In the silence that fell, Heather approached the bed. Algaria was crouched before the fire, carefully setting more logs onto the blaze. The bedcurtains nearer the door and across half the bed’s foot were drawn, the better to ward off drafts. Passing beyond their screen, she looked into the now shadowed bed.
Breckenridge lay on his back beneath the covers, stretched out straight, his arms by his sides. His face was pale, the elegant but severe lines set, unmoving. His lips were a thin line, showing no animation at all.
His eyes were closed, his long lashes black crescents stark against the white parchment of his skin. His dark locks had been pushed back from his forehead.
He looked like an effigy.
Catriona stood beside the bed, arms folded, her gaze on his face.
Eyes widening, Heather sent Catriona a suddenly fearful, pleading look.
“He’s alive.”
The relief nearly brought her to her knees.
Catriona hadn’t looked up; she continued, “We’ve stopped the bleeding—you did well with that. We did the rest, and, Lady be blessed, the horn didn’t damage anything vital.”
“So he’ll recover?”
Catriona hesitated, then said, “He shouldn’t die from the wound itself. From that, he should recover well enough. Infection is the threat. We’ve done all we can for now. The poultices we’ve put on are the most powerful I know. We’ll renew them twice a day, every time we change the bandages. But in fighting infection, it’ll be his strength and his will that will turn the tide.”
Finally raising her gaze, Catriona met Heather’s eyes. “All we can do now is wait, and pray, and support him however we can.”
Drawing in a deep breath, Heather nodded. “I’ll be here.”
Catriona studied her for a moment—another of her sharp, seeing-beneath-the-skin looks—then she relaxed her arms and walked around the bed, with a wave indicating that Heather should take her place by Breckenridge’s head. “The bellpull is by the mantelpiece. Ring if he stirs, or if you need anything at all. Don’t hesitate to ask for help.”
“Or advice.” Algaria rose from the fire. She, too, looked assessingly at Heather, then nodded as if saying she’d do. “One thing to remember—belief is the key. It’s the one thing we can give them when they wake, when they stir, when in their delirium they’re searching. We have to believe. We must believe. We must convince them we do. Only our absolute, unswerving belief will be strong enough to anchor them, to make them believe, too.”
Heather looked into Algaria’s eyes—eyes that were old, eyes that were wise. Was she talking of life, or love? Or both?
Perhaps in this case, life and love were one and the same.
Raising her head, Heather nodded. “I understand.”
“Good.” Turning to follow Catriona, who, after watching the exchange, had turned and was walking from the room, Algaria added, “One of us will check with you every few hours, in case there’s any change, or if you need anything. He may not wake tonight, but as long as he continues to breathe, there’s no reason to suppose all is not proceeding as it should.”
Grateful for the reassurance, Heather watched Algaria follow Catriona from the room, watched the door close.
Then she looked at Breckenridge, lying so silent on the bed.
A straight-backed chair stood angled between the bed and the hearth. Drawing it to the bed, she sat, leaned her elbows on the covers, took one of his hands—so cold and lifeless—in hers, cradled it between her palms.
Willed him to live.
Ignoring the vast, chill emptiness inside, the devastating desolation hovering, she focused her mind, all her inner energy, on that one single goal.
He had to live.
Whatever it took, whatever she could do.
He was her all, her everything. She knew that now, believed that now—believed with her mind, her heart, and her soul, believed with every fibre of her being.
No matter what it took, she wasn’t going to let him go.
He didn’t wake. Not through that first long night, nor the day that followed.
Heather left the room, his bedside, only for minutes. Through the deep watches of the first night, she climbed onto the bed, and lay alongside him; she slept—napped—with one hand wrapped about one of his, just in case he woke.
He didn’t even stir.
The next day dawned gray and chill, with a flurry of rain hitting the windows. Catriona and Algaria were in and out through most of the day, assessing his condition, changing the bandages and the poultice they were using to draw the infection.
Heather helped; between the three of them they could manage his weight, could shift him, strip him, wash and cleanse, then bandage him up once more.
She spoke little; there was little to say.
To her eyes, the wound was cleaner, yet still horrific, a hideous tear through his side. Having seen the damage, she redoubled her prayers to God, to the Lady, to any deity who might consent to listen, grateful for his survival thus far, even more desperate for his continuing life.
Catriona and Algaria exchanged observations in low murmurs; Heather didn’t need to listen to know what they said. Their tones, their grave expressions, told her all she needed to know.
Breckenridge literally lay at death’s door.
When night came again, he yet lay silent and still. The manor quieted; Catriona came to check on him one last time before seeking her bed. After examining him, she straightened, sighed. Then she laid a hand on Heather’s shoulder, lightly gripped. “Have faith.”
Releasing her, Catriona left.
Heather sat on the chair beside the bed, her gaze locked on his face. Unbidden, her fingers rose to touch the rose quartz pendant beneath her bodice.
Have faith. Believe.
She did.
