Her eyes were closed. Stephen put a large hand on her forehead and shook his head. “She is on fire,” he muttered. “We need to cool her down immediately. Have the servants bring a tub in here and fill it with tepid water.”
Ailsa fled the room with all the grace of a headless chicken. The knights could hear the scuttling of feet as the servants were roused in the house. Stephen saw a rag and a bowl of water beside the bed; Ailsa had been using it in a vain attempt to keepher sister cool. He picked up the rag, dipped it in the water, and wrung it out.
“Pull the bed covers off of her,” he told Tate. “We will have to cool her as best we can until the tub arrives.”
Tate swung back the coverlet, exposing her to the chilly room. Stephen took her left arm, pushed up the sleeve of her shift, and swabbed water on her tender skin. “I need to get my bag.”
Tate had felt helpless until this point. He took the rag from Stephen. “I will do this. Go get your medicaments and be quick about it.”
Stephen quit the chamber. Tate looked down at Toby a moment, her pale sweating face, feeling his heart lurch strangely. Taking her right arm, he exposed the flesh and was faced with the bandaged wrist. It abruptly occurred to him why she was so ill. With a muttered curse, he unwrapped it.
The wounds were horribly red and swollen. Yellow pus seeped from two of them. Anger filled Tate; he knew with certainty that the source of her fever was not the chill from yesterday’s exposure. It was the poison racing through her veins from the cuts her mother had inflicted on her.
He swabbed the cool water against her flesh, avoiding the cuts. When he ran the rag over her forehead and cheeks, she seemed to come around a bit and slapped at his hand. The gesture made him smile; even in her current state, the woman was a fighter. She would need all of her strength to battle this toxin. He swabbed her cheek again just to see her reaction and was rewarded when she slapped at him again.
“So you do not like that, do you?” he whispered. “Good. Perhaps if I do it enough, you will wake from the unpleasant state.”
He ran the cloth over her neck, unconsciously inspecting her as he did so. She had a beautiful neck and shoulders. The shiftwas relatively modest, so there was no glimpse of the swell of her bosom, but he could only imagine that it was as delicious as the rest of her.
He put the cloth back into the water and squeezed it out. Sitting down carefully on the side of the bed, he gently lifted her head up with one hand and put the cloth on the back of her neck with the other. The cold sensation received more of a reaction than he had expected; her eyes flew open.
“To the devil with you,” she gasped. “Why must you torment me so?”
She wasn’t in her right mind; the words were coming out slurred, dreamlike, and her eyes closed once again. He removed the cloth and lay her head down on the pillow, all the while thinking how soft her hair had been. His thoughts were misplaced and he knew it, feeling rather caddish. The woman was gravely ill and all he could think of was how beautiful her hair was.
Ailsa came running back into the room, sliding to an unsteady stop. “Is she dead yet?” she panted.
Tate calmly swabbed Toby’s left arm. “Nay, she is not. I told you that she is not going to die.”
Ailsa slowed down and approached the bed, her little face full of fear. “But she looks so ill.”
“She is,” Tate said. “But Sir Stephen is a great healer. He shall pull her through this.”
Ailsa’s eyes were big as she watched Tate methodically bathe her sister’s face. Her gaze trailed to Tate, studying his strong features, wondering if she should believe him when he said that Toby was not going to die. As with all children, however, her attention span was finite and thoughts completely disassociated from her sister began to roll through her head.
“Are you married?”
Tate paused in his duties to look at her. She was innocent, and it was an innocent question. He’d long since gotten over the pain the question had once provoked.
“I was once.”
“What happened?”
“She passed away giving birth to my daughter.”
“Oh. Did your daughter die, too?”
“Aye.”
Ailsa began to toy with the bed linens, her sister’s limp hand. “My mother nearly died giving birth to me, too. I do not think I shall ever have any children.”
He smiled faintly. “Why not?”
“Because it will kill me.”
“Not always. As with anything else, one’s fate is in the hands of God.”
“Did God kill your wife and daughter, then?”
