Chapter 5 #2
“The ague?” The way she pitched her voice on the second syllable made it sound as if she was quite upset by the disease.
So was I, but it was better than dying, wasn’t it?
I would fully recover, and while this could happen again and again, it wasn’t life threatening.
Not if I was well taken care of while sick.
“That is why you were so ill? The ague?” She was angry again.
“I thought for certain I would watch you breathe your last breath last night.” She seemed almost disappointed that she hadn’t.
“But I didn’t. And that is a good thing, isn’t it?”
She waved her hand to the side. “Yes. Of course it is, only . . . ”
“Only what?”
She huffed and pushed herself off of the ground. She made no movement to cover herself, despite only being in her nightgown. She’d spent the whole night with me and had memories of it. Whatever had happened had made her much more comfortable in my presence than I was in hers. I averted my eyes.
“I wouldn’t have been quite so terrified last night if I had known.
I’m familiar enough to know it is a temporary, if very frightening, fever.
” She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them and started forward.
“I’ll get your shirt.” She strode past me and gathered my shirt, coat, and waistcoat from the ground.
“Again, I’m terribly sorry.” The way she balled my clothes into her arms made it clear she wouldn’t be expecting a marriage proposal.
I should be relieved, and I was, but at the same time, there was some discomfort that had nothing to do with the hard ground or my shaking limbs.
I’d always strived to be upstanding and proper when interacting with the opposite sex, yet here I was in a compromising situation and my first reaction was to escape it.
Was I a cad? Should I press her harder about our situation?
But if I did, then I would be untrue to Harriet, and she deserved a man who was as steadfast as she had been.
“Thank you for caring for me. I never should have gone out in the rain like that. Not with my history of the fever.”
She tossed my shirt and waistcoat to me. “The storm came on so quickly we were caught in it as well.”
She turned and faced the door, I assumed so that I could get dressed.
I didn’t feel quite ready to stand yet, but I was extremely ready to have my shirt on.
I let her thick green velvet dressing gown drop to the floor.
The cold air lashed at my bare chest. I glanced briefly in the woman’s direction and pulled my shirt over my head as quickly as possible.
Keeping one eye on the gun still pointed at the floor, I decided I needed to at least try to be a gentleman.
I was the one who’d gotten her into this mess.
“I would take responsibility if you asked me to.”
She shook her head almost violently. “I am not asking you to.”
“It would be within your rights.”
“Are you dressed?”
“Dressed enough,” I said, buttoning up the last button on my waistcoat.
She spun and huffed again at the sight of me. “You are obviously in love with another woman. I wouldn’t cause either of you harm, and I like to think myself capable of finding a man to marry me on my own merit, not because he was forced to for propriety's sake.”
I coaxed a smile to my lips. “That is brilliant news.” What a deucedly awkward situation. I held her dressing gown up to her.
She took the gown and lifted her chin, ignoring the garment when she should have been hastily putting it on. “I don’t want to keep secrets from my family.”
“You . . . ” I stumbled over what words to say next. Maybe it was the fog in my brain from the fever, but I couldn’t follow this woman’s train of thought. “But you don’t want to marry.”
“I don’t, but I also don’t want you to leave here when you are unwell. My family can take you wherever you need to go in our carriage. I don’t like the idea of you being alone.”
I quirked my lips. “I’m quite accustomed to being on my own, I can assure you.”
“Really?” she said with a raised eyebrow. “And that doesn’t bother you at all, does it?”
I hesitated. That question hit too close to home. What had I said to her last night? I ignored her inquiry. “I could be the most dastardly scoundrel in all of England. For all you know, I could demand a marriage when your father arrives.”
“I don’t believe you are.” Again, there was that unbalance between us.
She knew things about me, and I knew nothing more than the color of her eyes and what her hair looked like unbound.
Well, that, and perhaps her scent—not one of flowers, but the exotic tangy sweetness of citrus.
I’d awoken surrounded by it, thanks to her wrap.
