Before Maxim could answer, the door opened and the doctor emerged, looking wearied, blood on the cuffs of his shirt sleeves.
Tansy’s blood.
“How is she?” he rasped.
“She is alive, Your Majesty,” the doctor said grimly. “The next few hours and days will determine her fate.”
CHAPTER 18
Tansy woke to a strange, burning pain in her left arm.
As lucidity returned to her, she became aware of her surroundings.
She was in Maxim’s apartments. In his bed. Confusion swirled through her, along with recollections. She’d been at the docks, preparing to leave, and Maxim had come to her. Then there had been the gunshot. She’d been hit and had lost her balance, falling into the frigid water. And Maxim had been there, jumping into the water. Saving her.
He was here now as well, she realized, slumped in a chair beside the bed, his long legs stretched before him. Dark hair fell over his brow, his lashes fanned on his cheeks. He was asleep, and for a moment, she studied him, drinking in the sight of his masculine beauty in repose, love for him beating fiercely within her heart.
But then she shifted, and a twinge of pain had her gasping.
He jolted awake with a start, the intensity of his stare colliding with hers. “Tansy? You’re awake?”
She licked her dry lips, feeling terribly parched. “I seem to be.”
Her attempt at a joke failed.
Maxim leaned forward in his chair, reaching for her hand and taking it in a warm grasp. “Thank God. How do you feel? Are you thirsty?”
Before she could answer, he was on his feet, fetching her water from a gilded pitcher and returning to her side, his face etched in worry. “Here, my love. Take a drink.”
She reached for the cup, their fingers brushing, but she was terribly weak, her hand trembling, her arm not cooperating with her body’s needs and her mind’s intentions. Water splashed on the coverlets over the rim.
His fingers chased hers. “Let me.”
She did, taking a tentative sip from the cup, allowing him to tend to her as her uninjured arm fell back against the downy softness of the bed. Then another.
“Slowly,” he cautioned sternly, pulling the cup away. “You’ve been ill for days.”
“How many?” she managed.
“Three,” he said, watching her closely, his expression guarded.
Three days. Sweet Deus.
She moved again, trying to find a more comfortable position, and winced at the pain in her arm. “What happened?”
“Are you in very much pain, darling?” he asked instead of answering her question.
He was frowning, hovering over her.
“It’s bearable,” she reassured him. “More water, please?”
Her throat seemed endlessly parched. She felt as if she could drink an entire ocean of water and still not be satisfied.
“Another sip,” he allowed, holding the cup to her lips for her. “You were shot. Fortunately, the bullet passed through flesh and not bone. However, an infection set in. I’ve been praying it would pass.”
Dark circles marred the skin beneath his eyes.
“Have you been tending to me all this time?”
