CHAPTER 5 #6
Marjorie returned a few minutes later to help Gwendolyn finish stripping the bed, then took away the soiled linens.
Once David was lying comfortably beneath clean sheets, Gwendolyn gave him some water to rinse his mouth and bound his injured arm once more.
She then added more wood to the fire and opened one of the shuttered windows, inviting sweeter air into the chamber.
“How do you feel, David?” she asked softly, moving toward the bed.
He did not answer. His wan face lay pressed against the pillow, and his breath was coming in deep, slow pulses, telling her he had fallen asleep.
Whatever had caused his terrible bout of vomiting seemed to have passed, for the moment at least. Gwendolyn brushed a silky curl of red hair off his forehead.
His brow was cool and dry. It was not fever, then, that had reduced him to this pitiful state.
She thought she should try to get him to drink some water to replace the fluid his body had lost, but decided it could wait until he awakened.
Given how unexpectedly this attack had come on, she did not want to leave his side, in case he suddenly became ill again.
She also feared Elspeth might decide that she knew better than her laird when it came to healing, and return to secretly bleed David when he was unattended.
Unwilling to permit such an assault, she dragged her chair closer to the bed, sat down, and lay her warm hand protectively over his slender fingers, preparing to watch over her charge through the night.
Darkness had thickened to a charcoal cape as Alex slowly made his way along the corridor to his son’s room.
There was only one surviving torch to illuminate the grim passage, and its oily flicker was leaking a shallow pool of red-orange light onto the stone floor.
He was not surprised to find the corridor empty.
He had given an order to his clan, and although they might question his grip on his senses, they still respected him enough to obey.
If David died, his senses would abandon him completely and he would no longer warrant that respect.
He paused before entering the chamber, trying to summon the courage he needed to face the sight of his dying son.
It had been the same with Flora, he reflected painfully.
Each time he had gone to visit her, he hesitated outside her door, begging God to have miraculously given her the strength to overcome her illness during his absence.
He had not thought that his request was selfish.
After all, Flora had been everything that was good, and pure, and fine.
If for some reason a life had to be sacrificed from this castle, then it should have been his own.
Alex’s life had been far from virtuous, for he was a man and a warrior, and had given little thought to his soul’s salvation when in the throes of passion and battle.
Of course his clan needed him, but he had felt that if he died another would be found to act as laird while his precious wife raised his son to manhood.
Flora had to live, because she was the only woman he had ever known who could love absolutely, without question or reservation, and he wanted his son to know that love.
But God had ignored his pleas. Each time Alex had entered Flora’s chamber, he found her a little weaker, a little farther beyond his hold, like a shadow slipping from the last filmy threads of daylight.
How ironic that he needed this moment to muster his strength, while his son so bravely endured the constant torment of illness.
Sometimes he felt he should tell the boy how unbearably proud he was of him.
But he knew if he spoke to the lad with such unguarded tenderness, his heart would break completely and he would be reduced to an unstoppable flood of tears.
Better to remain silent and at least give the appearance of being strong.
He lifted the latch and cautiously eased the door open.
The stench of sickness was gone, replaced by the cool breath of rain-washed air floating through the open window.
Only a single candle remained burning, and the fire had waned to a glowing pile of pink and gray embers, which emitted some heat but contributed little to the dusky veil of light.
Alex moved reluctantly through the gloom, dreading the sight of his child.
The lad’s small form lay still beneath the neatly arranged blankets, pale and frozen, a tiny, perfect corpse laid out for burial.
David did not moan or shiver, did not even cause the blankets to stir with the weak rhythm of his breathing.
He could not, because he was dead.
Grief spewed up from the pit of Alex’s belly, the same raw anguish he had battled so hard the night Flora had died, when he had felt his mind snap like a dry piece of kindling.
It was more than he could bear, he realized, dragging his leaden feet across the stone floor, to lose the only other person he really loved, this sickly child who was his last link to Flora.
He knew his weakness was pathetic and unmanly.
Life was a battlefield—there were scores of men who suffered losses far more hideous than his, yet somehow managed to get on with the grim business of their lives.
But those men had not known what it was to share their life with a woman such as Flora, and therefore could have no comprehension of the gaping wound her death had left.
And that wound was now torn wider, until there was nothing left that merited his struggle to hold his fractured mind together.
Gwendolyn had fallen asleep in a chair beside David, her slender hand holding his, unaware that her patient had escaped her earthly grasp.
Alex stared blankly at her, feeling none of the rage or blame he had thought he would experience if his son died while under her care.
She had done what she could. Perhaps, given more time, her unorthodox methods might have helped the lad.
If anyone was to be blamed, Alex realized harshly, it was himself, for waiting so long before fetching the witch and bringing her here.
A faint sigh erupted from the chalky face resting on the pillow. Startled, Alex shifted his gaze. His son regarded him with dull, glazed eyes, still overwhelmed by illness, but unmistakably alive.
“David?” Alex whispered.
David stared at him in confusion, as if struggling to recall where he was, or perhaps trying to make some sense of why his father was at his bedside in the middle of the night.
Ultimately exhaustion defeated his concern.
His eyelids fluttered down and he turned his head, leaving his hand securely guarded in Gwendolyn’s grasp.
Hope shot through Alex like an arrow, draining away the worst of his grief.
His son was alive. He took a deep breath, cleansing himself of the fear that had nearly paralyzed him.
As long as David lived, Alex could go on.
He gazed restlessly about the room, feeling the need to help expedite his son’s recovery, but uncertain what he should do.
The fire was too low, he decided. He carefully arranged several logs on it, then prodded them until they were wrapped in brilliant flames.
Satisfied that this would keep the room adequately warm for the rest of the night, he returned to steal a final glance at his sleeping child.
But it was Gwendolyn who commanded his attention as he approached.
She had huddled into the chair, with one bare arm still extended so she could hold on to David, and the other crossed tightly over her chest, as if trying to find some heat.
The inky silk of her hair flowed over her shoulders and rippled down her back, but it was an insufficient cloak against the damp night breeze flowing through the open window.
She looked small and vulnerable as she sat curled there, her skin nearly as ashen as his son’s, her pale brow etched into a deep line of worry.
Even in sleep she found no respite, Alex realized, feeling an unbidden affinity toward her.
He removed the folded plaid at the foot of David’s bed, opened it, and gently arranged it around her, enveloping her in its soft warmth.
And as he bent close and inhaled the clean, summer-sweet fragrance of her, he found himself once again overwhelmed with desire.
He longed to reach out and wrap his arms around her, to lay her down on the floor and ease himself beside her and draw her close, as he had that first night she lay shivering on the ground.
His body hardened as he remembered the velvety crush of her slight form pressing against him, the sweet warmth of her mouth as he plundered it with his tongue, the glorious shivering sound she made as he pressed his lips to her breast.
Appalled that he could have such lascivious thoughts in the presence of his dying son, he turned abruptly and left the room, wondering if his grip on his mind was more tenuous than he realized.