“That’s it. Relax. Lie still and rest. Everything is fine now,” the voice murmured. “Sleep, your grace, sleep.”
Your grace? Several layers of his disorientation abruptly lifted as the title seeped into his sopited brain. Ah, yes. Now he remembered. He was Michael Vane, duke of Sherrington. And the voice must be … who?
Again Michael tried to open his eyes, wanting to put a face to the voice. He knew that voice, almost as well as he knew his own. If he could just see the man’s face …
This time he managed to crack his eyes a slit and peer dazedly about him. He was in a bed … his bed? Mmmm. His. He recognized the blue and gold tentlike draping above his head. Yes. He was in his domed tester bed, the same one he always slept in when he was at… at… Windgate Abbey? Yes. He was at Windgate Abbey, lying in the bed that he’d claimed as his own when he was a child. If his memory served him correct, he’d chosen the bed because the draping had looked like something out of The Arabian Nights, at least to his young eyes, a book he’d been reading at the time and which had caught his imagination.
Imagination? His mind paused, oddly arrested by the word. There was something about it, something it seemed that he should remember—
“Your grace?” A broad, blunt-featured face with intelligent hazel eyes and a kind smile suddenly dipped into sight. “Ah, so you are awake.”
Michael frowned, his thoughts making a sharp shift as his mind labored to identify the face. It was, it was … “Eadon?” He more croaked than uttered the word for the dryness of his throat.
The man nodded. “At your service, your grace. How do you feel?”
“Like hell,” he rasped, weakly struggling to sit up. Exactly why he wished to sit up, he didn’t know. It just seemed to be something he should do.
“I cannot say that I am at all surprised. You had a particularly bad spell this time,” Eadon replied, bracing his brawny arm behind Michael’s neck and back to lift his head and shoulders, which he efficiently propped up on a pile of pillows.
Spell? Michael frowned again, recollection lurking at the edge of his mind as he watched the servant pick up a small brown bottle and pour several drops of greenish liquid into a glass of water. What did Eadon mean by a spell?
As Eadon held the glass to Michael’s lips, urging him to drink, his mind abruptly grasped the evasive memory and all that had happened came flooding back. The instant he remembered, he pulled his mouth from the rim of the glass, gasping his alarm. Dear God! He’d had a spell, and Emily had been in his arms when it had happened.
More heartsick and frightened than he’d ever been in his life, Michael darted a glance at the comfortable armchair beside his bed, which had been placed there for the specific purpose of accommodating Emily when she visited his sickbed. Ever since she’d come into his life, he could always count on finding her there whenever he was unwell, reading or doing needlework, or simply watching over him while he slept, patiently awaiting him to wake so that she could coax him into drinking one of her fortifying caudles.
His soul seemed to shrivel within him at the sight of that chair, all too aware of the meaning of its vacancy.
Her love for him hadn’t been strong enough after all. She had been disgusted by the sight of his seizure, and she could no longer bear to be near him. It was the only explanation for why she wasn’t there, and he knew her far too well to try to delude himself into thinking otherwise. If Emily still loved him, nothing on heaven or earth would keep her from his side when he was ill.
“Your grace?” The cool, smooth rim of the glass was back at his lips again.
Michael ignored it. For several agonized moments he continued to stare at the chair, his heart shattering in his chest and his world slowly crumbling around him. Then he ripped his gaze away, suddenly unable to bear the sight of it. He would have the damn thing burned. Hell, he would burn everything that reminded him of Emily—the furnishings in the breakfast room, the cushions they lounged upon in front the fire every evening—the whole bloody house, if necessary. Destroying all traces of her and their love was the only chance he had of surviving the crushing pain of losing her.
Though he didn’t particularly wish to hear confirmation of his fears, Michael knew that he would eventually have to ask after Emily and face the devastating news of her desertion. Better to do it now, while the pain was new and raw, for it would only hurt worse later, after the wound had had time to fester and deepen.
