Dry heat consumed her. She was burning, waves of scalding heat swelling deep inside her. There was suffocating material choking her, tightening about her throat, yet she wasn’t strong enough to pull it away. She ripped at the material about her neck. Fingers were closing over hers, pulling them away from her throat. There was a sudden lightness of her body, then the touch of warm air caressing her skin. Still it wasn’t enough. Her fingers clawed at the mounting waves of drenching heat. The dark eyes were again close to her face. “Please, I’m so hot, so very hot. Please stop the heat.”
“Yes, I will.” A cool wet cloth smoothed over her face, like a light summer’s rain upon a sunbaked earth. Cooling drops of liquid rolled down her face onto her neck, cutting a trail of prickly cold in their wake. The damp coolness floated over her shoulders and breasts, down to her belly, quenching an unbearable heat that burned her legs. She was being slowly lifted, the cooling liquid cleansing away the ghastly burning from her back. The flames of heat in her body surged with new intensity as the cool damp soaked in again and again. Finally the burning was lessening, withdrawing from her. The burning was dying away as would embers doused over and over until they steamed away the last of their existence, hissing and spurting until at last they lay cold and lifeless.
Was that a woman’s voice sounding softly near to her? “Louisa, Louisa, is that you? Have you come to curse me? So many lies, Louisa. Too many. I can’t bear that Jack must now risk his life because I failed. Please don’t hate me, Louisa. I tried and tried, but I just couldn’t finish it. It was all lies, I lived nothing but lies.”
“Miss Hetty, oh God, Miss Hetty.”
“Thank God you’ve come, Millie. Yes, it’s you, I know it’s you. You must help me rise now, I can’t be late. Father’s schedule, I must be downstairs. Help me, Millie, I can’t seem to pull myself up. Help me!”
She heard a wrenching sob, then a deep voice sounding next to her face. The cold rim of a glass touched her dry lips and she opened her mouth, greedily gulping down the bitter liquid. Her body felt suddenly light, or was it her mind, floating above her, scornful of the weakness that held her a prisoner? The shuddering sobs were from the helpless weak body, not from her.
“Why is it suddenly so very cold, Millie? Please light the fires, it’s so very cold. Millie, where are you? Pottson, please help me. My greatcoat, Pottson, how can I go about in the winter without my greatcoat?”
A chattering, clicking noise sounded in her ears. She could not hold her jaw still. She was weighted down, mounds of greatcoats piled over her, yet she was naked to bitter winter winds. She tried to draw her body up, but the heavy greatcoats held her prisoner. They grew frigid with cold, weighing her down so that she was motionless beneath them.
Suddenly, there was movement next to her and dizzying warmth touched every part of her. She breathed in the warmth, pressing her face against yielding, warm flesh. She clutched at the warmth, burrowing her body so tightly that she felt one with it, fearful at any second that it would fade away from her and she would once again feel the bitter coldness. She felt gentle hands slowly caressing up and down her back, enfolding her, and she nestled close as would a small babe in its mother’s arms.
She thought she felt warm breath on her hair. She thought she felt the warmth of breath against her ear. Her teeth stopped their chattering, her shuddering eased. Deep shadows closed over her mind and gently, she fell into a silent, warm sleep.
Vaguely, she became aware that her face and body were being gently touched with a damp cloth. She tried to turn away from it, unwilling to relinquish the peacefulness of sleep. There was a feather-light probing at her side, and she cried out at the unwanted touch. Then it was gone. With a soft sigh, she drifted back into a deep sleep.
Hetty awoke suddenly and blinked away the last scattered remnants of the laudanum. She felt only a moment of confusion at the unfamiliar room, for memory stirred, and even before her eyes fell upon the marquess seated in a large chair near to the bed, a newspaper in his hands, her mind flashed over the duel and his presence with her before she’d fallen unconscious. As though he felt her eyes upon him, he looked up and she saw a smile of relief.
He spoke as he rose to come to her. “Now I trust you’re really back to me again. How do you feel, Hetty?”
Feel? How should she feel? Should she be feeling less pain in her side or should she feel relief or anger that she hadn’t killed him? She felt light-headed and uncertain at the moment how to answer him. She said only, “I’m with you. Where am I?”
“You’re at my home just south of London Thurston Hall. After I discovered Lord Harry Monteith wasn’t what he claimed to be, I thought it wise to bring you here.”
She wasn’t listening to him. She was staring at the lengthening shadows of the afternoon sun on the far wall. “Oh no. I must go now. Father will worry, he’ll find out, and all will be lost.” She tried to rise. A stab of throbbing pain shot through her side and she fell back panting against the pillow. She felt his hands upon her shoulders, holding her down.
“Hush now, Hetty. You’re causing yourself needless pain. If you will but listen to me, you will realize that the world is not quite as you left it.”
“What do you mean? Oh God,
