“I can’t seem to focus on anything. My eyes…they aren’t working properly.”
“Yes, that might be due to the swelling of your right eye and the broken blood vessels in your left. The doctor said we should put a compress on them from time to time.”
She moved away toward the wash basin and returned with a cold, wet cloth she laid over his eyes. Damn, but if that didn’t stir an upheaval in his nerve while feeling fabulous at the same time.
“My last nursemaid wasn’t quite so gentle,” he confessed. “He was a brute of a man who had reveled in my pain.” He willed his mind not to drift back to that holy hell hole. Yet still he flinched as she wiped his brow with a second cool, wet cloth. “God, that feels wonderful. I’m so hot I feel like I’m on fire.”
“I understand what it’s like to suffer at the hands of a cruelnursemaid. Can you take a sip of broth?”
“What’s the point?”
“You don’t wish to live?”
“I’m dying.” And he was damned tired of fighting it.
“So, you’re just going to let them win?” The damp cloth caressed his neck and then moved to his chest.
Whoever she was, she had far exceeded anyone else’s familiarity with his person. Others who had attempted to soothe his fevered fits had sent him into embarrassing outbursts of shaking and lashing out at the barest of touches. Despite his delirium, he remembered bits and pieces of his body’s reflexive response to touch and prayed it had all been part of the nightmare that had consumed too many days to count. God forbid he had lashed out at his mother, his siblings—his youngest sister, who couldn’t hurt a bug. He vaguely recalled swinging at someone like a two-year-old having a tantrum. It had been unseemly, even if it was a dream.
Charlotte interrupted his musing. “Toss up her skirts.”
“Bloody hell, Charlotte. Shut up.” He rememberedher. “Charlotte was an endless source of amusement once upon a time.”
“Would you like me to remove her from your chambers?” The woman asked in a hushed tone. At any other time, he would have jumped on Charlotte’s lewd suggestion. If the woman’s face washalf as comely as her voice, he would gladly remove Charlotte himself.
“No.” How could he possibly explain to this angel standing over him and pulling his bedding down past his waist, that Charlotte gave him a type of comfort no one else could, despite her short and rather vulgar speech? Besides, the doctor had been in to see him, and he’d heard his prognosis.If the fever doesn’t break soon, we will lose him.
Hell, he felt the grave creeping up on him like a specter pulling on his ankle and refusing to let go. Yet, he had a mission to complete, and he’d be damned if the information would go with him to the grave. “I need to see…” What the hell was his name? “I need to speak with…”
“Once you are well you may have all the visitors you like.”
“No, damn you.” His voice sounded about as strong as an octogenarian on his death bed. He sure as hell felt like one. “You don’t understand. I must speak with…”
“All in due time. Take a sip of broth.”
He knocked the spoon away and was somewhat mollified when he heard it clatter on the floor.Hoorah for Astley! He can knock a spoon out of the hand of a bloody angel hell-bent on saving his sorry arse.
“Astley, you must eat,” she scolded in a gentle tone that wouldn’t sway any of the gentlemen in his debauched set to take the path of righteousness. His crowd would need to be scared out of their wits and tortured half to death. Like him.
“Fine. I’ll take a spoonful,” he rested a moment before he continued. “If you write a missive for me and deliver it in person.”
“Ten spoonfuls of broth and I’ll write the letter and have it delivered.”
“Five,” he breathed, “and you deliver the letter.”
“Five and I’ll have the letter delivered. I must stay and take care of you.” She brought the spoon to his cracked lips, but he compressed them together as the tip of the spoon nudged at the crease of his mouth. He would not relent. She had to be the one to ensure the letter was delivered.
He heard her release a sigh moments before he was about to lose his strength in their battle of wills. “Fine, I will write the letter and deliver it tomorrow.”
“Today.”
She moaned and he thought he rather liked the sound. “Fine, today. Do we have an agreement?”
“Ye—” Before he could finish his response, a spoon was shoved in his mouth, and warm tasteless broth went down his throat.
“That’s it, take it, Sweet,” Charlotte crowed, then nearly cackled with laughter.
“I don’t believe she’s quoting Wordsworth.”