She understood now what fate asked of her—to have the strength to hold on regardless. To acknowledge that, even if he died, even if he left her, she would still love him until the day she died.
Love didn’t care. Love simply was.
Love was unconditional.
Love was for ever more.
She had faith in love. She believed in love.
She would love him in life and in death.
And if the chance came again she would convince him of that.
As the night closed around her, she closed her eyes and prayed.
His senses swam back to him, returned to him, yet not in the usual way. He felt . . . detached. Distanced. Still a part of reality, but as if a thin veil separated him from the earthly world.
He was floating.
Free of the pain that had gripped him for days.
Free of the body he’d inhabited for three and a half decades—the body lying, weak and wracked with agony, in the big bed.
That body—his body—was chilled to the bone.
He could see, but not with his eyes. He could feel, but he wasn’t sure how or why. Which senses were telling him what he now knew, he could no longer discern.
The cold and the pain . . . they’d driven him out.
Out of his body, out into the night.
Out beyond the veil.
He could feel a tug, a gentle tempting encouraging him to just let go and float away, away from the world, from the pain and the cold and the devastating agony.
All he had to do was decide, just make up his mind and let go, and his connection to the world would fade away and he would find blessed peace.
Blessed peace waited one last heartbeat away.
He—his body in the bed—drew a deeper, pain-wracked breath . . . and he thought of making that decision.
His last decision.
What reason did he have to live?
What was left to hold him to this world?
Even as the thought formed, the answers flooded in.
>
His father.
His two, dear, evil ugly sisters.
Heather.
He paused at that last, wondering why she was still in his list. She hadn’t loved him, had told him to leave, to walk away . . . why, then, did his connection to her remain?
That connection . . . he could, in this odd state, almost feel it. Touch it, see it. Like a shining rope, stretched out yet strong, it glowed in his consciousness, vital and true, powerful, alive . . . living.
Real.
He’d thought he was alone, lying cold, agony-wracked, and silenced in the big bed, but that shining rope . . . led somewhere. It was fixed somehow. It anchored him to the world, to life.
Another whisper from beyond shivered through him, beckoning, calling.
But now he’d seen what lived inside him, been dazzled by its beauty, he had to know—needed to know—before he took that last irrevocable step and turned his back on the wonder, on the joy.
On the incomparable beauty of love.
He opened his senses—not touch or sight, but whatever in this state passed for those—and immediately knew where the shining rope ended.
Heather was sitting by his bedside, but she had crossed her arms on the covers and laid her head down. One slim hand was nestled in his lax palm. Her hair was spread fanlike, a golden veil flung across the covers, gilt strands a delicate net across her cheek.
She was sleeping.
His immediate thought was that she couldn’t be comfortable, that he should rise, lift her, and settle her in the bed . . .
He paused, thought.
Remembered she’d rejected him.
Remembered that he’d still risked his life—brought himself to this, to the edge of life—in order to save her.
If he lived, he would again.
His love for her was an intrinsic part of him, the strongest, most brilliant, and best part of him. He would no more wrench it, or her, from his heart than he would trade his soul . . . he would rather trade his soul than lose love, lose her.
Even if she wasn’t his in the worldly, customary sense.
In every sense that mattered to him, she would always be his to guard, to protect.
To love.
He looked at her, studied her from his new distance, through the strange distortion of the veil.
She’d said she didn’t care if he left . . . so why was she there?
Why was she . . . he broadened his senses and confirmed that it was only she . . . by his bedside, keeping vigil through the lonely night?
He focused on her again, saw, sensed, the tracks of the tears she’d shed.
Knew beyond question that she’d shed them for him.
Knew she cared.
Other words echoed in the distance of his mind; he focused, pulled them forward, remembered. Out by the bull pen, when his life had been draining from him and he’d felt so cold, she’d told him she’d changed her mind—she’d said she intended to marry him. They’d talked of their future life, of all the things they would do, would achieve.
The memories came rushing back.
She loved him.
The wonder of that distracted him. While he savored that new aspect of his shining reality, he floated back up to where he’d earlier been.
Hovering between life and death.
Once again, more insistent this time, he felt the tug, the summons to go. To let go of life and leave the world he knew.
Leave Heather. Leave their love.
He looked again—detached, dispassionate—at his body on the bed. The injuries were serious. Beneath the miasma induced by the herbs and potions they’d fed him, his corporeal self was writhing in agony. If he returned to that body, he would face days of searing agony, weeks of debilitating pain.
He switched his strange senses to Heather. Saw her as she truly was in that moment, vulnerable, lost, and unprotected. And it was her love for him, her acceptance of it, that left her so exposed. So emotionally unshielded.
If he left . . . who would hold her, shield her? Care for her, protect her?
Who would love her?
He couldn’t leave. No matter the agony of staying, no matter the price, he couldn’t walk away from her—not if there was any hope of staying, of remaining by her side.
The summons came again, more definite this time. He had to leave or stay—he had to make up his mind.
