landed on the floor with a plop. “Where’s your da?”
“Gone,” she said, releasing a deep shuddery breath and running a trembling hand through her hair. She looked a fright.
James narrowed his eyes and observed her a bit more carefully. Her simple skirt and shirtwaist were splotched with dark spots and looked as if they’d been wadded up somewhere for days before she donned them. The pale translucence of her skin troubled him. He’d seen statues with more color. “Poor lass, what’s happened to you then?” He reached out one hand to her.
She stared at it, but moved no closer. “You…I thought you might die,” she whispered, her gaze darting to the lower end of the bed.
James smiled up at her. “Ah. You’ve been worried.”
Her nod was jerky and she wavered a bit, unsteady on her feet.
“Well, my head’s fair screaming and the leg’s paining me some, but I’ll live. Help me up?”
“No! Wait!” she cried, rushing to the bedside again, bending over him and pressing both palms against his shoulders.
Not much need since he’d already discovered the agony of trying to rise. And the impossibility of it. His breath rushed in and out. He held it for an instant, trying to still his panic. He felt incredibly sick.
“I…I canna move my legs,” he rasped, determined not to scream the words. Susanna had thrown herself across his body to hold him down and he couldn’t see whether his legs were even there under the covers. Had a surgeon amputated? He had read once that pain could be felt long after limbs had been taken off.
Susanna raised herself a bit from her restraining position and looked him in the eye. “Be calm. Please be calm. If you thrash about you might hurt yourself worse than you already are.”
He bit his lips, feeling the dryness. Everywhere she touched him prickled with pain, his skin overly sensitized by the fever. “I won’t be thrashin’, lass. My legs…” He searched her eyes, praying he could take the news with courage.
“Oh. I forgot. You could not get up even if you tried.” She brushed a hand over his forehead. She seemed a bit steadier now and even offered him a saucy smile.
“Good God, woman, are you heartless? Where’s your pity?”
She got up, pushing off him with a purpose. “Oh, spare me the dramatics, will you? I shall untie your ankles if you promise not to—”
“You tied me to the bloody bed?” he shouted, his arms flailing as he tried to sit up. God in heaven, he wished he’d not promised her da he wouldn’t beat her!
She had paused now, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “You keep a civil tongue in that head of yours, sir, or I shall call a footman to bind your arms as well. And your mouth!” she warned him with a glare. “Now that you are lucid, there is no excuse for cursing!”
The curses he kept to himself in that instant would have curled her hair.
“There now,” she said, nodding. “You see the importance of behaving yourself and shall be rewarded.” In moments, she had loosened the strips of linen that bound his ankles to the bedposts.
James breathed easier now, overwhelmingly relieved to see the columns of both legs right where they should be there beneath the blankets. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the welcome sight. One thigh was mounded over with what must be the bandages covering his wound. Gingerly, he tested his ability to move it. Bless God, it worked to some extent. It ached, but the pain was not piercing so long as he kept it still.
His head hurt much worse, as though it would explode. He reached up and explored his brow, feeling a sticking plaster.
“Either a bullet grazed it or you scraped it on a low hanging branch,” Susanna told him. “I stitched it myself.”
He heard the pride in her voice at the accomplishment. “Congratulations,” he snapped, busy raising the covers to have a closer look at the condition of his lower appendages. All was in order. And bare as the day he was born. He shot her a glance and saw her blush.
“Get that footman you spoke of. I need assistance.”
“I am here,” she informed him primly. “What do you need?”
James felt himself heat under her glare. And it wasn’t the fever. “Just get him in here! Now!”
She turned and trudged toward the door muttering. “I believe I liked you better when you were insensate.”
“How long was I out?” he asked. “Did I miss a day?”
“Three,” she answered succinctly, then disappeared into the other room.
Three days? She had tended him for that long? That must be why she appeared rather frazzled. He’d been a trial to her, James thought with a sigh. For three days she had nursed him dutifully and he’d rewarded her diligence and wifely care with sniping remarks and accusations. He would have to make it up to her somehow.
Before she returned, James had relegated his little wife to the status of sainthood and promised himself he would do all in his power to deserve such a woman. Had any man ever been so lucky? He didn’t think so.
The paragon swept in, her energies apparently renewed and the aforementioned footman in tow. She smiled at the servant. “Here is Thomas Snively who has been a godsend to us these past few days. I suppose you don’t remember him at all?”
“No, I suppose not.” James muttered, regarding the handsome, strapping fellow dressed in the fine hotel livery of dark wine trimmed in silver. “Snively.”
“Good morning, sir,” the man said. “We’re most happy to see you are better today. How may I assist you?”
Why was Susanna smiling so adoringly? Snively was obviously English, another mark against him, second only to his appearance. James felt the brutal stab of jealousy, a relatively unknown emotion for him and damned uncomfortable. He glared at Susanna, immediately reassessing her status as angel of mercy. “You may go now.”
Her lips pursed, the smile wiped away as if it had never existed. Of course, she was no longer looking at Snively. “I shall not be dismissed in such curt fashion!” she declared.
James closed his eyes and said softly through his gritted teeth, “Then I implore you, lady. Would you kindly vacate this chamber in order to spare yourself embarrassment?”
“Very well, since you put it so nicely.” She picked up her skirts and swept gracefully—and hurriedly—out of the room.
James heaved a huge sigh of relief and glanced up at Snively who looked vastly amused. “I make it policy never to strike a man bearing no threat, Thomas Snively, but I will have that smirk off your puckish face.”
“Yes, sir.” The smile sobered instantly.
“And your eyes off my wife,” James added.
“She’s an eyeful, I grant,” Snively said with a wry inclination of his head. He rocked on the balls of his feet. “But I have one as lovely at home who would slay me if I poached. Not that I’m
