The bed dipped as someone sat on its edge. A rush of cold air made Belle shiver, then burrow deeper into the warm bedclothes. Even with her eyes closed she knew it was Jamie. There was no mistaking his touch as he tucked wayward strands of hair behind her ear.
“Belle, wake. I need you.”
Eyes yet closed, she smiled at the word
need
. Hope kindled for another bout of lovemaking. Rolling onto her back, she reached for him.
Rather than bare skin, it was the fabric of his shirt she felt beneath her fingers. Disappointment was like a bucket of ice water. When had he left their bed?
She sat up, bedclothes clutched to her chest against the room's chill. A new fire leapt and danced on the hearth. Despite its best efforts it wasn’t making much of a dent in either the cold or midnight's shadows. However, it did offer light enough to show her that Jamie wore not only his shirt, but his everyday doublet and breeches as well.
The worry that marked his face woke an answering concern in Belle. “What is it?” she asked, lifting a hand to touch his face.
At first, he leaned his cheek into her palm only to jerk away from her caress as if it pained him. “It's Nick.”
Belle frowned at his rejection of her touch. “He has worsened?”
“Aye. I’ve done all I know to do. Now he’s fevered and struggles for breath,” Jamie said with a tired nod. “Will you help?”
It was guilt she read in his reaction, as plainly as if it were written there. Why? It was her upbringing the supplied the answer. Because this entire wedding had been a mummery to satisfy the queen and now that Squire Hollier had what he wanted, Jamie suffered over how he’d used her.
Humiliation circled in on her like an eagle on carrion. She was a greater fool than Brigit. At least the governess had given only her heart to the man who wished to use her, not her body.
“Tell me,” she demanded, the anger in her voice echoing in the quiet chamber, startling her as much as it did him.
Even then, he couldn’t keep his gaze on hers. His eyes shifted to the side. “Tell you what?”
Belle’s lip curled. He wore guilt like a hair shirt. “Why can I not touch you?” she demanded, determined to wrench the truth from him.
For a long moment, the only sounds in the room were the screech of the wind along the castle’s wall and the crackle of the fire.
Misery touched his handsome features. “Belle, I'm being torn in two. Nick’s nor just my employer, he's my friend. Because of that I owed him my protection. That’s what I gave him this night. But in the doing of it, I endangered you. You,” he reached out to trace a fingertip down the curve of her cheek, “who are sweet and good and loving. You, who deserve my protection as much as Nick.”
“How have you endangered me?” she demanded of him.
“We aren’t married,” he said, his voice low. “We can’t be, no matter what sort of private vows we shared yesterday.” His head bowed. “Dear God, as if it weren't already complex enough with Nick being married to two women at once. What if you come with child?” This was a bare whisper. “If I don’t claim the babe as my own then I'll have made my child Nick's heir and stolen another man’s inheritance from him. But if I do, he'll be my bastard and, you who has done no wrong, will be adjudged a whore.”
With his words, the chains of Belle’s early years shattered. Her mother was wrong. Just because Belle was plain didn’t mean she wasn’t worthy of love. Look how this handsome man so loved her that he fretted over some future and imagined wrong he might have done her.
Easing across the mattress, she knelt at his side and laid her arm across his shoulders. “I think you overrate my fertility,” she told him. “I was four years wed to William Purfoy before his seed took and I was brought to bed with Lucy.”
The man she loved raised his head to look at her. Guilt drained from his gaze only to be replaced by disappointment.
“I never thought I would want children,” he said, then caught her chin in his hand and touched his lips to hers. It was a brief kiss, and when it was done, he came to his feet. “This must be the last time we touch. It will also be the last time that I can tell you of my love for you.” The pain returned to his face. “My duty belongs to Nick.”
Now that she’d held him in her arms and made him one with her, Belle needed more than patience to sustain her as they made their way into the future. “What if Nick were not your duty and I was not the woman your employer must appear to have wed?”
His face softened. “Then my lady, I would kneel before you and tell you that, although I am a poor man without house or lands to offer, my heart is yours. I would beg you to be my wife.”
