His condition worsened.
At first, she barely noticed. He hadn’t seemed to see her when he looked at her the few times he was awake, although he had responded to her soothing. But as time went on, he stopped responding to the sound of her voice, and seemed to believe the world was alive with danger.
“It’s to be expected,” the doctor had said on one of his visits. “His condition will worsen before it improves.”
Ifit improves, Theo had thought, and the undercurrent of dread that had been alive inside her since Nathanial’s accident turned into fear.
Until, one morning five days after Nathanial’s fever had begun, Theo woke to silence. Her neck was sore from having slept on the uncomfortable chair by the bed—now she understood why Nathanial had taken such objection to the armchair in her room—and for a moment she merely tried to ease the crick with her fingers, digging right into the muscle.
Then, she noticed the quiet.
For so long, her days had been ruled by the wheezing, rasping breaths of an invalid. In some of her more desperate moments, she had counted them, determined they would not fail when she stood guard. Now, those breaths had quietened. Not gone, but quietened.
She was out of her chair before she knew she’d moved, her cramped muscles complaining, and pressed a hand to Nathanial’s head. It was warm, but not hot. A comparable temperature to her own.
The fever had broken.
At the feel of her hand, his eyes opened, finding hers, and for the first time in a long time, they were clear. “Theo,” he mumbled.
Theoshouldhave stayed calmly by his side and told him clearly and concisely what had happened. Instead, she burst into tears, shocking them both, and threw her arms around him. He made a tiny noise of pain as her body connected against his, but his arms came up around her.
“You fool,” she sobbed into his shoulder. “First you got shot, then you got a fever . . . Do you know how worried I’ve been?”
“I’m here,” he murmured, one hand stroking her hair. “Theo, my love, there’s no need to cry.”
She knew that, she did, but her relief was strong enough to provoke tears and, embarrassingly, shuddering sobs that racked both their bodies.
But through it all, though he was no doubt weak from lack of food and disoriented, Nathanial held her close, reassuring her with murmured endearments, every breath whispering another promise against her ear.
He would be well. He would survive.
With difficulty, she pulled away and stared at him through blurry eyes. He was thinner than she remembered, even though she had watched him slowly waste away. Then, he had been unconscious, in the grip of the fever. Somehow, it felt different now he was awake.
“Water,” she said, recalling herself. “You should have some water. And food. I’ll call for some broth to be brought up.”
“Theo.”
Her hand shook as she poured him a glass, just as he had done all those weeks ago when she had awoken from her illness. “Here, Nate. Drink this. You’ll feel better.”
“Theo—”
She pressed the glass to his lips and after a moment, he drank, allowing her to care for him as she had so many times before. But when he finished, he reached out and took her arm before she could reach the bell pull.
“How long have I been feverish?” he asked, his eyes searching her face.
“About five days.”
“And you have been nursing me all that time?”
“Lord Stapleton helped. He has been very helpful.” She pulled her wrist away and hurried to the bell pull, yanking at it with more force than strictly necessary. When she returned to the bed, he was watching her with concern.
“You look pale,” he said.
“I can guarantee that is nothing to how you look,” she said tartly, but she took his hand and carried it to her cheek. “How do you feel?”
“No worse than I look, I imagine,” he said dryly, and patted the bed beside him. “Come, join me. You look as though you have had less rest than I.”
She shook her head. “How can you worry about me now? You were shot.”