After several anguished beats, during which he fought back the stinging tears that now hazed his eyes, Michael forced himself to look at Eadon and query, “My wife?” His voice sounded flat, toneless, dead.
An odd look passed over the other man’s face. Regret? Pity? He couldn’t be certain. It vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a bland smile. “Out, your grace. Now drink. This will help you rest.” Again the glass rim nudged his lips.
Again Michael ignored it. “Out where?” he demanded, determined to hear the searing truth.
“I am sorry, your grace. She did not say and it is not my place to ask,” Eadon replied, his voice ringing with a note of finality. “Now drink. You need your rest. Her grace will no doubt be back by the time you awake.”
Liar! Michael wanted to scream, bleakly returning the other man’s gaze. It was a bloody lie, and they both knew it. Emily would not be back in a few hours’ time; she might never come back.
“Your grace, please,” Eadon murmured, again urging him to drink. “You will feel ever so much better after you have slept.”
Michael shot him a withering look. It would take a hell of a lot more than sleep to make him feel better. Still—
Wanting the world to go away, taking with it the pain and sorrow that it constantly laid at his door, Michael did as he was directed, obediently swallowing every last drop of what he knew to be a powerful sleeping draught. Better to be unconscious than awake and tormented by the knowledge that the woman he loved had left him, probably forever.
It was past nightfall when Michael again awoke. Though he had slept long and hard, his slumber had been troubled, haunted by dreams he could not remember, but which had left him weary and restless and profoundly disturbed. Lying curled up on his right side now, his body comfortably torpid beneath his bedcovers and his mind numb from the narcotic effects of the sleeping draught he vaguely recalled drinking, Michael glanced groggily around him, trying to fix the time and place.
The place was a large but cozy bedchamber decorated in rich, regal shades of blue, gold, and wine. The old-fashioned domed tester bed in which he lay was spacious and soft, luxuriously appointed with mounds of puffy pillows and layers of thick comforters, the latter of which were topped by a silken blue velvet coverlet. Across the room from the foot of the bed, occupying a full third of the gold, marble-painted plaster wall, was a splendid fireplace, its black granite face framed by elegantly gilt double pilasters and crowned by an imposing mirror-inlaid chimney piece. A low fire burned upon the gleaming brass grate within, reflecting off the highly polished andirons to cast halos of soft yellow light upon the sumptuous Savonnerie carpet that spanned a sizable expanse of the marquetry floor.
The place was his bedchamber, of course, and the time was … he drowsily transferred his gaze to the row of arched windows with their graceful trefoiled heads, yawning as he squinted through the diamond-shaped panes to see into the night beyond. The fog had completely risen and now clung to the outside of the glass, smudging the moon and stars into indistinct blurs of rippling silver.
He yawned again. Hmmm. Judging from the depth of the darkness, it was well past twilight … somewhere around nine o’clock, his sluggish brain guessed, though it could be much later. He often slept straight through the evening and into the wee hours of the morning after undergoing Eadon’s more grueling treatments, which he assumed he had suffered that day. What other explanation was there for the way he felt?
Though Mic
hael’s mind was still far too muddled to grasp the events of the day, he had experienced the soporific effects of Eadon’s sleeping draughts often enough to recognize them now. And since Eadon administered his draughts only on those occasions when Michael was particularly ill or suffering extreme discomfort from his treatments, well, that neatly explained everything. Everything except for—he glanced quickly at the chair beside the bed, frowning when he found it unoccupied—except for where Emily was.
No sooner had the thought entered his head than the cataclysmic events of the day came crashing through the daze of his draught-dulled mind, instantly dissolving the comfortable brain-numbing effects of the drug. He wasn’t in bed because of Eadon’s treatments; he was there because he’d had a fit. A bad one. In front of Emily … and her feelings for him hadn’t been strong enough to survive the revolting sight. Emily wasn’t by his side because she could no longer stomach being near him.
Desolation ripped through his heart as he forced himself to shoulder the devastating burden of that truth.
