He wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, so he started to laugh. “You are too much of a lady to do such a thing,” he said. “It could not be.”
She cocked a devilish eyebrow. “You think so, do you?” she said. “Well, you can just keep thinking that. But I know one thing for certain.”
“What is that?”
“It was worth every moment.”
A smile spread across his face.
He happened to think so, too.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
He had afever.
Jareth knew that from the moment he awoke. Since their return from Portbury yesterday, he’d slept the rest of the day and all night, only to awaken because his eyeballs felt hot. He knew that was a sure sign of a fever.
His heart sank.
Sometimes it took time for poison to develop after a wound. He’d had enough of them to know. When he fought for King Henry against Simon de Montfort, he’d received a sword slice to his foot, of all places, and the poison didn’t develop for four or five days. It had been mild, thankfully, and the physic had worked hard to ensure he didn’t lose his foot. He didn’t, and it had healed perfectly, but now he was dealing with a wound to his body that might not be so easy to clean out. He didn’t look forward to the moment when, and if, a physic had to clean the poison out of the wound. That could be incredibly painful.
Perhaps he wasn’t healing as well as he’d hoped.
It was early morning. He could tell from the angle of the sun. Never being one to lie around in bed, not even when he was sick or injured, Jareth struggled to sit up. It was difficult because of the pain in his shoulder and back, and also the fact that his leftarm and shoulder were still bound. He managed to make it into a sitting position, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He was just about to attempt to stand up when the door opened and Desdra appeared.
“Absolutelynot,” she said, immediately setting down the tray in her hand. Quickly, she made her way to the bed. “You will lie back down this instant. How dare you try to cavort while I am not here.”
He smiled weakly. “I can hardly call this cavorting,” he said. “But I must attend to some business.”
“What business?”
He gave her a wry expression. “Do you need to know every single detail about my affairs?”
“When it involves you getting out of bed, I do.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you asked to court me, and that means I have a say in such matters.”
His eyes widened for a moment before he broke down into soft laughter. “God’s Bones, is that what courting means?” he said. “I had no idea.”
“It’s true.”
He sighed sharply. “Then if you must know, I feel the need to relieve myself,” he said. “Unless you want to hold my hand whilst I accomplish this, I can do it on my own.”
She wasn’t shocked in the least by his rather personal need. “Then I shall escort you to the garderobe,” she said. “I shall wait for you to finish and escort you back to bed.”
He snorted at her determination. He could see that she wasn’t going to be talked out of it. “Very well,” he said. “If you must.”
“I must.”
“You’re rather demanding, aren’t you?”
Her reply was to reach down and take him by his good arm, pulling him off the bed as he tried to stand. He was a little woozy, but not too terribly. She gripped his arm with both hands, holding him tightly, as they began to slowly make their way from the chamber. The corridor outside was lit by both tapers, having burned low over the night, and streams of sunlight coming through.
“It’s misty this morning,” he said, having spied the fog through a window. “Is it always like that this time of year?”
Desdra nodded. “Mostly,” she said. “It rolls in from the sea. Sometimes it lingers for weeks at a time.”
