Chapter 25
Ewan could barely stand.
The moment he got up from bed the next morning, he felt his legs spasm and then fail entirely. He swayed, then fell backward onto the bed.
Fear lit a match in his chest.
I cannot stand.
This had never happened to him before. And it wasn’t even the only thing that was wrong. Every inch of him was in pain. The light was too bright, searing his eyes. His muscles were contracting, and every time he took a breath, his lungs burned.
Ewan tried to reach for the bell next to his bed that would summon a servant, but even lifting his arm was painful.
You have to dig deep, he told himself, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. You are a man who hauls stones. Who has dug channels. Who saved Cassandra from the loch. You can do this.
Summoning every inch of willpower, Ewan forced himself to stand up. This time, although his legs shook, he did not allow himself to fall back. Instead, he took one step forward, then another, until he had made it all the way to his looking glass.
His valet entered the room, and together, they managed to dress him. It was slow-going, and by the time the final knot had been made in his cravat, his valet looked seriously concerned.
“Are you well, Your Grace?” he asked, squinting at Ewan. “You look very pale, and even raising your arm to put on the jacket seemed to cost you dearly.”
“I am well,” Ewan said, but his voice sounded ragged even to his own ears. “I must go out to the drainage system today. They are expecting me.”
However, he had barely made it down the stairs when he was not sure if he could take another step forward. Every time he moved his legs, he felt a sharp pain go through them. Breathing was increasingly difficult. He could hear his lungs wheezing every time he inhaled.
He was standing along the edge of the entrance hall, clutching a suit of armor to keep himself upright, when Alaric stepped through the front doors.
The moment their eyes met, his friend’s face paled.
“Ewan!” He cried, before rushing forward and grabbing Ewan’s arm, throwing it across his shoulders in order to help keep him upright. “What has happened?”
“I… I cannot walk,” Ewan said through gritted teeth. “At least, I cannot walk unassisted. You must help me, Alaric. I need to get out to the drainage system.”
“The drainage system?” His friend looked at him like he was mad. “You cannot go all the way out to the farms! You cannot even make it across your own entrance hall. You need to go back to bed. And we need the physician to come at once. Butler!”
Moments later, the butler appeared in the entrance hall. “Fetch the doctor. Inform him that it is now a matter of emergency and the duke cannot wait for his convenience," Alaric ordered. “And tell no one where you are going.”
Ewan wasn’t sure why Alaric had added this last instruction, but it was too difficult for him to try and think straight, let alone understand his friend’s obscure motivations.
Alaric then turned Ewan around and began to slowly guide him back toward the stairs.
“But there is so much work to do,” Ewan tried to protest, even as his voice wavered. “I cannot abandon my farmers. They must be wondering why I have not come to the fields.”
“The farmers have been informed of your illness,” Alaric said. “Right now, we have to get you rested and figure out what is wrong with you. If you try to go out to the fields, the effort could kill you.”
“But—”
“What is more important?” Alaric snarled. “Going to see your tenant farmers or remaining alive for your daughter?”
Ewan could not argue with this, so he allowed his friend to steer him back toward the stairs. Climbing them proved difficult, and by the time he reached the top, he was sweating profusely once again, and his breathing was labored.
At the landing, he heard a small gasp, and he and Alaric turned to see Annabelle.
Her eyes were wide, and she was clutching a piece of paper to her.
As Alaric helped him forward, he saw that it was a drawing of a little girl with two taller figures next to her.
A man and a woman, from what he could see.
A mother and a father.
“Annabelle…” he murmured, as they passed her, but he was not sure if she had heard him.
“Stand back, darling,” Alaric said to her as they passed, “your father is not well.”
Annabelle pressed her back against the wall to let them pass, her eyes wide with fear.
As they passed, Ewan tried to give her a reassuring smile, but his facial muscles didn’t seem to be working, and he imagined that the smile had come across more like a grimace.
Either way, it did nothing to rid her expression of fear.
At last, they arrived back at Ewan’s chamber, and with some effort, Alaric got him into bed. Not long after, the doctor arrived.
