Was she? This didn’t feel how she associated being awake to feel. Her surroundings were wrong, too. And whowasthis man? She blinked, trying to bring him into focus.
“Emily,” he said, and brought her hand to his lips. Everything about him lookedcold. As though he had brought winter inside with him. “Emily, can you hear me?”
She blinked at him, puzzled. Confused. Some part of her mind recognised this man, but he had not imprinted himself on her so deeply that she would recall him no matter what. All her thoughts felt fuzzy.
Finally, a name came to her.
“Oliver,” she croaked.
Relief spread across his face like fallen snow. “Thank heavens. I thought you’d forgotten me.” There was something a little unsteady about his voice. She frowned at it, the world slowly coming back to her in bits and pieces. Fits and starts. She was Emily Brunton, and for some reason she was lying down on this bed instead of doing something useful. There were dishes to scrub and eggs to collect and so, so many rooms to dust. Cooking to do, fires to light, and budgeting their frugal income. They couldn’t afford coal.
Oliver pressed on her shoulder. “No, Emily,” he said, oddly gentle. “Don’t get up.”
Her tongue felt too thick in her mouth. “But there’s so much to do.”
“Nonsense, child,” another voice said to her left. A female voice this time, motherly and anxious. “There’s nothing you need do but feel better.”
“I—” She couldn’t collect her thoughts enough to get the words out. “Isabella.”
“She’s at home, waiting for you. Us,” Oliver corrected a little too quickly. “She’s all right.”
More memories filtered through the haze in her mind. Oliver kidnapping her, trying to marry her—or rather, Isabella—and trudging through the endless snow to get here. They were pretending to be man and wife, and there was no guarantee that Isabella was fine, because if this much snow had fallen here, then it would have fallen back at Dalston, and Emily didn’t know if there was enough food in the house to see them through. Thechickens would continue laying, of course, and there was flour and salt and some yeast that she had picked up the last time she had gone into the village—but Isabella had never made the bread.
Isabella, Emily was starting to realise, had done very little around the house. But that only meant she would find it much harder to do everything now.
She closed her eyes, and Oliver squeezed her hand again.
“I fetched the physician,” he said, leaning in closer so she could feel the hot brush of his breath against her skin. Her head throbbed. “He said you have a commotion of the brain and recommended willow bark for pain relief. And rest. But you’ll be all right.”
“The . . . physician?”
“Yes. I rode out in the snow.” He shuddered, and she felt another burst of cold air from him. “Horrendous weather, but it was worth it.” She heard that tinge of panic in his voice again, and opened her eyes to find his face just above hers, brows drawn over those bright eyes.
“Oh,” she mumbled.
“More tea,” Mrs Chambers declared, and bustled out of the room. Everything fell silent, but for the crackle of the fire. Emily stared up at Oliver, who sat back, his mouth a hard line.
“You wouldn’t wake up,” he said. “Mr Winters said you would be all right when you awoke so long as you rested, but I thought—” He shook his head. He looked older here, and she had the oddest inclination to reassure him. All this worry overher.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You rode all the way out in this weather for me?”
He dropped his hand onto his lap. “What else was I to do? I said I would make it right, Emily.”
“But your arm.”
“I’ll admit, it was a dashed uncomfortable journey,” he said with a quick smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “But Mr Winters took a look at my arm and said he couldn’t have done a better job with the splint, so that’s something. And it was worth it for the reassurance that you’ll be all right.”
Mrs Chambers re-entered the room, a tray in her hands and the promised tea atop it. “Here,” she said. “I’ve got to get back to the house, but you let me know if there’s anything you need.”
Emily looked into Mrs Chambers’ kindly face, and she felt a surge of guilt and affection so vast, it threatened to swallow her whole. “I’m so very grateful,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Nonsense, child. You get better, you hear?” She bent and kissed Emily on the cheek before bustling to the door and leaving quietly.
Emily looked at Oliver. “And to you,” she said quietly. “I am grateful. You—we barely like one another.”
“Speak for yourself,” he said with a hint of that roguish charm. “You are growing on me by the day.”
“You make me sound like a fungus.”