Emily, his love and his life, was gone. She’d left him. Never again would he see her radiant smile. Never again would he hear the lilting music of her laughter or be enlivened by her spirited conversation. He would never smell her scent again, so fresh and innocently provocative, nor would he feel the comforting warmth of her body as she melted into his embrace.
Michael closed his eyes, drowning in grief as a powerful wave of sorrow washed over him. As much as he would miss all of those splendid, miraculous things, what he would miss most was the simple joy of looking up and seeing Emily by his side, of knowing that she was there and that she cared about him.
He lay like that for several long moments, engulfed in wrenching misery. Then he slowly opened his eyes and gazed at the chair, which had become the symbol of his loss. He was alone again, unwanted, abandoned, and despised.
Despair sucked him in as he thought of the coming days, which now seemed to stretch before him like an endless chasm of loneliness and pain. Dear God! How was he to bear it? How could he possibly go on living without Emily when she had become his whole reason for being? As long as he’d had her in his life, there had been hope for the future. Truth be told, he’d begun to look forward to the future and had even begun to believe that they might someday have a normal life together, one that included him making her his wife in more than just name. With Emily by his side, anything was possible. He could do anything, be anything for her. But now—now—
He tore his tear-blurred gaze from the chair, unable to bear the sight of it and all it represented a moment longer. Emily was gone, taking with her the light, warmth, hope, and joy that had so briefly made his life worth living.
Wild with grief now and desperate to escape the bittersweet memories that the very sight of the room suddenly evoked within him, Michael emitted a feral growl and ripped back the covers. Ignoring the stabbing pain in his hip and the screaming protest of his aching muscles, he forced himself to stand, not even pausing to gain his equilibrium before he began staggering toward the door.
Shaky and dizzy from the draught, his strength sapped by his fit, he managed only four or five steps before collapsing to the floor. Too weak and wounded to rise again, too defeated to care, he curled into a tight ball where he lay and bitterly wept his devastation.
He hurt … dear God! … how he hurt. He felt torn and battered inside, as if someone had ripped out his heart and viciously twisted his guts, maiming him beyond salvation. Choking on the violence of his sobs, which tore from his chest with crippling brutality, he huddled yet tighter into himself, rocking in his agony.
This was the position he was in when he heard the door open a short while later. Not bothering to look up, certain that it was Eadon, who would no doubt bleed him within a drop of his life for working himself into such a state, Michael pressed his face yet harder against the tearstained carpet and ignored the presence on the threshold.
“Michael?” There was a soft gasp, then, “Dear heavens, love, whatever have you done to yourself?” followed by the swish of fabric and the sound of light footsteps racing across the room.
Emily? Was that truly Emily’s voice he heard? Michael lifted his head to look, his heart seeming to stop in his chest at the sight he beheld. It was his beloved Emily, and she had never looked more beautiful to him than she did at that moment, clad in a plain blue dressing gown with her unbound hair streaming wildly behind her as she practically flew toward him.
His throat too raw from the harshness of his weeping to speak, he mutely stretched out his trembling arms to her, desperate to touch her, to assure himself that she was really there. In the next instant she sank to the floor beside him, making the soothing noises he knew and loved as she gathered him into her arms.
There was no hesitation in her touch, no reluctance in her manner, nor was there the slightest trace of revulsion in her voice as she tenderly comforted and calmed him. There was nothing in her demeanor at all but love and a rather frantic urgency to ease his distress as she clasped his head to her breast, dropping kisses to his hair as she crooned to him softly under her breath.
Swept away by relief, he melted against her, clinging to her as he wept anew, his pain and doubts dissolving beneath his tears of joy. Emily was there and she still cared for him.
“Hush now, love,” she crooned, lightly stroking his heaving back. “Shhh. Everything is fine now.”
Indeed it was fine, better than fine, in fact, now that he was in his Emily’s arms. Determined never to leave them, Michael convulsively wrapped his own arms around her narrow waist, burying his tear-flooded face deeper into the softness of her full breasts.
