know if he. .” She drew in a breath. “I don’t know how much he’ll remember.”
“Hmm. In that case, I would strongly suggest you make your position on that subject absolutely crystal clear the instant he wakes and is in any condition to take it in.” Catriona held her gaze. “That’s important, Heather. I don’t normally tell people such things — we’re not supposed to influence — but you and he are supposed to be together. But in order to reap the harvest that is waiting for you ahead, you must believe. To your heart and soul, you must believe in your ideal for it to happen. You have to let that belief guide you in everything — your actions, your speech, your very thoughts.”
Catriona paused, then went on, her gaze steady on Heather’s eyes, “I don’t know why that’s so vital, only that it is. For what’s between you and he to be all that it could be, you must believe, so that he can believe, too.”
Heather drank in the words, felt their truth resonate. Logic and reason, she’d learned, didn’t always apply where love was concerned; perhaps faith — faith in love — was the only true touchstone.
Risky, perhaps, to have blind faith in an emotion, but she no longer had anything to lose. She nodded. “Yes. I will.”
To her surprise, her reply seemed to ease Catriona, who visibly relaxed, almost ruefully smiled.
“Good.” Rising, Catriona drew her shawl around her, then looked down at Breckenridge. “I don’t expect you to have any trouble with him tonight. Sleep. He’s not going to leave you.” With that, she turned and walked to the door.
Heather watched her go, watched the door shut. Replayed their conversation, then, feeling more settled, crawled onto the bed by Breckenridge’s side, laid her head down, and closed her eyes.
The days and nights had merged; she’d lost track of time.
The following afternoon, Heather allowed herself to be bullied into taking a relaxing bath. Into washing her hair, donning fresh clothes, refashioning her chignon. Eating a proper meal.
Feeling significantly refreshed, she returned to Breckenridge’s bedside to relieve Algaria. Although the fever had abated and he seemed less wracked, he’d yet to awaken, but Catriona and Algaria expected he soon would.
She’d just settled on the straight-backed chair when she, and Algaria, at the door, heard the clatter of hooves and the rattle of wheels in the forecourt.
Algaria met her eyes. “Someone’s come running.”
Five minutes later, an elegantly slender lady, head crowned with a corona of fine, shimmery brown hair, swept into the room.
Heather smiled. “Caro.” She got to her feet.
Caroline Anstruther-Wetherby came straight to the bed. Her gaze fixing on the still figure lying upon it, she circled to reach Heather, then switched her silver-blue gaze to her and wrapped her in a scented embrace. “My dear! We heard and came straightaway.” Releasing Heather, Caro looked again at Breckenridge. “How is he?”
Heather paused, then said, “A lot better than he was.”
Caro leaned down and took the limp hand Heather had been holding. She chafed it lightly, as if by touch she could tell Breckenridge that she was there, then laid it down and turned to Heather. “Tell me all.”
“Tell us all.”
Both Heather and Caro turned to see Michael Anstruther-Wetherby crossing the room toward them. It was through her marriage to Michael that Caro was connected to the Cynsters, Michael’s sister, Honoria, being the Duchess of St. Ives, wife of Devil Cynster, the head of the Cynster clan, Richard’s older brother and Heather’s oldest cousin.
Michael, a tall, dark-haired, extremely well-connected gentleman deeply involved with politics, drew Heather in for a warm hug. He patted her shoulder as he released her. “I come charged to stand in place of your brothers and your father, let alone Devil and all the rest. As Caro was determined to come flying up here, and Breckenridge was apparently so low, we thought it better if the others contained their impatience and remained in London until we better understood the situation here.”
Heather fleetingly closed her eyes in relief. “Thank you.” The words were heartfelt. Dealing with her brothers’ protectiveness just now would have required effort and tact she did not have to spare. Opening her eyes, she smiled at Michael; he was indeed a politician to his toes. “I’m truly grateful.”
He smiled back. “I thought you would be. But the counterside to that is that you must tell us all. From the start.”
“Yes, all right.” After one glance at Breckenridge confirmed he was still “asleep,” she gestured to the sofa and chairs on the other side of the room.
Once they’d settled comfortably, she did as requested, started at the beginning — Lady Herford’s house — and told them all.
She left nothing out but related their journey step by stage. Neither Michael nor Caro were slow-witted; they followed the puzzling, perplexing tale of her kidnap, her reasons for remaining and trying to learn more, and the difficulties she and Breckenridge had encountered in achieving her eventual escape, with commendable ease.
When she reached the point where they’d walked into the Vale and gained refuge at the manor, she paused, then raised her head and went on, “Breckenridge and I have been discussing our future, but I would prefer not to say anything more on that score until he wakes.”
Caro and Michael exchanged a glance, one Heather couldn’t read, then Caro nodded. “Quite right. But how did he get injured? Gored, Richard said?”
That was easier to answer. However, in doing so, in reliving the moments that had led to Breckenridge’s wounding, Heather was struck — as she had been at the time, but had forgotten in the subsequent rush of events — by the oddity in the way the twins’ hands had pushed at hers, rather than grabbed. What had the pair been about?
“So how has he been since then?” Caro asked.
Shaking free of the memory, she described the initial chill. “Catriona said it was deep shock. Then came the fever.”
Glancing at the bed, Michael frowned. “He hasn’t regained consciousness yet?”
Heather looked across the room, too. “Catriona says he’s not unconscious, just in a very deep, healing sleep. The fever’s come down, but it hasn’t yet broken. She and Algaria think it soon will, and he’ll wake after that.”
“At least he was here when it happened, with expert hands close by.” Caro rose. “If you like, I’ll sit with you for a while. I’ve messages from your sisters and mother. We can chat while we watch over him.”
“Yes, of course.” Heather rose.
Michael rose, too. His and Caro’s eyes met, and he smiled, first at Caro, then at Heather. “As I’m clearly not needed here, I’ll go and find Richard.”
With a salute, he headed for the door, leaving Heather to lead Caro back to the bed.
Back to her vigil by Breckenridge’s side.
Later that night, Heather settled on the chair by Breckenridge’s bed. Looking down at his face, features still unanimated, rather severe in repose, she thought of her hopes, of her lingering fears. Thought of all she’d seen, through the evening, of others’ unions, others’ shared lives.
Because she hadn’t wanted to leave him unwatched, the others — Caro, Michael, Catriona, and Richard — had taken their evening meal there, in the sitting area on the other side of the room. There’d been lots of conversation, even some laughter; she’d hoped the sound might draw Breckenridge free of whatever held him to sleep, but he hadn’t stirred.
His condition hadn’t changed, but hers had clarified.
Growing up within her family, with marriages firmly based on love all around, she’d thought she’d known how such unions worked. Now, however, presumably because her desire to establish such a union, a working, sharing, caring partnership with him, had made her more aware, she’d seen more deeply, had been much more sensitive to the currents flowing between Michael and Caro, and between Richard and Catriona. The constant, effortless, most often unvoiced and unremarked flow of sharing, of giving and receiving.
She’d seen that usually the giving came first.
And it was offered without stipulation, without any assumption that the act would be reciprocated, even though, between couples who shared, it inevitably was.
She now understood that love, the giving of it, was paramount to everything else, that everything else was