It was most certainly time to leave. I folded her dressing gown and set it on the ground, then pulled on my coat, not bothering to button it.
I pushed myself up to a standing position using the wall as leverage.
Once again she looked ready to catch me should I need it.
It took me three slow breaths to steady the world.
My eyes caught hold of her collarbone and a white scar just above it.
It looked like a brushstroke, like an artist had taken white paint and brushed it across her skin.
I kept my eyes on it as if it could keep me upright.
Eventually, the world steadied. I dragged my eyes away from the artwork of that hollow and stepped away from the wall.
I forced myself to stride toward the door in a manner that hopefully conveyed the capacity and strength to get on my horse and ride.
“Your overcoat.” She dashed back to where she’d laid it out by the fireplace, then held it open for me as if she were a butler.
I put one arm in quickly, but pulled away before she could help with the other.
Even if I hadn’t managed to undress myself last night, I would certainly be able to dress myself this morning.
I buttoned the coat and strode away from that scent of hers.
My coat smelled of wood smoke and Scout. It was a relief.
When I reached the door, I turned around.
“I am very grateful to you. I’ve seen and experienced enough of the ague to know that you’ve had a very unpleasant night.
” Her eyes roamed over me one last time, looking, I assumed, for any sign of sickness or weakness.
She seemed hesitant to let me go, even when she should have been all but pushing me out of the door. “Will you be all right?” I asked.
“Me?” She lifted her chin then tipped her head toward the pistol. “Of course I will.”
I had half a mind to ask her if she knew how to use that pistol of hers, but her comfort and confidence with it answered that question for me. She knew how to use it. And she would take care of herself.
Still, I struggled to make my feet move forward.
She would be alone. She was capable, certainly, but alone.
I hated to leave anyone without support, but the pull of her scent and that blasted brushstroke along her collar bone had left me feeling almost as unsteady as my fever.
I needed to leave. I wasn’t free to think of such things about any woman other than Harriet, and I’d been too long gone from her to remember her scent.
“Shall we agree to part as strangers and forget all about last night?” I asked.
She was still, and I forced myself to hold her gaze, even though it was more comfortable to look elsewhere.
That disloyal part of me wanted to do the exact opposite of what I’d just suggested.
She still seemed like an apparition, a specter I wasn’t certain I believed in.
I wanted to study her and find out if she was real, even now, after having spent the last fifteen minutes conversing with her.
She, on the other hand, had no qualms about taking my measure. Her eyes inspected each and every part of me and I willed my legs to stand firm. I would not shake or faint or give this woman any cause to keep me here when both of us needed me to leave.
“Of course,” she finally said, after I’d proven I wasn’t about to tip over. Her face looked calm. She clenched a fistful of her dressing gown in her right hand. “You have forgotten it already, and I will try to do the same.”
Perfect. Brilliant. The best of outcomes. Even if that meant I never knew exactly what had happened between us. I broke our gaze and strode away from her.
Scout was tied to a fence post, his saddle stuffed into a small, dilapidated half structure nearby. I pressed my head into his neck. “Thank you for getting me here, old boy. Let’s go see if Mrs. Yates has some oats for you. You deserve them. ”
I turned for his saddle, only for a flash of green to catch my eye. She was heading my way.
At least she’d put on her dressing gown.
Without saying a word, she strode past me, hefted Scout’s saddle into her arms and then swung it onto Scout’s back.
She spun and glared at me. Had I done something wrong? Other than, well, everything? “I assume you have the strength to fasten the saddle and hoist yourself up? You won’t kill yourself after I’ve spent a sleepless night keeping you alive?”
I nodded wordlessly.
“Good,” she said, and then she was gone. Back in the shepherd’s croft to await her family.
That feeling of wrongness settled deep inside my chest, a call of duty pulling me back to her, but I ignored it. She had no interest in me as a man and I had a duty that superseded one night in a shepherd’s croft.
It was best if I didn’t know her name and I never saw her again.
Still, I questioned our decision the rest of the way to Applewood.