Chapter 20
Twenty
If you ever have a near-death experience (and I hope you don’t!), you’ll find it tiring, but remember that it’s worse for the people whom you almost left behind.
Ididn’t die.
In novels, the hero saves the heroine. My twist on that narrative? I had been saved by a ghost (a real ghost, not a teenager in a cloak), a pig . . . and the hero.
I woke up hours later, enveloped in a blissfully warm cloud. The moment I stirred I realized that Godric’s arms and legs were wrapped around me. We were lying under a pile of blankets and a quilt.
I was only wearing a chemise.
(Scandal! That jolted me fully awake.)
“Evie?” Godric gently rolled me onto my back.
“Hello,” I whispered hoarsely. I felt like a raw egg, as if I might crack.
“Darling.” He cupped a hand around my cheek, leaned down, and put his forehead against mine. “You almost died. Evie, you almost died.”
“Did you find me in the corridor?”
“Peony did.” His voice was hoarse. “Without Peony, we couldn’t have found the passage. I searched the chapel, but of course you weren’t there. How do you feel?”
“My bones ache. My fingers and toes are prickling.” I brought one of my hands from under the covers and said, somewhat wonderingly, “My fingers didn’t fall off from the cold.”
“Crumpsall thinks the kitchen wall saved you from frostbite.” Godric’s voice cracked. “How in God’s name did you find the passage?”
The morning’s horrors felt dreamlike, theatrical, as if some other person had run back and forth in the freezing chapel—though the way my body ached suggested otherwise. My legs, in particular, were throbbing painfully.
“A ghost showed me the door,” I said. “And before you tell me that hypothermia made me hallucinate, there was a ghost, Godric.”
“A monk in a habit?” He sounded skeptical.
I shook my head. “I believe it was Hecuba, wearing her fur-lined cloak. I think she wrapped it around me when I was lying by the wall.”
He kissed my forehead again. “Blessed be Hecuba.”
(Not that he sounded convinced, but he is a barrister, after all.)
The door opened. Tess ran over to the bed. “You’re awake.” She was smiling, but her eyes were strained.
Godric slipped from under the covers and stood.
(Disappointingly, he was fully clothed. If one had to be discovered in bed with a man—albeit by one’s maid—oh, never mind.)
“Hello. Do you have any tea?” I asked hoarsely. I regarded my hand. “Perhaps I should wait until my fingers stop trembling.”
“You’re lucky not to have frostbite,” Tess said, at her most tongue-wagglingly severe. She turned to Godric. “My lady should soak in a hot bath.”
“One question first. What were you doing in the chapel, Evie?” Godric asked.
“I wanted to find the passage,” I said, grimacing. “I meant to take a quick look, but I suppose a groom closed the door, not knowing I was inside. Curiosity killed . . . well, almost killed me.”
Godric sat down on the bed and wrapped his arms around me, his face buried in my hair. “Don’t risk your life like that again. Please.”
I turned my head to kiss his cheek.
“It’s time for a bath,” Tess said. “You’re filthy, Evie, and that’s a fact. These sheets will have to be boiled, because his lordship hopped in to warm you without removing his boots, and he was nearly as dirty as you.”
The immaculate gentleman whose cravat was always perfectly starched? Godric was covered in grime and dust from head to foot.
“You came through the passage?” I asked, starting to figure it out.
“He saved your life,” Tess said, her voice cracking. “His lordship and that pig of yours.” She took a breath and visibly turned herself back into a perfect femme de chambre. “Sir Godric, your valet is waiting for you.”
“Actually, Evie says a spectral Hecuba saved her. Thank God for that ghost,” Godric said. He leaned down and dropped a kiss on my cheek—as though it were nothing, a careless gesture after years of marriage.
My head was foggy, but one sentence floated through, bright as any star: He kissed me.
Wait, seriously: He kissed me.
“Tess, could you give us a moment?” I asked.
“What—” he began as the door closed behind Tess, but with what little strength I had, I reached up, grabbed his cravat, and drew his mouth down to mine.
Warmth spread from where our lips touched and lit me up inside.
When he eased away, we simply gazed at each other.
“What—” he began again, but I cut him off.
“You may not kiss me—kiss me, Godric—and then leave. I was fine before I met you. I was fine with boring teas, and even more boring hymns, and my dreadfully boring prune of a husband, but you may not come in here and kiss me as if we’ve been kissing our entire lives and then depart without a word.”
I snickered at his bewilderment and kept going.
“Have some respect for the almost dead and our first kiss. Don’t act as if it was nothing and then leave.”
