Chapter 25
Sunlight flitted through the window, bathing the room in the soft glow of morning.
Evelina sighed and shifted in bed. She was damp with sweat and so warm, but she shivered fiercely.
Her head ached, and her vision was white and blurred around the edges.
Evelina squinted, forcing her miserable mind to work and put the world into order.
Stephan was asleep in the chair beside her bed.
She froze, staring at him; for a heartbeat, she thought that he might be a mere illusion created by her feverish mind.
At some time during the night, he had leaned over her bed.
Her husband sat in the chair, but his head and arms were both on her bed, so near that she could reach out and touch him.
Evelina took a shaky breath. Her fingers curled, and she imagined reaching for her husband and stroking his hair.
“St-stephen?” His name was like a knife being forced down her throat. “Are you awake?”
Stephan mumbled quietly and stirred. Evelina lay back, her cheek pressed against the pillow, and watched him.
Her eyes wandered over his broad shoulders.
She had seen this handsome man entirely naked, had let her eyes wander over his magnificent form, and Evelina ached to see him like that again. He was so beautiful and strong.
“Evelina,” he murmured, blinking as if taken aback. “I did not realize…”
Evelina let out a small titter of laughter. “That you fell asleep here? I did not either.”
He stood and rolled back his shoulders, a contented sigh escaping him. Stephan raised a hand and massaged the back of his neck, which Evelina realized was likely sore given the manner in which he had spent the night, seemingly bent nearly double over her bed.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
He chuckled and shook his head. Stephan cast her a rueful look. “I am fine. The more pertinent question is how are you?”
Evelina’s instinct was to lie, but she found herself too miserable to summon any good humor about the situation. “I am exhausted.”
Stephan’s brow furrowed with worry, and he placed a hand to her forehead. His fingers were like ice against her bare skin, and a low groan came from Evelina’s throat.
“You are burning,” he murmured. “I will send for a physician at once.”
Evelina’s eyelashes fluttered; it took all her strength not to close her eyes entirely and drift back to sleep.
“I am sorry,” she mumbled. “I had hoped not to delay you any further.”
“There is no need to apologize,” Stephan said. “Anyone might succumb to illness. Even if you had taken exquisite care of yourself, that might have happened.”
Evelina sighed; she imagined that she heard her own breath rattling through her chest, beating against her ribs. “I suppose.”
“I know so,” he said. “Give me a moment.”
Stephan left, and Evelina swallowed hard. His absence had left a hollow sensation inside her, a strange coldness that she knew must be only the product of her feverish mind.
Her first thought was that it was strange for her to feel such emptiness in his absence.
It was not as if she and Stephan were overly fond of one another.
Her next thought, though, was that it was not strange at all that she should ache for him.
Any sickly person would long for comfort, for companionship, and Stephan had offered her that.
Evelina had not quite decided what to believe when Stephan returned.
He dropped into his chair and smiled at her. “I have sent for the physician,” he said. “The cook will also bring breakfast to us.”
Evelina’s throat ached so badly that she did not think she even could eat, but she knew also that she must try. She smiled weakly. “If I must.”
“You must, indeed,” Stephan said. “We want your recovery to be swift and seamless.”
“So that we can resume our efforts to bear a child,” Evelina said softly.
Stephan cast her an unreadable look. “And because I do not want you to be ill. I doubt you are terribly fond of being sick either.”
“Is anyone?” Evelina asked.
His lips twitched into a smile. “Perhaps, there is some strange and miserable soul in the world who enjoys being sick.”
“I hope I never meet such a person,” Evelina said. “I imagine such a man would be a dreadful conversationalist.”
“Perhaps.”
Evelina pulled her bedlinens more tightly around herself, quite aware of how Stephan’s eyes lingered on her.
She wondered if he was, at that exact moment, thinking about the last time they had been in bed together.
Was he wishing that he might hold her and try their consummation again?
Even if this marriage was one of convenience, Evelina had seen the desire in her husband’s eyes.
He wanted an heir above all else, but she had determined that there was still some carnal desire for her.
The thought was enough to make her squirm beneath bedlinens. Her late husband had never wanted her, and knowing that this one did—even a little—sent a wave of pleasure sweeping through her. It would be easier to consummate with a husband who desired her. There was no denying that.
It had not escaped her notice either that he had chosen to remain with her when he might have left already.
“Do you intend to stay with me all day?” she asked, her voice embarrassingly small.
“I do not know if I can spare all day,” Stephan said warmly. “Besides, you will need to rest at some point today. Perhaps, I might give you a few hours, though. We can have breakfast together.”
“I would like that,” she said.
Stephan smiled. “Good.”
Evelina shifted, pulling the bedlinens up to her chin. She blinked, fighting valiantly against the haziness that tugged at her senses. Sleep was creeping over her, mischievously seeking to pull her into its grasp.
“Sleep,” Stephan said quietly. “I will wake you when either breakfast or the physician arrives. I promise.”