Ewan knew Dr. Ludley well. For most of his life, Ludley was the physician that came to see him whenever he was ill or had injured himself. But in all the years he had known the doctor, he had never seen him look as grim as he did now as he listened to Ewan’s heart and lungs.
When he was done listening, he sat back, frowning.
“How does it look?” Ewan tried to say, although before he could finish the sentence he began to cough.
“Try not to talk,” the doctor warned him. “Your lungs are severely compromised, and the less stress you put on them, the better.”
Ewan opened his mouth to reply, and the doctor shook his head warningly. Instead, Ewan simply nodded, his eyes wide as he gazed at Dr. Ludley, willing him to tell him what was wrong.
The doctor seemed to understand what he was asking.
“Your body is under an enormous amount of strain,” he said.
“Especially your heart, which is much weaker than I would have expected in a man as active as you are. I do not know exactly what is wrong, but I can tell you this: These symptoms are not indicative of overwork or exhaustion. This is something worse.”
Ewan’s jaw tightened. What will happen now? He wanted to ask, but he dared not.
“For now, I want to monitor you,” the doctor said.
“I will be keeping a close eye on everything that you eat and drink over the next twenty-four hours. Everything must be approved through me. No one is to give you anything to ingest that I did not expressly approve. Is that understood?” The doctor turned to Alaric, who was waiting by the door.
“That is understood,” Alaric said, stepping forward. “You can count on me, Doctor.”
“Good.” Dr. Ludley turned back to Ewan. “I will not lie to you, Your Grace. Your condition is very severe. If things remain like this, I fear we would be in danger of losing you. But I am going to do everything within my power to make sure that does not happen. You are in good hands now.”
At the door, he stopped for a moment to speak with Alaric. Although Ewan could not hear what they were saying, the expressions of both were grave. The doctor’s words circled through his mind. He still could not wrap his mind around what Dr. Ludley had said.
Just a few days ago, it had been nothing but a headache and some fatigue. And now, he might be on the brink of death.
Everything had deteriorated so quickly.
When the doctor had left, Alaric approached the bed warily. “Is there anything I can get for you?”
Ewan motioned for him to lean closer. Then he whispered, as quietly as he dared, “Cassandra.”
His friend nodded. “I will fetch her at once.”
Ewan must have fallen asleep while he waited, because the next thing he knew, he felt a cold, wet cloth on his brow, and he opened his eyes to his wife sitting next to him, smiling down at him as she sponged his forehead.
“How are you doing?” she murmured, her voice like honey.
Ewan tried to smile. “I am—”
“I know you are not supposed to speak,” she said, pressing her free hand to his lips and smiling. “I apologize. I should not have asked.”
Her fingers stayed on his lips, and he placed his own hand over hers, feeling the warmth of her. As he did, her eyes fluttered closed, then opened again.
Slowly, he removed her fingers.
“I must speak.” His lungs gave an angry flare of pain, but he ignored it. “I know it is against doctor’s orders, but I must speak to you, Cassandra.”
Her jaw worked, and he could see the conflict raging across her face.
“I do not want you to get worse,” she whispered. “Or to risk your life.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment there was a knock on the door, and Christopher entered, carrying a bowl.
As soon as he did, the air in the room changed abruptly. Cassandra stiffened, her jaw tightened, and he saw a flash of anger cross her face. Christopher was moving jauntily, but when he paused in front of the bed and took in his sister-in-law’s face, his smile slipped slightly.
“I brought this for you, brother,” he said, holding out the bowl. “It is just a little bit of broth to help ease your illness.”
“He cannot speak right now,” Cassandra said coldly. “But allow me to thank you for him.”
Christopher blinked. “Perhaps I can feed it to him?” he suggested.
“That will not be necessary,” Cassandra said. She tapped the table next to the bed. “You can leave it here, and I will make sure he gets it.”
Christopher hesitated. He looked between Cassandra and Ewan, his expression souring.
