“No! No, not despised.” Merely desired—and badly enough, it scared him a little. “I’m sorry, Aurelia.”
“I had so many things I had ready to say to you.” Her eyes closed, and her head moved back and forth on the pillow. “But I can remember none of them.”
“Enough now. Sleep. You can yell at me for however long you want in the morning.”
She let out a sigh that seemed to come from her core. “Yes. Tomorrow. I will tell you everything tomorrow.”
Sebastian watched over her as sleep finally took her again.
The physician didn’t arrive for another few hours, during which Aurelia’s condition merely worsened. Sebastian felt the coil of panic unfurl, but he refused to give in to it, merely bathing her forehead and holding her hand.
The next few times she woke, she didn’t appear to recognize him, delirium having truly settled in. She had conversations with shadows on the ceiling, and at one point, appeared to think he was the Duchess of Fenwick.
The physician arrived half an hour later and encouraged the fire to be built up and prescribed a small tonic. “Citrus, too, is good, if you can source any.”
Sebastian nodded to a maid by the door. “See to it. Send for London if Cook has none in the kitchen. Price is no object.”
She bobbed a curtsy. “Yes, Your Grace.”
The physician held up the bottle of tincture. “Give this to her every three hours or so. A spoonful at a time until her fever calms. If it has not eased by tomorrow evening, send for me again.”
“Of course.”
“Avoid wine at all costs, too.”
Sebastian nodded. He had originally thought to put the orange peel in some wine, but now he changed his mind. Whatever would be best for her.
“The fever will get worse before it gets better,” he warned. “It seems she has been overworked for some time. Perhaps stress has been contributing. Ensure she has nothing to distress her when she wakes.”
Sebastian grimly wondered ifhemight be classified as something that would distress her when she woke. But he refused to give the thought any mind. There was no chance of him remaining elsewhere and leaving her care to another.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Aurelia woke with an aching head and a dry throat. Her entire body felt as though she had been through a mangle, and when she opened her eyes, she did so with a groan. The world came into focus slowly, and she blinked a few times, waiting for the lines to settle. As they did, she became aware of a sound beside her.
Breathing. Heavy breathing—the kind that came from a man rather than a woman. The deep rise and fall of a large chest.
Frowning, she twisted her head to find Sebastian seated on the wooden chair by her bedside. His head had fallen forward, and she expected he would get a crick in his neck if he were not careful. The heavy breathing was coming from him.
Asleep, beside her bed.
Memories came to her in drips and drabs. So much of it she had thought she’d dreamed, but perhaps it had been the truth. Orsome of it, at least. Because in all her dreams, hot and restless, there had been Sebastian.
Sebastian, with patient eyes. With gentle hands and soft words.
A different man from the one she had come to know.
She shivered, though for once, not from the feeling of cold. If anything, she was toohotin the stifling room. There were beads of sweat on Sebastian’s brow, and he had tugged his cravat free. In fact, now she looked, she saw he wore only a shirt, open slightly at the collar to reveal a tantalizing triangle of pale skin.
She closed her eyes tightly, squeezing them shut. There was a reason—distant now, partially lost behind the confusion and pain of the past few hours—that she was angry at him.Furious, even. Her last solid memory—the last certainty she had—was that she was going to dinner to give him a piece of her mind.
I’m having dinner here with you instead.
Had he truly interrupted his own dinner so he might come here and eat with her?
Before she could wonder any more, Sebastian stirred, as though awoken by her attention on him, and his gaze snapped to her. Upon seeing her awake, his eyes immediately widened, and he rested his palm against her forehead. The movement seemed so practiced; he had to have done it before now.
“Your fever has broken,” he said, his voice thick with fatigue. And yes, there, underneath it all,relief. “Finally, your fever has broken…”
