“Gen,” she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Right now, sleep. Tomorrow you can begin to think on things. But rest now, and I’ll be right beside you.”
She wanted to thank her, but the medicine the doctor had given her was beginning to work on her senses. She ached, her body weary to the bone. Genevieve stroked the back of her hand, a small, soothing motion, a cool touch of her fingers. Slowly, blessed unconsciousness claimed her.
* * *
Stretching his back as he peered up at the sky, Andrew checked on the progress of the sun. With luck, he still had perhaps four hours of good light in the day. He’d be writing books about this discovery for years, but that could be done from his library at Briarwood. First, however, they had to complete the painstaking work of removing and documenting every object at the site. He loved the work, but his only objective now was to complete it as quickly as possible so he could get back home to Victoria.
The tone of her letters had changed in the last two weeks. She was still her chatty self, but the tentative intimacy of her earlier letters was missing. Things had been so fragile when he left. And now he’d left her again, the very thing he’d promised not to do.
Maybe he’d write and ask her to join him here. The girls were gone back to Scotland now and the harvest season at Briarwood would soon be finished. She was no longer needed to oversee every small detail of running the estate. She could take some time for a holiday away.
The idea began to take shape and it was undeniably appealing. She would love it here. He could show her everything about the tomb he couldn’t describe in letters, and Victoria, with her avid curiosity, would no doubt find it fascinating. Bringing her to Italy would prove to her that he meant to stay by her side, no matter what. His mind was made up. He’d write tonight, asking her—no, begging her—to come to Italy.
When he turned back to the tomb entrance, his heart was lighter. She’d be here, perhaps in a few short weeks.
“Signore Waring!”
He looked up to see Marco, the boy from the village who earned a few lire running errands between the dig and the town, racing up the path through the scrub brush, his bare feet sending up tiny clouds of dust behind him.
“Signore Waring!” he called again, waving a piece of paper over his head. A telegram. As much as they’d tried to keep word of their find from leaking out prematurely, the news had spread nonetheless. It wasn’t a find to rival the great Egyptian burials, but it still sent shock waves of excitement through their small corner of the archaeological world. He and Randolph now received several telegrams a day. Some were research inquiries from fellow archaeologists and academics, some from museums interested in acquiring artifacts, others were from newspapers and periodicals.
Fishing some change out of his pocket, he pressed a coin into Marco’s palm and took the telegram.
“Grazie, Signore!” Marco waved cheerfully over his shoulder as he picked his way back down the hillside. “Dig deep today!”
He smiled at the boy’s retreating form before ripping open the envelope and unfolding the thin paper inside. The words nearly brought him to his knees.
Briarwood Manor
September 12, 1896
The Duchess of Waring has taken ill with a fever. Today begins the second day, and there is no sign of improvement. The situation is somewhat grave. She is well looked after if your work prevents you from coming.
Genevieve, Lady Grantham
The telegram was crumpled in his fist, forgotten, as he spun on his heel and raced for the tent.
“Randolph!” he shouted as he ran. “I’m leaving at once!”
* * *
The hired black carriage hadn’t even rolled to a full stop in front of Briarwood Manor before Andrew leaped down. Racing up the wide, stone steps, he flung open the front door. The footman on duty had been hurrying to get the door, but he stumbled to a stop in the entry hall when he spotted the duke, haggard and frantic.
“Victoria,” he barked as soon as he spied the footman. “Her Grace. Where is she? How is she?”
“She’s still ill, Your Grace,” Lady Grantham said from the top of the stairs. “The situation is unchanged.”
He took the stairs two at a time. “I’ve been traveling for more than a day to get here. Are you saying the fever hasn’t abated in all this time?”
“She woke briefly last evening and seemed a little better, but overnight her fever rose again.”
“Have you called the doctor?”
“Of course. He’s been here twice a day. Everything that can be done is being done.”
“I’ll move the man in, for God’s sake. Let me see her.”
Lady Grantham moved to the side as he pushed past her and ran down the hall to Victoria’s room. The curtains were drawn, making the room dark and shadowy. A well-banked fire crackled in the hearth, even though it was still warm outside. Victoria’s pale face was nearly lost against the white linens. Her hair was in a loose braid trailing across the pillow. Climbing up on the bed, he took her hand in one of his and cupped her cheek with the other, wincing when he felt her, like coals burned under her skin. Her breath came in shallow little pants, through lips leached of color. Her eyes were closed but her lashes fluttered against her cheeks, hinting her sleep was not peaceful.
“Victoria, I’m here. Can you hear me?”
Her rasped breaths came together to form a small, slight moan, barely audible, but it was enough to give him hope. Perhaps she could sense his presence, even in this state.
“Come back to me, darling.” A surge of emotion reached up and wrapped tight around his throat. Blinking against the burning in his eyes, he forced out the words. “There’s so much I need to tell you still. Come back to me. You have to come back.”
There was no response. His long, lonely life stretched out before him, possibly without her at his side. It was unendurable. Despite a year and a half of marriage, they’d only just found each other, and if he lost her now...
