Tempt Me With Kisses (35 page)

Fiona wiped Caradoc’s feverish brow and changed the sweat-soaked linen as she waited anxiously for Cordelia and Jon-Bron to return with a physician. She had been waiting for three long, agonizing days, during which she never left the bedchamber. Rhonwen, as steady and competent a helper as she could ever want, had run herself nearly to exhaustion fetching cold water, hot water, broth, bread—anything Fiona requested.

While Caradoc grew worse. How much longer could he endure with this fever raging through him?

He started to mutter again through dry, cracked lips. He tossed his head upon the damp pillow, unconsciously revealing his innermost thoughts and feelings. He murmured of the deep vulnerability felt by a boy trying so hard to please and being rejected. He talked of his envy for a cherished, popular brother, and his own disgust that he should feel that way. He whispered of his anguish over Cordelia’s scornful treatment and Ganore’s tale of his true father.

And listening, she grew to love him even more.

She also sent fervent prayers to heaven that he be allowed to live. He was too young to die. They had not had enough time. It was not just. It was not fair.

Especially when she was beginning to believe that she carried his child.

Where was Cordelia and Jon-Bron? Why had they not come back? What if they were too late?

Then she heard a sound that brought her leaping to her feet and rushing to the door: the booted footfalls of someone taking the steps two at a time. Before she reached it, the door banged open and Cordelia ran into the room. Her hair was a tousled, wild mess, her clothes mud-stained and sweaty, her boots filthy—but her triumphant smile made everything else unimportant.

“We’ve brought Arundel of Shrewsbury, the best physician outside of London,” she declared, coming to a panting halt and smiling at Fiona. “He’s coming up the steps behind me.”

Then she stared at her stricken brother. “Tell me we’re not too late.”

Fiona went to her sister-in-law and embraced her, full of gratitude for what she had done. “He lives, and while he lives, I hope.”

A middle-aged man, his dark hair flecked with gray, and wearing a long black tunic, swept into the room. He ignored them and went directly to the bed, where he set a wooden box with a leather handle beside Caradoc.

“I told him what happened,” Cordelia explained, clutching Fiona’s hand as they watched Arundel examine Caradoc’s face, his eyes, and the strength of his pulse.

Arundel lifted the poultice and sniffed. He likewise sniffed the wound before he sat back. He was so grave and silent, all the joy that Fiona felt began to seep away.

She glanced at Cordelia and saw that she looked just as frightened.

“How serious is it?” she asked, too tense to do more than whisper.

“Leave such concerns to the physician, my lady,” Arundel replied with a patronizing smile. “Your husband is in good hands now. Lady Cordelia, please ask the cook to prepare a nice beef stew and some clear chicken broth.”

“I’m not sure Caradoc will be able to eat stew,” Fiona said warily and with a horrible doubt about the man’s abilities if he thought Caradoc was in any state to eat.

“The stock is for Lord Caradoc, and the stew will be for me,” the physician replied. “It has been a hard day’s ride.”

“I’ll go at once,” Cordelia said, and after giving Caradoc a final, worried glance, she hurried from the room.

Arundel rose and began to roll up the sleeves of his tunic, and the white linen shirt exposed beneath.

“Now it would be best if we could keep the visitors to this chamber to a minimum, my lady,” he announced. “Too many people makes for agitation, and the balance of your husband’s humors has already been disturbed enough. That includes you, my lady. I’m sure there is another chamber you may use while I tend to your husband.”

She had no intention of leaving Caradoc for any length of time while he was so sick. “This is my chamber, too. I shall do whatever you ask of me, but I must be allowed to help tend to my husband.”

Arundel did not look happy, but he must have understood that she was not asking his permission. She was telling him how it would be. “Very well, my lady. If you can be quiet.”

She fought the urge to frown or otherwise betray any animosity to this man who was, after all, also a guest in their household. “Yes, I can be quiet. Now, how serious is his condition?”

He gave her another condescending smile. “You must not worry, my lady, for a
physician
is here.”

He spoke to her as if she were a child he was patting on the head. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he had added, “Run along.”

She was not a child, and she would not be condescended to, especially now. “I asked you a question, Arundel. How serious is my husband’s illness?”