She tightened her own embrace, snugging him closer. “My poor, poor darling. What has happened to make you take on so? Are you feeling worse?”
He shook his head, his face still nestled against her breasts, the soft cashmere that covered them now damp from his uncontrollable tears.
“Are you hurt then? Did you fall?”
Another head shake, followed by a sniffle.
There was a short pause, during which she smoothed back his hair to kiss his ear, then she murmured, “Perhaps I should get Mr. Eadon. He will know how best to help you.”
“No!” Michael raggedly ejected, lifting his head to meet her gaze with pleading eyes. “No, please. Do not leave me. Stay. I am fine now that you are here. I—I just wish to be held.”
She smiled gently, her eyes soft with tenderness as she dipped down and dropped a light kiss to his lips. “There is nothing I wish more than to hold you, my love. Indeed, I have ached to do so all day long.”
He sniffled again and smiled, pleased by her confession. “You have?”
“Yes, I have.” There went her ever-active head, nodding. In the next instant her smile faded and a troubled look settled over her face. “Oh, Michael, I cannot tell you how frightened I was, seeing you like that. I have never felt so helpless or useless in my entire life. I wanted so badly to help you, but I did not know how. It was awful.” Her voice seemed to unravel with every word and her eyes grew bright with unshed tears. “If anything were to happen to you. I—I—” She broke off, shaking her head, her expression nothing short of tragic.
It was his turn to comfort her. Smiling with all the affection he felt for her at that moment, he gently reassured her, “Nothing is going to happen to me, my sweet. It was a seizure, just a harmless seizure, and I am no worse for the wear for having had it.”
She eyed his dubiously. “Perhaps. It’s just that I hadn’t expected your spells to look so—so—” Her head sprang back into action, supplementing her failing words with emphatic shaking.
“So what?” he tautly prompted, bracing himself for what he fully expected to be a kindly phrased, yet still unintentionally hurtful expression of repugnance.
“So—so—” Two more head shakes, then she more choked out than uttered, “Painful. O
h, Michael! You looked as if you were in the most dreadful pain. It broke my heart that there was nothing I could do to help you.”
Of all the answers she might have uttered, none could have surprised him more. Though he’d heard the sight of his fits described a dozen different ways, usually in cruel and mortifying terms, no one before had ever bothered to care if they were painful. That Emily did, that she was able to look past what most certainly must have been a shocking sight to worry about what he felt, made Michael love her all the more.
Marveling anew that he had been blessed with the love of such an extraordinary woman, Michael smiled faintly and replied, “I can honestly say that I feel nothing when I have my spells. I am completely senseless during them, and usually for a goodly while afterwards. And except for the sting of my embarrassment, the only real pain I experience as a result of them is from the bumps and bruises I inevitably suffer when I fall.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Oh, and my muscles sometimes ache for a day or two afterwards. Eadon says that it is from the strain of their rigidity during my fit, but the discomfort is no worse than if I had spent the day engaged in a particularly rigorous sport.”
She seemed to consider his words, her gaze anxiously searching his face as if she suspected that he might be lying to spare her heart. When he smiled and nodded, giving further truth to his claim, she sighed, visibly relieved. “I cannot tell you how glad I am to hear that your spells are painless, though I must admit to being concerned about the damage you did to your hip. It was forming the most dreadful-looking knot when I examined it. You also appeared to be getting a rather nasty bruise on your thigh and one on your elbow as well.”
“You examined my hip?” He drew back a fraction, caught off guard by her words.
She looked away, blushing. “When I bathed you, yes.”
“I see,” he murmured, not certain whether to be embarrassed or pleased by the fact that she had attended him in such an intimate fashion.
Her cheeks were now his favorite shade of red, the one he had secretly christened “Emily scarlet,” for the fact that the delightful hue was unique to her blush. “I—I hope you do not mind me doing so. Eadon said that it would be quite proper for me to bathe you, me being your wife and all. And I must admit to wanting to examine you myself to make sure that you were truly unharmed.”
Bewitched Page 33
