She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
“I promise to stay at your side,” he said, “until this is all over. And for the lifetime after that. Now, make your promise to me.” His eyes glistened, and his voice was rough with emotion. “Promise me, Susanna. Tell me you won’t die. I can’t go on without you, love.”
She gritted her teeth, and managed a tiny nod.
Then the blade pierced her. And if there’d been any air left in her lungs, she would have screamed.
The pain was like fire. Burning and intense. But relief followed swiftly, like a quenching rain.
That first rush of air into her lungs . . . she was dizzied by it, turned upside-down. The world narrowed, and she felt as though she’d stumbled into a deep, dark well. As she fell down and down, she heard distant voices. Bram’s. The surgeon’s.
“I believe she’s gone unconscious.”
“Perhaps that’s a mercy.”
Yes, she thought, swirling and tumbling into the darkness.
Yes, it was a mercy indeed.
Twenty-nine
She’ll recover soon enough. If she doesn’t take a fever.
Those had been Daniels’s words to him, after the procedure was complete. But it could not have been so easy. A few hours later—almost as soon as they’d seen her settled back at Summerfield—the fever had set in.
Now Bram hadn’t left her side in days.
He kept an unceasing vigil at her bedside. He passed the hours tending her in small ways. Coaxing her to take spoonfuls of willow bark tea, or sponging the fevered sweat from her brow. Sometimes he talked to her. Read aloud to her from the newspaper, or told her stories of his childhood and his years on campaign. Anything that crossed his mind. Other times, he shamelessly pleaded with her, begging her to just wake up and be well.
He ate, when coaxed. The indefinite postponement of the village festivities had left Spindle Cove with a surfeit of Fosbury’s cakes. There always seemed to be a tray of the pastel-iced things close at hand. Bram found himself developing a taste for them, in a wistful sort of way.
He slept, infrequently and fitfully. He prayed, with a regularity and intensity that would do a Benedictine proud.
Others came and went from the sickroom. Daniels. The housemaids. Sir Lewis Finch. Even Colin and Thorne came by. They all urged Bram to take a break now and then. Go downstairs for a proper meal, they said. Have a rest in the bedchamber they’d made up down the corridor.
He refused all their well-meant suggestions. Every last one. He’d made a promise not to leave her. To stay at her side, until this was done. And he’d be damned if he’d give Susanna any excuse to drop her end of the bargain.
So long as he stayed right here, she could not die.
Sir Lewis sat with him one afternoon, occupying the chair on the other side of the bed. The old man rubbed the back of his neck. “She looks better today, I think.”
Bram nodded. “She is better. We think.”
That morning, as he’d been adjusting the pillows beneath her head, his forearm had brushed against her cheek. Instead of scalding with fever, her skin had felt cool to his touch. He’d called in Daniels to confirm it, not trusting himself after so many hours of vain hoping.
But it seemed to be true. The fever had broken. Now it only remained to be seen if she would wake from it with no ill effects. The vigil was easier now, and yet unbearable in its suspense.
“Sir Lewis, there’s something you should know.” Bram took Susanna’s hand in his. It lay wonderfully cool and limp across his palm. “I plan to marry her.”
“Oh. You plan to marry her?” The old man fixed him with a watery blue stare. “That’s how you ask a gentleman for his only daughter’s hand? Bramwell, I would think your father had raised you better than that.”
“Your blessing would be welcome,” he said evenly. “But no, I’m not asking you for her hand. Susanna’s wise enough to make her own decisions.”
That was as close as he could bring himself to requesting Sir Lewis’s approval. He damned well wouldn’t ask the man’s permission. As far as Bram was concerned, the moment Sir Lewis had lit that cannon fuse, he’d surrendered all responsibility for Susanna’s welfare. The old man had endangered his daughter’s work, her friends, her very life—and all in the name of glory.
Bram would protect her now. As her husband, if she’d have him.
“My only daughter, getting married. She is all grown now, isn’t she?” With a trembling hand, Sir Lewis touched his sleeping daughter’s hair. “Seems just yesterday she was a babe in arms.”
“That wasn’t yesterday,” Bram said, unable to restrain himself. “Yesterday, she lay in this bed, burning with fever and hovering near death.”
“I know. I know. And you blame me. You think me a self-serving monster.” He paused, as if waiting for Bram to argue otherwise.