His lips parted, those maddeningly kissable lips, in surprise, confusion, I don’t know, and then he leaned down and gently, as if worried I would break, lifted my chin and gave me another sweet, longer kiss, one that sapped the minuscule amount of mustered energy I had left.
I opened my eyes again to see his face just above mine.
“Better?” he whispered.
I blinked, my eyelashes brushing his cheek.
“Yes. Much. Thank you.”
(Thank you? What was I, a schoolgirl of fifteen?)
“You are most welcome. I appreciate your fiery reprimand. Fair warning: That was our second kiss, but there are many to come.”
Godric backed away, and I let go of his cravat, which I was still inexplicably clutching.
“Do not leave this room without me, Evie.” He tucked the covers under my filthy chin.
“I won’t,” I promised. “You’re smiling.” I extracted my hand from the mountain of blankets so I could touch his lips. “I was afraid that you might never smile again if I died.”
He swallowed hard. “You weren’t wrong. Will you marry me? After the annulment, of course.”
“Wait, Godric,” I said, putting a finger to his lips once more, this time to hush him, “is that your proposal?”
“Well—” he began, but I cut him off again.
(In case you haven’t noticed, I had found my voice, and I wasn’t afraid to use it. Finally.)
“I am still married!” I almost bellowed, surprising myself with that outburst. “Unless something happened while I was asleep, you’ll have to wait.”
Godric gave a bark of laughter, cupped my face in his hands, and leaned in to kiss me again.
“You must stop!” I said, turning my head to the side so he kissed my neck.
“Stop what?”
“Stop kissing me so suddenly!” I squeaked. “I am a lady, Godric, and ladies are prone to fainting spells. For all you know, I have a delicate constitution.”
He leaned down until I felt his breath on my neck. “I suppose I’ll stop kissing you. After all, I do not want to leave you so speechless that you cannot say ‘yes,’ now, do I?” he whispered gruffly.
His eyes. I had no idea that so much desire and affection could be conveyed with one look. One glance.
“I’ll tell Ophelia and Colette that you are awake.” But he didn’t let me go, and I saw tears glint in his eyes.
“I kept walking because I thought of you,” I whispered. “You and Rosie and Ophelia, and my father, too.”
A raw sound came from his throat.
After Godric left, Tess helped me hobble to the bath, washed my hair, and brushed my teeth when my fingers trembled too much to hold the toothbrush.
I soaked in the bath for over an hour as she added more pans of hot water from the fireplace, until my legs stopped aching.
I nodded off with my head on the side of the tub, my hair hanging to the floor as it dried.
When I woke up, she bundled me into a warm nightgown and put me back to bed under clean sheets.
I felt much better after another nap. “Is it nighttime?” I asked, pushing myself up to a seated position.
Godric was sitting by the window, reading. He was himself again, dressed in immaculate black with a perfectly starched cravat. “I have food for you.” He fetched a plate and sat on the edge of the bed.
I was a married woman, alone with a man not my husband, but who cared? None of that mattered. I had almost died.
(Dramatic, I know, but true.)
He fed me pieces of chicken, triangles of toast and honey, almonds, and lemon tart.
“This is a strange meal,” I observed.
“All your favorite foods.”
That was true. “How on earth did you know?”
A lopsided smile spread across his face. “I watch you, Evie. It’s something of a passion. I had a hard time leaving you to take my bath.”
“My very own barrister in shining armor,” I said, nibbling another piece of toast. “When did you find out that I was missing?”
“I didn’t know for an hour at least,” he said, his eyes stark. “I went to the kitchen to find you, and Miss Wellington gave me Peony’s leash, thinking you were still sleeping. I was confused because you’d called goodbye to me, and when I came back, Tess said you were long gone.”
He brought my hand to his lips and kissed my palm. “I imagined Burnsby—” He shook his head. “I burst into his bedchamber, thinking he might have done you harm.”
“You said that Burnsby is not a murderer,” I reminded him.
“I lost my head.” Godric winced. “I woke them up.”
“What did Burnsby say?”
Godric’s mouth tightened. “He suggested that you’d been caught by wolves in the courtyard and bleated something about God’s will.”
“That sounds like him.”
(Didn’t I tell you that Burnsby would count on divine providence to rid him of an unwelcome wife?)
“I tucked Peony under my arm and ran. You couldn’t have left the abbey, because the side door was still locked and bolted.
You weren’t with Ophelia or Colette. Grooms and footmen began combing the attics and spare rooms. When I walked through the passage leading from the library, thinking you might have decided to explore, I remembered that you wanted to find the lost passage. ”
“Which I did!” I interjected. “Albeit with help.”