Her heart sank when she looked at her mother.
“Thomas said she’s not awakened in all the time I was gone.” Even her whisper sounded too loud.
“No, my lady, she hasn’t. And Margaret tells me the nights are the same.”
Hester was an older woman of indeterminate years. Her hair, once vibrantly red, had faded to a rust color. Wrinkles ravaged her skin, and age had grayed the whites of her eyes. Despite her age—or perhaps because of it—there was a calm implacability about Hester. But the true reason Sarah had hired Hester was the look in the older woman’s eyes, a warmth revealing her caring nature. Hester granted her affection without reservation. She’d never met a stranger, she was fond of saying, and it was for that quality more than any other that Sarah had made her the duchess’s nurse.
Sarah sat on the straight-backed chair kept beside the bed for just such visits as these.
Her mother had not been well for years. In the last six months, however, the Duchess of Herridge had become so frail she was a mere shadow of herself. Her complexion was pale, almost waxy, and her lips had a bluish tinge. The hands resting on the top of the coverlet were so white and thin that Sarah could see the tracery of veins beneath the skin. Her rings had long since been placed in the duchess’s jewelry casket for safekeeping.
Lowering her head, Sarah kissed the back of her mother’s hand, wishing she could warm her in some way. Wishing, too, that her father was at his wife’s bedside, if not to say a final farewell, then at least to pretend to care.
Her mother’s breathing was labored. At the end of each struggling breath, Sarah found herself inhaling deeply, as if to infuse her mother’s lungs with air.
“What can I do?” she whispered. The question was addressed to God, to her mother, to Fate itself, but Hester answered.
“Go on as you have,” Hester said kindly. “God gives us trials and tribulations to test us, Lady Sarah.”
Just how many trials and tribulations did one life deserve? Her mother loved a man who didn’t care about her affection. She’d lost four children before they’d drawn breath.
The door opened suddenly, surprising her. She glanced over her shoulder to see Eston standing there, accompanied by Thomas.
Would he not give her any privacy, even here?
Hester stood, but Eston waved her back in her chair.
He didn’t speak, merely entered the room softly, to take a stance behind Sarah. He placed his hand on her shoulder, and she flinched from his touch, even as she realized it was a gesture of support. Despite her rebuff, however, his hand remained, and she gradually relaxed, feeling the warmth from his palm permeate the fabric of her dress.
“What is wrong with her?” he asked softly.
“The physicians do not know,” she said. “One of them said it was a depression of the spirit. Another thought it might be a tumor of the inner organs. Or a deficiency of the heart.”
“Is there nothing that can be done?”
“If there is, I do not know it,” she said. “I’ve consulted with physicians, and wisewomen, and even a woman who read cards. All I have left is to find a witch.”
A moment passed before he spoke again.
“My parents died when I was a boy. Cholera. I’ve never thought about it before, but I don’t know what’s worse, not being prepared for the loss or watching as death happens in measures in front of you.”
She was startled by his candor. If she’d known him better, she would have answered him with the same honesty and told him that watching her mother die slowly was unbearable. She felt as if her heart were being torn out of her chest every day.
“You sit with her a great deal, I warrant.”
She nodded. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “I would.”
“At least she will not be sent to Scotland.”
“Would your father really have done such a thing?”
“Yes,” she said. “He would really have done such a thing.”
She took a deep breath, stood, and faced him.
“But she will not be moved. Nor disturbed. She will be treated with love and care until the moment she takes her last breath. On this I swear, Eston.” Her look defied him to argue with her.