“Are you his doctor now?” he asked, a whine snaking through his voice.
“I am his wife,” Cassandra said, folding her arms across her chest. “And I will take care of him in his convalescence. Not you. Not anyone. Me.”
The fierceness in her voice was so gratifying that Ewan felt his heart swell in his chest. He had never heard someone defend him like this before. Very gently, he squeezed her hand, and she squeezed it back without looking at him. She was still glaring at Christopher.
“Very well,” Christopher sniffed. “Then I shall leave this here. But make sure he drinks it while it is still hot.”
He put the bowl of broth down on the bedside table, then lingered a moment or two longer. But with nothing else to say or do, he finally nodded goodbye and left the bedchamber.
The moment he did, Cassandra stood up, grabbed the bowl from the table, went to the window, and dumped their contents outside.
Ewan stared.
Had his wife completely lost her mind?
Cassandra came back to his bedside and sat back down on the bed. Taking up the cloth, she continued to sponge his brow.
“What was that?” Ewan asked.
Cassandra grimaced. “Doctor’s orders. He does not want you eating or drinking anything that was not pre-approved by him.”
Ewan raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t have the energy to argue or even to ask further questions. He needed his strength for something else.
Taking her hand again, Ewan pressed it firmly, until her eyes snapped to his.
“Cassandra,” he murmured. “You must allow me to speak.”
Her hands trembled, but then she set the cloth aside and looked at him very seriously.
“Very well,” she said. “I will listen.”
“I am frightened, Cassandra,” he began, his voice barely above a whisper.
“For myself, yes, but mostly for Annabelle. The doctor thinks there is a chance I will not make it. And if I do not—” she seemed to flinch at these words, but he kept going, “—then I need you to take care of her. Christopher will be the duke then, and I do not know if he will provide for her. But you, you must be a mother to her.”
“You do not need to worry about that at all,” Cassandra said fiercely. “I will always take care of Annabelle. But you are not going to die, Ewan. You are going to get better. You will see, after a few days, you will be all well again.”
But Ewan was shaking his head. “We do not know that,” he muttered. “And I must be prepared.”
Tears filled her eyes, but she did not look away.
“I have been a fool,” he continued, emotion clouding his voice as well. “A fool to waste the little time we had together in fear.”
“Stop,” she whispered. “We have time still!”
“When you walked into my life, Cassandra, you rearranged everything,” he said.
“I could not have known, when I saved you from that loch, how much you would come to change my life. You have taught me so much about myself, about the kind of man I want to be, and about how to open myself to someone. How to trust again. The things I feel for you do not even have names, I do not know what to call them. Only that they fill the room you are in and follow out of every room you leave. And I hope—” his voice broke slightly “—that you can forgive me for being too proud and too frightened to say it when I was strong enough to deserve you.”
“You always deserve me,” Cassandra whispered, the tears leaking down her cheeks. She pressed his hands to her lips, kissing his knuckles. “And you are going to get strong again, say these things to me when you are not ill, but when you are healthy and hearty.”
“But if I do not,” he said quietly, “then I need you to know.”
“You do not get to say this and then leave!” she cried, as her tears intensified.
“You have a daughter who needs you! And not just a daughter. I need you as well, Ewan. I need you here with me.” She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his, so that he could feel the tears dropping onto his face. “Do not leave me, Ewan.”
But he could not promise her that he would not leave her. There were so many promises he would have liked to have made to her, but even he could not defy death. And so he let her cry against him, shaking and sobbing, until at last, she quieted, then lay across his chest, holding him.
At last, sleep began to take him, and he felt Cassandra lift herself from him and move to the door.
The doctor was there, Ewan could just make out Dr. Ludley and Alaric, even as darkness began to cloud his vision.
The three of them were consulting, Cassandra was nodding.
Ewan tried to blink away the fog of tiredness, but it was too strong. Sleep was taking him.
The last thing he saw was the doctor raising something up for Cassandra to look at. It looked very much like a small medicinal vial, like the one that Christopher had given to Ewan.