Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“What on earth happened?”
Anna stared in shock as Giovanni helped Silas out of the carriage, Doctor Merkel stepping out to support Silas on the other side. His face was ashen and his eyes closed tightly against pain, but he opened one eye and managed a thin smile when he looked at her.
“Anna,” he sighed. “You waited.”
He slumped against Giovanni, and Anna ran forward to assist with a cry of distress, but Doctor Merkel waved her away.
“No, Madame! Please, he must lie down for the surgery!”
“Take him to our bedchamber,” Anna commanded, her mind reeling at the word ‘surgery.’
Doctor Merkel snapped some orders to Marion for boiling water, rags, and brandy as Anna led the way through the silent house.
Beatrice was long abed, and so were many of the other servants.
Thank God she won’t see this! Anna thought, flinging open the door to their chamber and tugging back the quilt.
Silas groaned as he was lowered onto the soft mattress, his eyes rolling open as he looked up at them all.
“Anna?” he muttered.
“I’m here.”
Anna sat beside him as Silas’ hand groped for hers.
She noticed that he used his left hand. Unusually, his right hand lay useless beside him.
Doctor Merkel crossed to the right side of the bed, shrugging off his coat as he did so.
Anna saw queasily that his doctor’s shirt was stained with blood.
She watched as the doctor’s quick fingers pulled back the coat that covered Silas.
He was bare-chested underneath, except for a large wad of cloth pressed and lightly bound to his shoulder.
Carefully, the doctor removed it. Anna gasped.
Silas’ eyes opened to slits at her exclamation.
“Just a scratch,” he rasped, trying to smile at her.
It was not just a scratch. A belt had been tied at the top of Silas’ shoulder to slow the blood flow to a deep wound at his elbow joint. It was seeping blood slowly, and Silas’s whole arm was red. She glared round at Giovanni.
“What happened?” she hissed.
“An accident.” Giovanni turned to the doctor. “What needs to be done?”
“I must clean the wound with alcohol and stitch it. I will add a poultice of herbs to prevent infection.” Doctor Merkel rummaged in a small case he had brought with him. “I have laudanum to give the patient.”
“No!” Silas’ voice was sharp, and he tried to raise himself from the bed before Giovanni pushed him back. “No, not that stuff! It makes me see things!”
“This will be very painful, Lucifer,” Doctor Merkel warned. “You do not have to endure it.”
“Silas,” Anna murmured. “You don’t have to.”
“Please, no.” He looked up at her with such pleading eyes in his chalk-white face, she almost started with surprise. “No laudanum.”
Anna turned to Doctor Merkel. “No laudanum.”
Doctor Merkel set about his preparations as Marion came with supplies.
“I will be as quick as I can.” The doctor bent over Silas, intending to begin.
“Wait!” Silas gasped, “Gio!”
“Yes, Silas, what is it?” Giovanni spoke in such a gentle, loving tone that Anna felt a lump in her throat. “I am here.”
“You must increase security around Fallenbrook,” Silas bit into his lip in his attempt to control his pain.
“Send men to check the safety of our properties, our tenants, do what you must but stay here, do you hear me?” Anna saw a rising bud of blood of Silas’ lip where he had bitten down hard. “Protect Beatrice and Anna.”
Silas flopped back, the exertion of his speech too much. Anna felt her questions bubbling up again, threatening to burst from her lips but she bit her own tongue, watching as Giovanni left to quickly follow his instructions. She would make him tell her the truth when he returned.
“Get a good measure of this in him, Mrs Klane.”
Doctor Merkel handed Anna the bottle of brandy and she placed it in her husbands’ mouth. He drank thirstily, like a man who longed for oblivion and sank back when half the bottle was gone. As he looked at Anna, his eyelids were heavier, either from the drink or the blood loss.
“You’ll... stay?” he mumbled, his fingers weakly squeezing hers.
“Of course.” She looked up at Doctor Merkel. “I think we are ready.”
“Yes.” Doctor Merkel held the brandy bottle over the wound. “This shall be the worst of it, Lucifer.”
He poured the brown liquid over the open wound. Silas roared, bucking his whole body forward as he struggled to get away.
“Be still, Lucifer!” the doctor shouted. “Restrain him, Mrs Klane!”
“Silas, no!” Anna tried to press him back down, but it was hopeless, he was too strong. Following her instinct, she threw all of her body weight on top of him, leaving his right shoulder free for Doctor Merkel as she pushed his left shoulder back with one hand and his right hip back with the other.
“It’s all right.” She whispered in his ear as his huffing profanities flew from his lips along with weak whimpers of pain. “Shh, it is nearly over.”
“I have washed the wound, now I must stitch. Here,” Doctor Merkel thrust the brandy bottle at her. “Get all of that in him. With any luck, it’ll knock him out.”
“Drink,” Anna urged. “It will help.”
Anna’s hand shook as she lifted the bottle to his lips and Silas gratefully glugged the remaining brandy.
His head fell back, dribbles of the golden liquid leaking from his mouth.
Anna kissed them away without thinking, the brandy sweet and strong on her lips.
When she looked into his face, Silas’ eyes were wide and dark, his enormous pupils making his irises nearly completely black.
“Anna,” he whispered, twitching as Doctor Merkel’s needle went in.
“Shh,” Anna’s voice was breaking, but she gently stroked his hair away from his hot, damp brow. “Try to sleep, my dear.”
“My dear...” Silas murmured before his head slumped sideways onto the pillow, his mouth hanging open.
Anna, who had read enough medical books to know, immediately raised her hand to his neck to check his pulse. Doctor Merkel looked up from his stitching.