He brought her hand to his lips and pressed kisses to her hot, dry skin.
“Fight for me, Victoria. Please, love. Fight.”
There was a light scratch on the door before Molly poked her head inside.
“I’ve come with cold compresses for her, Your Grace. To help cool her down.”
Waving her in, he rose wearily from the bed. “I’ll step out. I need to speak with Lady Grantham.”
Molly moved to the bed and set down her tray before beginning to fold the blankets back.
“Molly, please—”
She looked up at him.
“Please take good care of her.”
“I’d lay down my life for her, Your Grace,” Molly said in her calm, matter-of-fact voice. “I’ll not leave her side until this crisis passes.”
With one last lingering glance at Victoria’s still form, he left to find Lady Grantham.
She was waiting in the hall when he left Victoria’s room. Leaning back on the wall, he let his eyes fall closed for a moment. He’d been awake for two days, traveling without rest for more than half that time. Weariness and fear threatened to bring him to his knees, but he couldn’t allow it. He had to stay strong for Victoria, this one time when she was weak.
“Tell me everything.”
“She fell ill three days ago. About a day after she lost the baby.”
Shock shot down his spine. His eyes snapped open and he pushed off the wall, suddenly horribly awake and alert.
“Baby? She was with child? Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She wasn’t sure herself until it was too late. She had hoped, but she wasn’t certain.”
A baby. She’d wanted a baby so badly. It was all she wanted from her marriage, she’d told him once. Her heart must be breaking. And she�
��d said nothing to him. He shoved his fingers into his hair and fisted them in frustration. “What has been going on here? I could tell something was wrong in her letters, but she said nothing. Now I find that she’s... Good God, she’s lost our child and she’s near death with a fever. What has happened in my absence?”
“This is a conversation you should have with her, Your Grace. It’s not my place.”
“Tell me! Because she can’t! I’m begging you, tell me.”
Lady Grantham drew her bottom lip between her teeth momentarily. “I can only tell you this. A few weeks ago she happened to hear some talk about your life in Italy that upset her a great deal.”
Andrew scowled, trying to puzzle out what she meant. “I tell her everything about my work in Italy. What could she have possibly heard that would have upset her?”
Lady Grantham glanced away and took a deep breath before looking back to him. Her pale green eyes were hard and her expression cool, slightly disdainful. “It wasn’t about your work. What she discovered was of a more personal nature.”
“A more personal...” Dread washed over him. He shook his head rapidly. “No. No, she’s wrong. Whatever she heard, it’s not true.”
“You’re not living with a woman in Italy as if she were your wife?”
The words fell like a blow. If Victoria had heard that... Good God, she must hate him. “I was. Before our wedding, before I ever met Victoria. But it’s been over for some time. Since before I came home for the summer. There’s only Victoria now. She has to know that.”
Lady Grantham’s steely gaze nearly skewered him to the wall. “I’m not sure she does.”
“Then I’ll prove it to her. I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to her.”
Lady Grantham said nothing, only continued to observe him as if she hadn’t quite made up her mind to trust him. And if she felt that way, heaven only knew what Victoria was thinking and feeling. Her faith in him was already so tenuous. It might not survive this blow, no matter what the truth was. She had to live. She had to. He needed a chance to make things right.
“I pray you have the opportunity, Your Grace,” she said, sounding as if she was only hoping for Victoria’s recovery rather than his success.
She didn’t know it, but she’d given voice to his darkest fear. He might lose his wife, and she’d die never knowing he couldn’t live without her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
For a long time Victoria lay still, uncertain if she was asleep or awake, suspended in between, as if she were surfacing very slowly from the bottom of the ocean. Everything ached, from the soles of her feet to the roots of her sweat-soaked hair. Such discomfort could only mean she was awake, so she opened her eyes, which proved to be more difficult than she could imagine.
The room was nearly dark, lit only by the dying embers of the fire and an oil lamp by the bed. Molly slept slumped in a chair by her bedside. Why on earth would Molly be sleeping by her bed?
Slowly things began to piece themselves together in her mind. There had been pain and all the blood. She’d lost the baby she hadn’t even been certain she was carrying. A great surge of grief welled up at the memory. And then Genevieve had come. She’d been so unspeakably tired and sad, and the doctor had examined her, worried about the fever she’d developed. Ah, yes, she’d been ill. The fever explained her damp hair. It must have finally broken.
How much time had passed? After the doctor, everything was so fuzzy. Perhaps some words exchanged with Genevieve, but she couldn’t be certain. Letting her eyes close again, she pressed back into her mind for details. Someone holding her hand. A voice telling her to fight. She mustn’t give up. Her eyes snapped open again. He was here. Andrew was in this house. She could feel his presence all along her skin as if he’d touched her.
Like the baby she’d lost, she winced away from the idea of him. But she couldn’t rest knowing he was near. There was no undoing the wrong done to him, but she had to apologize. She had to try to make things right. Slowly she sat up, reaching out for the bedpost, clinging to it as she waited for the room to stop spinning. Molly slept soundly. How long had she kept up this nighttime vigil?
