Chapter Twenty-Four
Lord Corombos delivered on his promise, installing us in an opulent guest suite with more gilt-trimmed furnishings than the High Temple of Ennolu.
I let go of Stefan’s hand long enough to get out of my jacket, corset, and shoes, and then settled myself beside him on the bed, curled around him, one hand holding his and the other running through his hair and stroking his temples.
He lay completely still except for the steady rise and fall of his chest under our clasped hands, and he didn’t seem to notice my presence at all.
Honestly, the petting and the snuggling was for my reassurance, not his, and that probably would’ve been the case even if he’d been awake.
Most people had a certain fragility to them when ill or injured or unconscious, but not Stefan.
He had the same sturdy solidity as always, authoritative and commanding even asleep.
I’d never seen him sleeping before. Not once.
Would I have another opportunity after he recovered and went back to normal?
If he recovered, because some small doubt still lingered.
Lord Corombos, or Fritz—they’d divided up all of the necessary tasks between them, and I didn’t care as long as Stefan had what he needed—had taken the mage’s advice and sent for another healer, who’d been cautiously optimistic.
He’d repeated what every book I’d ever read on the subject had told me: that being healed that much, all at once, exhausted all of the body’s resources, and that Stefan needed this comatose state to recoup them.
And that if he received proper care, and if I continued to bolster him with the strength of my magic, he’d probably wake eventually rather than slip away.
Probably.
The worry gnawed at me with every passing minute that Stefan didn’t wake, didn’t move, didn’t show any improvement at all. Even in my magical senses he’d stabilized and plateaued, but without any noticeable gains in strength.
Aldrich arrived later in the night, slipping into the room quietly and bringing a bag of my clothing and necessities, a footman carrying a tea tray, and his usual efficient, competent care.
“You must tend to your own needs, or you won’t be any good to Lord Stefan,” he said coaxingly, as he attempted to pry me away. “Come on, my lord. At least long enough to wash your face.”
My bladder agreed with him, and I reluctantly left Fritz watching over Stefan while I let Aldrich cosset me for a few minutes. But I settled down again almost immediately, this time under the blankets with my head on Stefan’s shoulder.
Fritz lingered, staring down at his master with shadowed eyes, and then finally meeting mine.
“There’s a problem, my lord,” he said abruptly.
“I’m sorry to make it your problem, but I don’t think Lord Corombos will listen to me.
” I nodded, my heart sinking, and propped my head back up again on my hand.
“Lord Stefan was somewhere he didn’t want to be seen, and he was seen and recognized.
At the very least, by the fellow who stabbed him.
I wasn’t there, my lord, so I’m not sure what happened, as Lord Stefan didn’t have time to tell me the details.
I found him in the scullery of a tavern by the docks, trying to clean up the wound, but when he heard—” Fritz stopped, mouth hanging open, and he couldn’t meet my gaze anymore. He snapped his mouth shut.
A heavy, oppressive silence settled over the already quiet bedroom.
If Fritz hadn’t been babysitting me, he’d have been with Stefan. Instead, I’d insisted on coming to this party. And Stefan had gone into danger alone.
His attacker had been successful because Stefan had been alone, because I’d been too selfish and na?ve to realize what it meant for him to leave his bodyguard with me.
He’d been attempting to treat his wound alone because Fritz had been too busy trying to save my skin.
And when Fritz had found him, he’d rushed here, to fight a duel with a gaping, gushing wound in his side, rather than going to a healer.
If Stefan died, it wouldn’t just be on my behalf. It’d be my fault. The pain he’d suffered tonight, the risks he’d run, the shadow of death that still hung over him, had all been my doing.
“I understand,” I said to Fritz. “You won’t offend me. You must hate me.”
“No, my lord, not at all.” He cleared his throat, sighed, and looked me in the eye again.
“My answer might be different if he didn’t seem likely to live.
I’ll be honest. But that wouldn’t be fair, either.
You didn’t pick a fight with that bastard, and it’s not like you had any way of knowing Lord Stefan would be in such a state when I went to fetch him.
It wasn’t even the duel that did him. Speaking of which.
That’s what I need your help with. If you want to help him, you need to convince those lords and ladies to tell the story that it was that prancing fool who gave him this hole in his side.