Arundel’s eyes flared with indignation, as if she presumed far too much by asking that. “Since you insist upon knowing, his blood is poisoned, and although the chickweed was a good course of action, it may have been too little, too late. I fear he is going to die, and soon.”

She felt for a chair and sat heavily. She had thought the rational part of her mind had realized this, but
no
part of her was prepared to accept that Caradoc’s wound was mortal.

Arundel seemed mollified by her dismay, for suddenly his indignation disappeared, and a compassionate look appeared upon his face. “Fortunately, it appears your husband is a strong man, and healthy before this, and there are still other remedies to try.”

He smiled when he finished, as if he had just pronounced Caradoc cured.

She would abase herself at his feet if he made Caradoc better. She would keep silent and defer to him, and she would forgive this arrogant, pompous fellow anything so long as he cured Caradoc.

His fingers on Caradoc’s pulse, Arundel frowned. Caradoc was still insensible with fever, although Arundel had been there for two days and tended to him with everything in his power. Like Fiona, he had rested little and eaten sparingly as they changed poultices and made medicines and bled him. He had been as dedicated to his patient as she could have hoped, in spite of his arrogant manner, yet nothing seemed to work.

Outside, the rain fell, the gray skies so dark, she had lit candles to help Arundel see.

She looked at the physician expectantly as he slowly lowered Caradoc’s hand, and the expression on his face made her stomach plummet. She began to tremble uncontrollably, her whole body quaking with a fear such as she had never known, not even when Iain had held his sword at her throat.

“If the fever does not break tonight,” Arundel said slowly, “I fear we must expect the worst, my lady.”

Staring down at her husband’s pale, gaunt face, she refused to accept it. “There must be more we can do. Another potion … different herbs… There must be
something
…”

With a face full of pity, and no vestige of the patronizing learned man confident in his abilities to hold back the Angel of Death, Arundel patted her on the arm. “There is nothing more to try. I have done all I can. The rest is up to God.” He heaved himself to his feet. “Now I am going to sleep. Call me at once if there is any change.”

He was abandoning them. Not even his pompous pride could compel him to remain.

It must be hopeless.

She knelt beside the bed and tried to accept the inevitable, as she had accepted so many other things in her life. Her mother’s death so long ago. Her father’s. The realization that Iain had never loved her. The knowledge that she had grievously erred by not being honest with her husband.

She must accept this, too.

She pressed a kiss upon Caradoc’s hot hand, thinking of the brief joy they had shared.
Too brief
.

She must be grateful for the time they had together.

Too brief
.

She wet Caradoc’s lips with cool water from the ewer on the table beside the bed. She changed the poultice and forced more of the chickweed brew down his parched throat.

Then she knelt and began to pray.

For it was as Arundel had said, as it had always been.

Caradoc was in God’s hands.

She was kneeling still when Arundel returned at dawn, her forehead on her husband’s outstretched hand.

But when she raised her head to look at the physician, a glorious smile blossomed on her face and tears filled her eyes. For a long moment, she could not speak. Her heart was too full of relief and gratitude, as her prayers had been since the first rays of the morning sun had streaked the sky.

For after the long and desperate days of nursing, the countless urgent prayers and her final, fervent vigil, she had touched her husband’s limp hand.

And discovered that the fever had broken.

Dafydd bit his lip as he walked toward Cordelia. She sat in the kitchen, her shoulders slumped and dark circles under her eyes. None of the inhabitants of Llanstephan, castle or village, had slept easily lately. Only now, as Caradoc lay near death, did the realization that he might someday be gone and another overlord come to take his place seem to occur to them.

Difficult it was to imagine the castle without him in it, more difficult yet to imagine another lord in his place, even Connor the merry, the laughing, the tempestuous. Connor was a charming fellow, they all agreed, but what kind of master would he be? A pleasure for feast times and festivals, but what about the rest of the time? Responsible and dutiful? Not likely.

Eifion had finally angered Bronwyn so much with his gloomy predictions of the future that she had banned him from the tavern.

Gwillym, the maidservants, the spit boy, and the scullery maids warily watched as Dafydd sat on the bench beside the weeping Cordelia.

