. At least, none that he could recall.
His mind was cloudy, but intact. He remembered the duel, and the thrust that had finished it.
There had been a moment of surprise where he’d seen the blade stuck in his shoulder, but felt nothing.
Then a searing pain as he’d dropped his weapon and the sight of his own blood dripping on the ground as they’d carried him to the carriage.
And then…
Distant voices. Shrieks of maids. Muttering. Fussing. Liquid being forced between his lips and down his throat. Then, nothing but more pain. Pain and darkness.
He was alive, but not for long. There had been too much blood on the ground. And he was so very cold.
In the distance, he felt a change. It was far away, as if he was at the bottom of a well. The world he remembered was a distant whisper above him. The pounding anguish of his wound as heavy as water between him and reality.
His eyelids were heavy, too. Like lead. That was why it was so dark. It would be so easy to stay asleep, sinking deeper and deeper until there was no going back. But there was something…
He forced his eyes open and looked up into the face of an angel. Dark hair, luminous skin and grey eyes that stared into his with such tenderness he wanted to weep with joy.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You are home. I will take care of you. Now, rest.’ She was caressing his face and for a moment, the gentleness of her touch overshadowed the pain in his body and he dared to hope that there might be salvation.
This was heaven and undeserving though he was, she said he was home.
He closed his eyes again and returned to the dark.