Evelina sighed quietly, any urge she might have had to protest buried beneath exhaustion. “Very well,” she murmured.
Then, she succumbed to sleep.
* * *
Evelina woke to the smell of breakfast: the warmth of toast, laden with orange marmalade; the gentle aroma of mint tea with honey; delicately cooked eggs with salt; and roasted potatoes sprinkled with rosemary. Her head pounded, the scents overwhelming, but her stomach growled in want of food.
“I have added honey to your tea,” Stephan told her. “You sound as if your throat is sore.”
“It is.”
Stephan smiled sympathetically and handed her the tray.
Evelina flushed with embarrassment at eating her breakfast in bed; a proper lady would have done so only if she was near-death, which she was not.
In the handful of times that Evelina recalled her own mother being ill, she had still managed to dress and eat in the dining hall.
Only when she was pregnant with Theodora had Evelina’s mother eaten breakfast in bed. Evelina’s father had not joined her. What did it mean that Stephan was willing to sit with her and care for her?
Evelina shook her head, as if the movement might vanish the thought. Stephan was a good man; that was all. He was caring for her simply because he was decent, and she would do well not to read anything more into his actions.
She took a piece of toast and chewed it, grimacing as the crumbs scraped against her throat. Maybe toast was not the best food for her to eat at the moment, even though she suspected it had been chosen because it was filling.
“What are your plans for the day?” Evelina asked.
Stephan finished chewing a bit of eggs before answering, “I have some errands to attend to, chief among them visiting my father’s solicitor. I want to ensure that everything is arranged properly between us.”
“I thought we did that before marrying,” Evelina said.
Stephan smiled. “So we did. But there are other things,” he said, waving a vague hand.
“Properties I did not know my father had, debts to be cleared, and of course, your pin money and house. I want to be certain that you are safe from the Dowager Duchess, regardless of what may transpire between us.”
Evelina felt herself soften a little. “That is kind of you.”
She tried a sip of tea, scalding her tongue, but she managed to swallow it far more easily than she had the toast. Evelina considered that a victory.
“It has nothing to do with kindness,” Stephan said.
“I want to be certain that my grandmother cannot use some trickery against us. She is a cruel and conniving woman, and I do not trust her. It is best to be certain—more than certain—that she cannot find some way to ruin us. If she were a man, she would make a terribly vicious lawyer.”
“I do not doubt it,” Evelina muttered.
They lapsed into silence, Stephan attacking his food with gusto. Evelina smiled wryly and wished that she could muster that same enthusiasm. However, every bite of food was like grains of sand sticking in her throat. The tea was more tolerable, but it still burned her throat.
“I hope that your plans involve getting rest,” Stephan said with the air of a man who did not know what to say, only that something was expected of him. “You will have my staff at your disposal.”
“My staff, you mean.”
Stephan paused, looking startled. “Yes, I suppose I do mean that. Our staff.”
“I am certain they will be most attentive,” Evelina said. “If a little…nervous.”
Stephan sighed, looking suddenly as though he had aged a hundred years. “I do regret that I cannot offer you a better staff,” he said. “After my father died, the dowager saw fit to replace the entire staff for me. They are all sorely in need of experience and training.”
Evelina blinked, for a heartbeat thinking that she must have misheard him. “She…did that?” Evelina asked.
Stephan nodded grimly. “I will confess to being rather startled by it myself,” he said. “I have known for some time that my grandmother is a cruel and spiteful woman, but even I was surprised by this recent act of pettiness.”
Evelina shook her head. “I am certain the staff is trying. They have all been very kind to me.”
She was thinking of Mrs. Newbury and how kind she had been in the garden.
“They are trying,” Stephan said begrudgingly.
“I am still furious with her, though. She dismissed my father’s steward, and I have encountered significant difficulty in finding the man.
Admittedly, my grandmother had a habit of driving away the staff, but I would have liked to have kept some of them. ”
“Of course,” murmured Evelina.
A pressure began to build behind her eyes, and she took the tray of food, turning with the intent of placing it on the table by her bed. Before they could, Stephan lifted the tray from her hands and set it there for her.
“Thank you,” Evelina said. “I could have managed it myself, but it—it was kind of you to help me.”
“Of course.”
Stephan paused and studied her face for a long moment. Then, he gently stroked her wrist; his fingertips were cool and gentle against her heated skin. Evelina’s breath hitched, and a knot tightened in her chest.
For a while, they remained like that—his hand on her wrist and her heart in her throat. Then, Stephan sighed and curled his fingers into the bedlinens. “I should go,” he said. “If you have any need of me throughout the day, do not hesitate to send for me.”
Evelina knew that she would not send for him; she had too much pride. However, she did not trust her voice to tell him that or anything else. If she spoke, she feared that her feverish mind might say stay, and she knew he could not.
He gave her a final small smile and a firm squeeze of her hand. Then, he turned and left, leaving a strange bleakness behind him.