When she could move her limbs without crumpling into a heap, she slid carefully off the bed. Standing up seemed to have sapped what little energy she possessed, and she still had to find Andrew in the vast expanse of Briarwood. But she must do it. She had to correct all the wrong done in her name. Of course, undoing the wrong might soothe her conscience, but it would most certainly break her heart.
* * *
The fire in the library hearth crackled and popped merrily, taking no note of Andrew’s chilly stare. The house was silent. Molly was sitting with Victoria as she had each night. He’d wanted to claim her place, but Molly convinced him she was better prepared to tend to Victoria’s physical well-being and he had to concede. The doctor, whom he’d summoned to the house shortly after he’d arrived, assured him there was nothing to be done except wait and pray her fever broke.
Refusing food, a bath or a change of clothes, he’d done nothing but sit before the fire and think. If one could call the litany of recrimination, self-abuse and anger filling his head praying, then he was indeed praying. He spoke to God in his mind at length as the night went on. He pleaded, he bargained, and in the end, he begged. Just let her live, just let her live.
The door to the library clicked open behind him. It must be yet another well-meaning footman coming to push food on him. He spun in his chair, prepared to shout the man right back out of the room, but there was no footman. Instead, Victoria was standing in the doorway, looking more like a ghost than a flesh-and-blood woman. For a dreadful moment, he feared she was a ghost. Perhaps she’d passed away upstairs and this was her spirit, come to curse him from the grave.
She spoke in a rasp too raw to belong to any spirit.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
She was hallucinating or walking in her sleep. It was clear she had no business being up yet. He surged to his feet, striding toward her, intending to snatch her up and carry her straight back to bed.
She held up a trembling hand to stop him and he paused.
“What didn’t you know, darling?” he asked, placating her so he could coax her into his arms.
“Any of it. I didn’t know what my father did. The railway or the card game. They told me you needed my money and I believed them.”
Oh, that. In the face of all the more pressing concerns, that business felt insignificant and very far away, just some terrible things that had happened to someone else in the distant past.
“None of it matters anymore, Victoria. Come back to bed. You’re still very unwell.”
He made to advance toward her again, but she shook her head with more force than it seemed she could possess. “No! It matters to me. I can’t live with it. You shouldn’t have to either. It’s not fair, not to you or her.”
Hearing her refer to Luciana even in that general way made him sick. “Victoria, listen to me. I don’t know what you’ve heard or from whom, but please—”
“I’ve finally heard the truth, that’s all. And I mean to make things right.”
“You have made them right, simply by being here. Just by being you.”
Her breath hitched and she swayed on her feet before reaching out to grip the door frame for support. Her hair had come partially loose, swirling around her ghostly pale face. “I’ve done my duty by restoring your fortune and the estate, and that won’t be undone. You’ll keep the money, I’m sure. Louisa and Emma will be well.”
She was babbling nonsense, out of her head from the fever. Easing closer, he held up his hands in supplication. “Everyone will be well. Come back to bed and rest, darling, so you can be well, too.”
She nodded slowly, as if coming to some sort of understanding with herself. “Yes, I will be w
ell one day. I deserve it, don’t you think? I never thought I could hope for happiness, but everyone deserves a chance to be happy, don’t they?”
“We’ll all be happy, Victoria, I promise you.”
“I know you will when it’s all done.”
“When what’s all done, darling?”
“The divorce,” she said matter-of-factly. She blinked and refocused. “It will be difficult, but I’ll go back to America, so you can get on with your life. You see, I can still fix it. And maybe one day I can find my own happiness.”
Her words had knocked the breath clean out of him. She wasn’t insensible, only considering the unthinkable. She wanted to leave him, leave the whole bloody country. He couldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t. Whatever wrong she thought she was righting was now ancient history. What she was proposing would be the worst wrong imaginable.
“Please, Victoria, don’t even think such a thing,” he rasped, edging closer to her.
“I can’t think about anything else. I can’t live the rest of my life under this cloud of lies and deceit.”
“You won’t, I swear it. The lies are all in the past. You get well and we’ll sort it all out, I promise you.”
Finally, she looked straight into his eyes and seemed to truly see him there. Her expression turned sorrowful and her bottom lip trembled. “I’ll make it right, Andrew.”
He opened his mouth to tell her she already had, that she was the beginning and end of every right thing in his world, but then her lashes fluttered, her eyes rolled back and she fainted dead away. He was close enough to lunge forward and catch her before she fell too hard. Even in his exhausted state, it was no effort to lift her into his arms. She was just skin and bones.
Climbing the stairs to her room, he replayed her words over and over in his mind. She wanted to undo the deceit that had brought them together. She wanted to set him free to pursue what she believed was some other life he’d given up for her. Of course, she didn’t know the only life he wanted, the only one he could ever envision for himself now, was here at her side. She said she wanted her own chance at happiness, at a future that was something more than duty. Well, he’d give her that if she’d let him. As soon as she was well, he’d set about giving her the fairy tale she never thought was her due. If it was the last thing he ever did, he’d prove to her there was no happy ending possible that didn’t feature the two of them together.
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