“No change?” he asked softly.

She shook her head.

“Rhonwen’s taken up some soup,” Gwillym offered quietly, lifting the ladle from the broth he had been stirring in a big iron pot on the massive hearth.

“And something for the physician and my lady,” Lowri added, sniffing and wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. “Worn to nothing, she is.”

“Aye,” Una said, setting out some bread before Dafydd and laying a knife nearby. “She’s going to kill herself taking care of him.”

Dafydd sighed and nodded his agreement. “Many a Welsh noblewoman would leave the nursing to the servants. I think our Caradoc chose well for himself.”

“Yes, he did,” Cordelia declared, raising her tearstained face, her gray eyes blazing. “And I’ll hit anyone who says otherwise!”

Dafydd stroked her arm, as if she were a dog who suddenly snapped. “Aye, but I don’t think there will be anyone saying anything against her now. And thank God for you, too, Cordelia, for fetching the physician. Ah, Rhonwen!”

He jumped to his feet as the young woman appeared at the entrance to the kitchen, a tray covered with a linen napkin in her hands. The activity in the kitchen came to a halt and all eyes turned to Rhonwen as she set the tray down.

“How is he this morning?” Dafydd asked, his whole body tense with anxiety.

A smile bloomed upon her face, as welcome and unexpected as a flower after months of drought. “The fever broke last night. Arundel says he’s going to get better.”

“God be praised!” Dafydd cried.

Then he grabbed her hands, tugged her to him and kissed her full on the lips. And a long kiss it was, too, for it seemed Rhonwen was in no hurry to end it.

Cordelia rose unsteadily, her expression hopeful, yet still wary. “You’re sure?” she asked when they finally parted.

Rhonwen dragged her gaze away from Dafydd’s equally flushed face. “Aye, that’s what he said,” she confirmed. “And look.”

She pulled the covering off the tray she had carried and triumphantly pointed to an empty bowl. “He ate all that soup this morning.”

“Thank God I made his favorite!” Gwillym cried, clasping his hands and raising his eyes to heaven as if his soup was the cure.

Rhonwen addressed Cordelia, sympathy joining with the joy in her expression. “Lady Fiona says you are to come right away to see him.”

Cordelia didn’t hesitate. She ran out the door at once.

Smiling, Rhonwen spoke to Gwillym. “She also says there must be a feast tonight, even if my lord cannot come down for it, or she, neither, for she still won’t leave him, but it’s joyful she is, and the eyes of her when she looks at him—!”

She seemed to realize that she had been rattling on without interruption or censure.

Dafydd sat on the bench and gestured to a spot beside him. “Come sit by me a moment, Rhonwen-the-steadfast-and-fair, and tell us what else the physician said.”

With a shy smile that made her even more beautiful in Dafydd’s eyes, she did.

Fiona reached out to caress Caradoc’s stubbled cheek. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been dead awhile,” he whispered hoarsely, and meaning it.

He had no idea how long he had been abed because of his wound, but judging by the weariness in Fiona’s face, it must have been a long time.

She quickly filled a goblet with water. Sitting sideways on the bed she lifted his head and helped him to drink. That took more effort than he expected, and he fell back, astonishingly weary. “How long have I been sick?”

“Too long. Five days, in fact. You frightened me, Caradoc,” she gently chastised him, happy and tearful at the same time as she again caressed his cheek, his five-day growth of beard rough against her palm.

She assumed what struck him as a distinctly maternal pose. “I
never
want you to do anything like this again,” she said. “First you draw your sword like some sort of tournament champion and nearly get yourself killed, then you hide yourself away like a hermit while your blood gets poisoned.”

His blood had been
poisoned
? God save him, no wonder he had been so sick.

“You must promise me that you’ll never be so foolish and stubborn again.”

“I shall do my best not to be.” He mustered a smile. “But I confess I could grow to like the tending.”

“I shall soon be too busy,” she said pertly.

“I really must stop trying to make jokes,” he muttered. “They never work.”

She smiled, and beautiful happiness sparkled in her green eyes. “I shall be too busy, because I shall have a truly helpless babe to tend.
Our
helpless babe.”