No one can know where he was earlier. Those are his orders, my lord. ”
My automatic impulse was to tell him absolutely not. Give Lord Griset credit for nearly winning this duel? Let his reputation in death be so much better than he deserved?
But Fritz was right. Stefan had wanted an alibi for tonight, hence the story that he’d left the city. Now, if anyone claimed to have been in a fight with him, we could point to the duel and deny it.
I’d married a courtier and a spy. See to it if I don’t remember, he’d told me when he mentioned raising Fritz’s wages.
He and Fritz had both known he had another meaning, and I’d remember, thank you so much, to make them both pay for deceiving me like that later, but for now…
I’d married a courtier and a spy, and he’d put himself in a coma for my sake, and he’d explicitly told me—as explicitly as a fucking courtier and spy could be expected to, damn him—that he trusted me to take care of his affairs if he couldn’t.
My priorities, with Stefan lying here pale and unconscious and nearly dead, might not include the coercion and manipulation of witnesses to a deadly duel in order to lay the groundwork for the future concealment of multiple crimes.
But that would absolutely be Stefan’s top concern. Damn him all over again.
“Go and ask Lord Corombos, that gentleman who acted for Griset, and Lady Sylvian to meet me in—there’s a sitting room next door, isn’t there, Aldrich? And I’ll need to get dressed again.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Fritz said, bowed, and went on his errand.
I stroked a lock of Stefan’s hair off of his forehead, peeked over to make sure Aldrich had his back turned, and dared to press a kiss to Stefan’s brow.
And then another to his cheek. And then, because they were right there and it had been so bloody long and I couldn’t stand it, one to his slightly parted lips.
As my mouth lingered, I pushed as much of my magic’s energy into him as I could, willing him to grow stronger. To take anything I had to give.
“I’ll be right back,” I whispered. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Had I imagined it, or did the corner of his mouth quirk slightly in one of those little smiles he gave me sometimes? I certainly hadn’t imagined the warmth of his skin or the ever so slightly stronger beat of his heart.
Stefan would live long enough to be proud of me for lying to everyone assembling in the next room. I’d make sure of it.
After the meeting with Lord Corombos and the others, the remainder of the night passed quietly.
I lay beside Stefan hour after hour, dozing off for a few minutes at a time.
He didn’t show any change at all, and if I shed a few silent tears, at least he wouldn’t see them.
I dried them on the shoulder of his shirt.
Aldrich unbent enough to take off his shoes and lie down on the valet’s cot in the dressing room, though he denied any intention of sleeping. Every time I so much as stirred, he popped out of the dressing room and tried to make me eat.
Fritz left for the night, muttering something about retribution for Stefan’s treacherous informant, after I’d assured him that everyone would spread the lie that Lord Griset had inflicted both of Stefan’s wounds.
If it got out that Griset had fought a man in Stefan’s condition, the dishonor of it wouldn’t only ruin his posthumous reputation, but reflect poorly on the other gentlemen present—and so Lord Corombos, and particularly Griset’s second, had been extremely receptive.
Sylvie’s reputation would be unaffected either way. Her principal had won the duel. But she agreed too, and I had no doubt they’d all keep their words.
With or without the truth, though, Nevaian society would be gossiping about this for years. And everyone would know about it by morning.
I received unwelcome proof of that shortly after seven, when the summer sun and the housemaids had already been up for two hours or so, but I’d barely sunk into a real hour of sleep.
A distant commotion of voices and slamming doors startled me out of a dream about eating lemon scones and getting the crumbs all over Stefan’s bare chest. Which would’ve been lovely, except that he’d been unconscious and cold and nonresponsive, and I’d been crying while I tried to brush the crumbs out of his chest hair, begging him to wake up and be angry with me.
A frantic check of Stefan’s breathing and heartbeat with both my mundane and magical senses revealed no change.
A possible, very slight improvement, if anything, and he hadn’t lost any ground overnight.
I cursed myself for having slept even a little.
What if he’d needed me? My stomach twisted painfully, and it took half a second for everything to come into focus whenever I turned my pounding head.
Aldrich appeared from the dressing room, hair all fluffy but otherwise alert. “What’s that, my lord?”