“Perhaps,” she said. And she turned to tuck the blankets around the boy while the surgeon bandaged his arm again. He looked up at her with wide, panicked eyes. She smiled and even winked at him.
The surgeon shook his head when he looked at Lord Eden. He removed the bandage gently enough and peered closely at the wound.
“Abscess forming,” he said, and shook his head again. “Well, we can’t amputate this one, can we, ma’am? So we have no cause to quarrel.” He laughed heartily at his own joke. “Nasty fever. I’ll have to bleed him.”
“Has he not lost enough blood?” she asked.
“Apparently not,” he said. “Or he wouldn’t have such a raging fever. Here, you can hold the bowl for me.”
Lord Eden did indeed seem more restful after the bleeding was finished. But it was a rest of extreme weakness, Ellen thought. She had no time to worry about it. She had performed her task so unflinchingly, it appeared, that the surgeon soon sent for her from the other part of the house to take the bowl from a trembling maid’s hands while he bled most of his patients there.
He would be back the next day if he could, he said as he left the house and hurried along to another. He would bleed those patients again and see how that arm was looking.
The boy was calling for her as she reached the doorway into her own rooms.
LORD EDEN CLUNG to life. Sometimes it would have been easier to let go. Sometimes he wanted to claw at the heat and the pain, to climb outside them, to run away, to be free. Something in his chest felt as if it were swelling and swelling until it must burst and fling him in a thousand directions. And sometimes he forgot who he was and where he was and why he was there.
Only one thing kept him pinned to life. Only one person. Sometimes when he came to himself she was not there. He would try to close his eyes, to lie quietly until she came. Sometimes he lost himself again while he waited. Sometimes she came hurrying, a look of concern on her face, and he knew that he must have called out. Sometimes he could not remember who she was.
In fact, most of the time he could not remember who she was. He could not put a name to her face. But it did not matter. He was safe when she was there. He was at peace. Sometimes when he came back to himself she was sitting beside the bed sewing or holding his hand. And always smiling. Not with merriment. But with gentle affection, as if he were someone very special.
Was he special? To her? Who was she? He could not remember. But it did not matter.
The ceiling did not move down toward him when she was there. The furniture did not move about.
“Everything will stay still now,” she assured him, her cool fingers smoothing through his hair. “I am here. I am going to stay with you for a time.”
He could close his eyes and perhaps sleep for a while. If only someone would lift the great weight from his chest. Was it too heavy for her to remove? She was only a slender woman. It was hard for him to breathe with that weight on him. He was going to suffocate.
“I will wash you off with a cool cloth above and below the bandage,” she said, folding back the blanket. “That will help lessen the weight. Does that feel better?”
And it always did. The weight was still there-it must be too heavy for her-but some of the heat had gone. He thought he might sleep.
Sometimes there was a lamp burning in the room. It must be nighttime. He listened. There was no sound at all except for a clock ticking somewhere. She was asleep in the chair beside his bed, her head fallen awkwardly to the side. She should be lying in a bed. She must be tired. He was thirsty. But he must say nothing. She would jump up and fetch him a drink. But she was sleeping. He lay and watched her. He was comforted by her presence. Was it a live coal that was on his chest?
Sometimes he knew who she was. She was Madeline. She was telling him that he would be proud of her if he could only see her all day long nursing the wounded.
“And I haven’t had a fit of the vapors even once, Dom,” she said. “Poor Lieutenant Penworth does not have the will to live, I think. But I will nurse him back to health despite himself. You have the will to live, Dom. I can see it. And you are going to win too. I know. Oh, I know, you horrid pestiliential man, you! How dare you put me through this! I hate you.”
He felt a grin, but there was too much effort involved in transferring it to his face.
Nursing what wounded?
Sometimes she wasn’t Madeline. And he didn’t always want her to be. She was more peaceful than Madeline. She never cried, as his sister had cried when raging against him. She soothed him. She fed him cold water and…What? Toast? And she came with the cooling cloths and the comforting words and the gentle hands. Even when she hurt his chest, he learned to grit his teeth and endure. For he always felt better afterward.
“I will be finished in a moment,” she would say quietly. “One minute more, and then you can rest again.”
And it was always true. He could trust her word. And everything stayed still around him when she was there.
“Put out the fire.”
“I will open the door wider,” she would say, “and bathe your forehead. You will feel cooler.”
“Take off some blankets.”
“I will fold it back to your waist,” she would say. “Is that better, my dear?”
“Can’t you find someone to lift this weight off me?”
“I will bathe your shoulders and your arms with cool water,” she would say. “Perhaps that will help.”
“You are tired. Do you never sleep? Do I keep you up? Is it nighttime? You should go to bed.”
“I shall sit beside you here and rest,” she would say. “The chair is very comfortable. Don’t worry about me, my dear. Try to sleep.”
He was on fire. It must be a red-hot coal. But he would not say anything to her. She was doing too much. Always busy. Always cheerful. Always smiling.
Who was she? He could not remember.
He clung to life for her. She made life bearable despite all. Despite the heat and the weight and the feeling that his chest must explode.
And sometimes there was Madeline.
But always there was her.
The surgeon bled him four times in ten days despite Ellen’s tight-lipped disapproval. The fever raged and he weakened. He was almost constantly delirious. All he had eaten was toast dipped in weak tea.
After two weeks the abscess burst and the matter within it flowed. Ellen was with him at the time. She called to one of the servants in the house and sent him running for the surgeon-if only the man could be found. And she bit hard on her lower lip as she cleaned the wound. He was moaning with each breath.
It had happened at last. His chest had exploded, and the pain knifed and knifed at him, robbing him of breath and of all power to think or even to see.
But the weight was lifting too. She was bending over him, and she was taking the weight away. And she must have put out the fire and taken off all the smothering blankets. He felt light and cool, pinned in place only by the searing pain.
“Mrs. Simpson?” he said.
She lifted her head sharply from what she was doing and looked into his face. “You know me?” she said. She put a cool hand against his brow. “The fever has broken. It has gone with the abscess.”
“I was wounded,” he said. “How did I get here?”
“You rode here,” she said. “With some help.”
“How long ago?” Where had he been? The last thing he could remember was trudging along a muddy road with his men. There had been jokes about Hyde Park soldiers.
“You have been here for two weeks,” she said.
Two weeks? The pain was like a knife. But such a lightness. He could breathe despite the pain.
“There was a weight,” he said, “on my chest.”
“It has gone,” she said. “You will feel better now.”
“Am I going to die?” he asked. He could not keep his eyes open. He was falling into deep soft darkness. He did not hear her reply, but her hand on his brow again was part of the softness. It was not a darkness to be
