“I’m going to cover you up, Daniel. Maybe I can hide you and go get help. You have to stay put.”
“No. Don’t leave me. Please don’t. Don’t want to be alone.”
He clasped my hand. His palms were sweaty. “Someone has tampered with my drink. I think.”
“Yes. You wouldn’t do this, not to your aunt, not to yourself.”
He wrapped his arms about me. “Don’t tell Hope. She can’t fear for me like I did Papa. Don’t tell her. Please.”
The light sneaking in from the window exposed blood in his nostrils, about his eye. My poor love.
He slumped into the dusty sheet but held me fast in his arm. “Don’t tell. Can’t disappoint.”
“I won’t, Daniel.”
Blinking, he touched my cheek. “You have a lot of freckles.”
“And you don’t like freckles?”
“No. Love ’em. Hope has them too. Lovely.”
Oh, he would be one of those sweet talkative drunks. “Who did this?”
“Who didn’t?”
I searched his tattered shirt and found bruising on his arms. “Do you hurt?”
“Yep.”
“Where, Daniel?”
“Everywhere you haven’t touched.”
Petulant, he kicked his feet. “This is not good. I want my pantaloons. They were new.”
“Shhhh,” I said again. “You’re too loud.”
His beautiful waistcoat had spots. I was pretty sure it was more drops of his blood.
One dark eye was swollen, the other a slit.
When I touched his jaw, it felt puffy. Somebody beat him badly. “Who hit you?”
“Willing-Wiling hhhhmm and Lavinia and others.”
“Lavinia?” That’s what the shrew meant. She’d planned to compromise and ruin Daniel. Never. I wouldn’t let them.
“Make the world stop. I’ll tell you everything. Like how beautiful you are.”
His head flopped back again.
“What was their plan? Did you hear what they were going to do next?”
“Hate doesn’t need a reason. Jealousy either. I should’ve known better than to come to such a public place to woooo you.”
“Daniel, you’re not making sense.”
“You. Your fault. Why did you make me want you? Want you, near you.”