“Well?”
“It is slow but strong.” Anna sat up, sighing. “He has fainted.”
The doctor nodded, satisfied. “It is for the best. I will work quickly to finish the stitching before he wakes.”
“Thank you.”
“You did very well.” Doctor Merkel smiled at her. “You were an adequate assistant.”
Anna tried to smile, but she thought if she did, she might cry. Behind her, the door re-opened. Giovanni stuck his head around questioningly.
“Is it done?”
“Nearly. He has fallen into a faint, thank God.” She rose from the bed, glaring at Giovanni. “I want to talk to you.”
She cast a quick look over Silas to make sure he was still asleep before striding to the door and joining Giovanni in the hallway. With the door closed behind her, she glared at him. “That is not an accident,” she spat, gesturing back inside. “That is a knife wound. Who attacked him?”
“A knife wound can be an accident.” Giovanni shrugged. “We surely didn’t intend it.”
“Sei un bugiardo!”
Giovanni’s face paled at the insult. “I am not a liar.” He took a deep breath. “I am simply bound by my loyalty. Silas’ business is his business alone.”
“I am his wife!” Anna shouted. “Do you not think it is my business, too?”
“That is not for me to decide,” Giovanni spoke calmly. “I follow where he leads, always.”
“Even to his own destruction?”
Giovanni shrugged and looked at Anna, stone-faced. He stood there, his shirt still stained from Silas’ blood, but he did not speak. Finally, Anna snorted in disbelief and looked away.
“Fine. Keep secrets from me. I am sure it will all turn out very well for us all.”
“He only wants your safety, cara signora. It is all he cares about.”
“And who will care for his?” Anna demanded.
“Me,” Giovanni responded tautly. “Always. And now I suppose you, too.”
Anna’s shoulders slumped and she rubbed her face. Her adrenalin was wearing off and she felt consumed by weariness.
“Go, Giovanni.” She waved a hand. “Enough for tonight.”
“Si, cara signora.”
He turned and walked away, his boots tapping on the wood floor.
Anna took a deep breath, straightened her back and re-entered the bedchamber.
It smelt overwhelmingly of brandy, now mixed with a nauseating metallic blood tang.
Doctor Merkel had finished stitching and was winding a clean bandage around the wound.
He smiled when she entered, looking the most at ease since he had arrived.
“I have finished the procedure. Might I impose upon your hospitality for the rest of the night, Mrs Klane? I anticipate no further problems, but I should like to stay close to Lucifer throughout the night.”
“Of course.” Anna gestured to the door. “There is a bedroom next to the study, the third door on your left. Please make use of it. I shall have Marion make up the bed.”
Anna moved to go back out and fetch the housekeeper, but Silas grunted from the bed, twisting his head towards the sound of her voice.
“Per... Persephone...” he mumbled.
The doctor looked at her with quizzical eyebrows. “Persephone?”
“Oh. He calls me that.” Anna blushed but was too tired to try to fob it off with some elaborate explanation. She shrugged wearily. “The bride of Hades. It’s a little joke.”
“Indeed.” The doctor looked at Silas with a tender expression.
“It seems more than a joke. Perhaps Lucifer has finally found the lady strong enough to stand by his side.” Doctor Merkel smiled up at her, his eyes warm.
“You stay with him, Madame. He has more need of you than me. I shall seek out your housekeeper by myself. I’ll be close by if you have need of anything. ”
The doctor left Anna alone with Silas. She slowly crossed to the bed and lay beside her husband, taking hold of his good hand. He frowned at her touch, twisting his head one way then another.
“Silas?” she whispered. “Silas, it’s all right.”
Still, he twisted until Anna was worried that he might injure himself further in his struggle and held him tight, drawing his head into her lap and stroking it tenderly like she would a child.
“Mama?” he whispered. The hair on the back of Anna’s neck stood at his words. His voice sounded like a frightened boy’s. “Mama? Are you there?”
“Silas, it’s all right,” she pressed her lips to his sweaty brow. “Try to sleep.”
“Don’t let him get me, Mama!” Silas was becoming agitated. His left hand gripped Anna’s palm, pressing it to his cheek. “Don’t let Papa back in! Take Bea and run, Mama!”
Anna’s heart stopped at his words. Several things fell into place inside her mind: the portrait hall devoid of parents and childhood pictures.
Silas’ anger towards her father for his abuse.
His ability to recognize her father’s beatings without ever being told.
His overprotective nature. It all made sense.
Silas also had ghosts in his nightmares, ones more terrifying than hers.
She brushed tears from her eyes and drew in her breath sharply.
“Shh, my dear,” she whispered. “You are safe.”
“Don’t leave me alone with him,” Silas muttered, pressing his nose into the skirt of Anna’s nightgown.
“You are not alone,” Anna whispered fiercely. “I am here, my love, I am here.”
My love. She had never said the words to anyone since Andrew died, had never even thought them, and yet they had slipped from her lips without her volition.
There was no other word for what she felt for this powerful, intimidating, kind, brash, broken man.
Her heart was aflame with a need to protect him, to hold him close and treasure him, but also give into what she had felt since they married; that he wanted her, to have and to hold, body and soul.
Anna sighed and shifted slightly, allowing herself to sink down beside Silas so they lay together, face to face.
She drew a finger across the white scar along his jaw, evidence of the turbulent life he had lived, and all the darkness that followed him.
She loved him, and her love for him was strong enough to defeat the demons of the past. She pressed her forehead into his, breathing in his scent, and finally giving in to the heavy weight of sleep.