Sol was getting tired of waking in pain with no idea why—or where he was and how he’d gotten there. And yet here he was in the same situation once again.
What had happened? Sol blinked into the darkness as burning pain enveloped his body. His skin pulsed and nettled, his chest ached, and worst of all, the back of his head—oy—it was as if someone had taken an ax to it. He reached back to rub it, only to near fall back in dizziness.
He frowned, working to remember. He’d been in the kitchen with the cake and—nothing.
A soft snoring started him, and his eyes grew wide. He reached out and his hand landed on another body. Sol worked to turn his head to the side and gasped. There, sleeping beside him, was…
“Hannah?” he whispered, his throat aching and his voice thin. He touched his neck, movement coming easier now. What had happened? Not that it fully mattered, if it had brought her back to him. Given him another chance at what he knew, in his heart of hearts, was the only thing he wanted.
Her head shot up, and her eyes grew wide. She pushed herself into a sitting position, pressing a hand toher mouth. “Sol.” She gasped his name before throwing her arms around him and clutching him to her body.
Her hair was mussed and coming down from its pins at odd angles. Her gown was wrinkled and the circles under her eyes were deeper than ever, but she’d never been quite so beautiful.
“You’re awake,” she whispered, wonderment in her voice. “You’re all right.”
“I’m not sure if I’d say that. I’m, well, I’m not sure what I am other than achy.” He grimaced.
“You’re speaking, though, and breathing and your eyes are open.” There was clear relief on her face when she pulled back. “You’ve been asleep for almost four days. We thought you’d never wake up.” Her swallow was visible and there was a catch in her voice, which would never do.
He grasped her hand. “No one can sleep forever, not even the laziest among us. And I’m certainly not lazy.” And now he was babbling, but he didn’t care. “Especially not when I’m still working to get what I want.”And I want you.He still did. No matter how things had ended. He always would. And now that he’d been given another chance at living, he was going to use it to try again.
Not try—succeed.
Which meant he needed to fully rally. He cleared his throat, but the coughing turned to rasping, and Hannah drew back in horror, dropping his hand.
“Let me get Doc,” she told him, squeezing his shoulder. “She and Rebecca, they’ve been working so hard, they’ll…”
Before he could say anything else, or more, say what needed to be said, she sprang from the bed and joggedout of the room. Sol flopped back down against the pillow, working not to become frustrated.
Especially since he’d just near recovered from his other injuries.
Footfalls pounded on the stairs as Doc and Rebecca burst into the room, rushing to his side and taking hold of different parts of his body to poke and prod. Hannah returned as well, but stayed away from the bed, back to the wall. Much too far from him, but with all the ministrations, he couldn’t even signal with his chin, let alone call out and insist—or at least ask—that she come to him once more.
“What do you remember?” Doc asked as she pressed first a hand, then a cloth, to his forehead. “Tell me the last things you remember.”
Sol inhaled, pushing back in his memory to recall the events leading up to him being incapacitated, well, yet again. It was good that Hannah didn’t seem to expect him to be some sort of warrior-man.
Though it was rather frustrating that he hadn’t been able to show the full range of his physical prowess for a while, especially in bed. Something that he would need to rectify, posthaste. After he convinced her that he still wanted her—and proved that it was her and only her, no matter what.
“Mr. Weiss?” Doc gave him a quizzical gaze. He blinked at her before coughing—drat, his ribs. What did she want from—right, what he remembered. He pursed his apparently swollen lips.
“I’d overslept on market day and the house was empty. I had come downstairs to get a bite of food, and well, there was a cake in the window.” He grimaced, still feeling a touch guilty. “It was very pretty andobviously for later, but I presumed one small shaving wouldn’t harm anyone and then…” He shook his head because everything after was fuzzy.
“And then, you had some sort of—your body behaved rather oddly and you had trouble breathing and swooned. Is that right?” Rebecca asked, peering at him through her spectacles.
Yes.Sol nodded as more memories flooded back. With his elbows, he pushed himself up. “I remember—my body, it was, like you said, odd. Thick and tingly.” As parts of it, the tips of his fingers and toes especially, were still behaving strangely.
“Has anything like that happened before?” Rebecca leaned forward. “Have you ever, say, eaten anything and become ill that way?”
“Yes.” He craned his neck to check on Hannah as both women were blocking her from view now. He huffed in frustration, but continued on, supposing this was probably relevant to his treatment. “Years ago. My brother’s friend, a Spanish fellow who had come to England for school, brought us these spiced nuts.” He nodded toward Doc. “‘Peanuts,’ I believe. Obviously not particularly common—someone mentioned something about them being from the Americas perhaps? I haven’t seen them much since. The first time I ate them I was fine, though I realized later they’d made me itchy, but the second time I had trouble breathing right after. Gave everyone a scare. They’ve been easy enough to avoid since.”
Rebecca nodded. “That’s what I suspected, given that mekhasheyfe of a stray cat who’s always about snuck in through the window and ravaged the rest of the cake.” She pointed a thumb at the door. “I persuadedRoger Berab—who, of all people, came to see if he could be of assistance—to take the little beast. And hopefully keep him.” The woman’s lip twitched in what Sol thought might be a smile.
Sol’s eyes grew wide. “So the cat was all right?”
“Entirely.” Rebecca brushed at her apron. “Nothing amiss at all. If it had been something like rat poison, the cat would’ve also been ill.”
“As it wasn’t,” Doc added, “I also suspect that the cause was a specific food—in this case, those nuts—that only certain people react to.”
