“Are you feverish?Has it returned?”She took his hand in one of hers, deftly checking for fever with the other.Relief registered on her face when there was none.
“No.No fever,” she said.“It abated even more quickly than Mr.Peabody predicted.You are healing for good this time, I think.”
She had overridden Peabody’s protests and stayed with him through the procedure.While she allowed Harley and her footman to hold him down, she murmured reassuring nonsense in his ear and kept a firm grip on his hand until the surgeon finished the nasty business.
“What is it, Andrew?What do you need?”In the cool dark, her words were balm.
I need your touch, to hear your voice.The timbre of her voice soothed his soul, and the sweet scent of lilacs filled his senses.They had become the rhythm of his life.“I need some water.”She had anticipated him.The cool drink was almost as welcome as her care.
“Hush now.Sleep.”He did.
A week passed before Peabody decided Andrew needed to get out of bed for a short time every day.Andrew attempted a few tentative steps.
“The pain is lessening.”That surprised him.The searing burn of the cauterization remained uncomfortable, and weakness threatened to overset him; but the deep pain that cut into his hip and back no longer cut through him.
“And notsoon enough!You had more than your share,” Georgiana said.
She watched his halting steps with fear-filled eyes.He hated the anxiety he saw in her expression.A primal need to protect her and to prove her wrong propelled him the final two steps.He sank into his deep wing-back chair.After a moment to rest his eyes, he gave her a reassuring look.Her relief made him proud.
He closed his eyes for a moment’s rest and then drank in his study, letting his books soothe his soul.His eyes found something out of place.A pallet, coverlets neatly arranged on it, rested in the fireside corner.
“What is this?”Harley had never folded coverlets so neatly.Andrew realized that it wasn’t Harley who had come to him in the night.He called himself every kind of fool.She comes to me in the night, every night.Georgiana must be sleeping on the floor of my study!It outraged his sensibility.He knew that he should send her away.
“Don’t say it.”She stood over him like a general.
He bit back a retort and mumbled, “It can’t be comfortable.”
“I am comfortable, and I am where I want to be.I am needed, and that, I tell you, is a novel feeling.”She smoothed a blanket over him and reached up to bring him a warm cup of tea.
Well enough to realize what she had done and gentleman enough to know how great a scandal it created, he still felt too sick to care.One more night.I will send her away tomorrow.For now, I will rest.
* * *
“Georgiana?”
“What is it Andrew?Another nightmare?”Her hair stood in disarray; a dressing gown covered her nightclothes.He was too desperately ill all those previous nights to notice her nightclothes.
“Nightmares?I don’t remember,” he lied, hoping against hope that he hadn’t called out in his sleep.It sickened him to think she might know the nature of those nightmares.“Did I speak?”
“Yes.No.Nothing I could understand.You seemed disturbed.”Deep green velvet wrapped her from head to toe, but tantalizing snatches of white ruffle peeped out at her wrists and neck.“What do you need?”
Relief seeped into him.She hadn’t heard his nightmares, but her nearness disordered his thoughts.“It is nothing.I just...”You, Georgiana, I needed you.“I awoke confused.I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”The white eyelet around her neck fascinated him.Honey gold hair lay next to it.He reached up and took a lock of hair to give it a gentle tug.“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I no longer care.I am where I am needed.It’s too late to change, in any case.”Her face looked less confident than her voice sounded.
“I’m grateful for it.”To say anything else would be churlish.“I meant to ask yesterday, how did you get Peabody here so quickly that night?”
“Foolish question.Money and title, of course–and a well-sprung carriage.He came without complaining.After his error, I’d have brought another surgeon, if I knew of one.”
Andrew smiled wanly.Lioness!“I think he’s done it this time.He did know his work.He had an ugly wound, badly healed, to work with.”
She looked doubtful.“He better be right.I need my tutor back.”
“Ah.Your tutor.”He felt her body lean over him where she sat on the side of his bed.Her thigh pressed against his uninjured hip.Her hand caressed his.Her breath, warm on his face, overwhelmed his will.His body responded to her nearness of its own volition, and he thought ruefully that his strength appeared to be returning more rapidly than he expected.He groped for words to send her away but could find none.He could only whisper her name.
“Georgie,” he began uncertainly.
* * *