He didn’t have to search to know what to do. He simply opened his consciousness, and within it said one word. “No.”
And he was back in his body.
And the agony flayed him again.
“He’s burning up.” Heather looked up at Catriona. “What do we do?”
The worried look on Catriona’s face did nothing to quell the fear coursing through her. After him being chilled, his skin cold to the touch through the first night and the next day, this morning, when she’d woken and studied Breckenridge’s face, she’d seen a hint of color creeping into his cheeks. His hand had been warm in hers.
In her innocence and inexperience of serious injury, she’d thought that he was recovering. Talking quietly, telling him of all the things they would do once he got better, she’d waited eagerly for him to wake up.
Instead, a fever had built, and built, until now, in the late afternoon, it had reached the level of a raging conflagration, one that threatened to engulf and devour him from the inside out.
They’d gone from wiping his brow with iced water, to laying ice-water-dampened sheets over him, and constantly changing them, but nothing had worked to even stabilize his temperature.
It continued to climb.
Arms folded, Catriona stared down at him, then, as if she’d come to the conclusion of some inner debate, she nodded curtly. “An ice-bath. We’ve tried everything else to no avail, so it’ll have to be that.” She hesitated, then met Heather’s eyes. “It’s risky with that wound, but if we don’t get his temperature down, we’ll lose him regardless.”
“Now?” was the only reply Heather made.
Catriona gave the orders. Within minutes Henderson arrived with two footmen carrying a large tin bath. Under Catriona’s directions, they set it down on the other side of the room, away from the hearth even though they’d long ago doused the fire.
The first footman carrying two buckets of ice arrived five minutes later.
Algaria returned from the schoolroom and supervised. Richard came with Henderson and two other men. They stood ready to lift Breckenridge from the bed to the bath.
Catriona told them, “We’ll need to lower him in, then lift him out again.”
They fashioned a makeshift sling from a sheet. When Algaria deemed the ice slurry in the bath ready, the men shifted Breckenridge onto the sheet, lifted him in it, and lowered him into the bath.
Arms tightly folded, Heather watched, and shivered.
The instant the men stepped back, letting Breckenridge sink into the ice-and-water mix, she stepped to one side of the bath, went to her knees, and took one of his hands in hers.
On the other side of the bath, Catriona hovered close, watching. After a few minutes, Heather realized Catriona was watching Breckenridge’s lips.
The instant they started to pale, Catriona said, “Out. Now.”
Heather stepped back, and the men stepped in.
They lifted Breckenridge out, then laid him down, wrapped in the ice-cold sheet on a pallet of towels on the floor. Catriona and Algaria worked swiftly to replace his bandages with dry ones.
They had to dunk him twice more before midnight.
After the clocks throughout the manor tolled that hour, with Breckenridge once more lying on the bed covered only by the damp sheet, Heather sat on the chair by his side, his hand again in hers, and watched him sleep.
On the other side of the bed, seated in a rocker with a warm shawl wrap
ped about her, Catriona kept watch, too.
In the quiet, in the silence, Heather finally found courage to voice the question that had hovered in her mind all day. “Why hasn’t he woken?”
Catriona, her gaze on Breckenridge, too, rocked, then softly said, “I think it’s because of the amount of blood he lost. Not enough to kill, but enough to . . . make him hibernate might be nearest the truth. That, and the infection on top of it.” Without taking her eyes from him, she went on, “The mind and body have ways of protecting themselves—the mind especially can send the body into this type of hibernating state, not true unconsciousness but a deep, deep sleep, so it can more effectively heal.”
Raising a hand to resettle her shawl, Catriona flicked a glance Heather’s way. “I don’t see him not waking as a bad sign—not yet. It might, in fact, be the opposite, an indication that his body is coping as it should and he’s healing. The fever itself is a sign that his body is fighting the infection.”
Heather nodded. The words were a comfort; she held them close.
Catriona reached out and laid her fingers on Breckenridge’s wrist. After a moment, she sat back again. “His pulse is still steady. Not as strong as I’d like, but there’s no hint it’s weakening, and at the moment his temperature is good. However, fevers being as fevers are, I’d expect his to rise again before morning.”
Settling in the chair, flicking the shawl across her shoulders, she caught Heather’s gaze. “I suggest we take turns getting some sleep. One of us needs to be awake in case his temperature spikes—as I expect—or alternatively if it goes the other way and he starts to shiver.” Closing her eyes, she wriggled down in the chair. “If he does start to shiver, or gets too hot again, wake me immediately.”
“All right.” Heather leaned on the bed, Breckenridge’s hand between hers, and settled to watch him through the night.
After two hours, Catriona woke and insisted Heather needed to rest. Heather knew better than to argue; laying her head down on the bed, she closed her eyes.
Sometime later, Catriona shook her awake. Heather blinked, focused. It was still night. And under her palm, Breckenridge’s hand was burning.
“We have to cool him down again.” Catriona urged her up and to the side.