As he gave her what she so needed, Belle smiled. “And if I were free I would gladly agree to take you as my husband, endowing you with all my worldly goods, such as they are. Now, if we are to be proper once again, you must fetch my robe. I will tend your Nick, who may or may not be my husband doing so on your behalf, for love of you, the man I believe to be my true mate in God’s eyes.”
It was like watching a man drown. Belle would fight Nicholas Hollier's lung infection into remission, the squire would own a few hours' respite, only to sink again beneath the heated waves of another fever. So it had been for the past seven days.
Belle filled a cup with a newly brewed potion, this one sweeter than the last, then paused to wipe at the stray, damp hairs curling along her brow. Despite that the weather outside was unusually cold, it was warm in here. Nay, it was hot, what with toweling jammed against every gap in the windows and doors and the fire at full blaze.
Against the heat Belle wore her bodice without its sleeves and a single skirt atop one petticoat. Jamie, who slept in a chair in the room's corner, wore only his shirt and breeches.
Head spinning in exhaustion, she crossed from the hearth to the bed. There was no one save Peg to spell her. Brigit had no skill in the Art of Physick. Belle would have considered training the young woman, except the governess had been positively morose since Sir Edward's departure from Graceton. At least the nightly tears had stopped.
There were maids aplenty to wipe up the slop and change the linens, but Jamie didn’t feel any of them capable of treating his Nick. Nor would the village healers do, at least not according to Graceton's steward.
And Cecily Elwyn refused to come despite Jamie's repeated trips to her home to plead with her.
As Belle leaned into the bed she grimaced. So many times had she made this movement in the past week that a knot had formed in the small of her back that simply wouldn’t ease. Catching Squire Hollier’s chin in her hand, she turned his head toward her. Yet trapped in the fever’s hold, he offered only a mutter of complaint.
She paid no heed to his scarring as she dipped her spoon into the potion. These past days had made her well acquainted with his disfigurement. She now knew those rigid swirls of skin were far more sensitive than she'd ever dreamed possible. If the water she toweled onto his face was too cool or too warm, his teeth would clench, making it even harder to spoon her potions down his throat.
Had there been no scars, she might have squeezed his cheeks to force open his mouth as she’d done with Lucy in the past. But, the squire’s skin was too stiff for that. All Belle could do was press her spoon to his lips and try to force the thick liquid past his teeth.
He groaned and turned his head to the side. Once again, the stuff that might cure him dribbled from his lips to puddle in the ridges that marked his face and strain the bed linens near his head.
Belle straightened with a jerk. The spoon clattered back into the cup. Thick liquid sloshed over its rim onto her hand. She rubbed it off on her skirt then kneaded angrily at the ache in her back. How was she ever to win out over this infection if she couldn't get anything down his throat?
“Cease, you,” she scolded Graceton’s lord for the first time, giving way to her frustration and anger, certain the fevered man as beyond hearing anything she said. “Or, I vow I'll walk out of here and let you have your wish to die!”
To her surprise, her patient's head turned on the pillow toward her. His eyes opened. She could see him struggle to focus.
“Cecily?” he rasped out.
That startled Belle then stirred hope. She might be able to use the instant to her advantage.
“Aye,” she lied. “Now be a good lad and take this for me.”
Filling the spoon again, she pressed it to his lips. Like a dutiful child, he slurped the potion into his mouth. Then he turned his head to the side and spat it out.
“Faugh, Cecily. You know how I hate the taste of that stuff.”
Jamie stirred in his chair, stretching himself awake.
Belle controlled her frustration and once more filled the spoon. “You’ll take it even if you gag on it,” she commanded her patient. Again, she pressed the spoon to his lips.
Squire Hollier reached up to grab her wrist. The rugged scarring that covered his palm caught on the fabric of her shirt. Blinking, fighting for focus, he stared at her.
“Cecily never forces that stuff on me. Who are you?” he demanded, every inch a nobleman in that instant.
Before she could answer, panic flashed through his gaze. He tried to shift across the bed away from her. “Where’s Jamie? Where's my mask? Go away.”
That he could be worried about her seeing his face whilst he lay dying was irony indeed. Setting aside her potion, Belle caught him by the shoulders to press him back into the mattress then settled to sit at his side. With her fingers she combed at the damp bits of hair that clung to his brow. He relaxed, his eyes closing as he drifted back into his fever.
“Belle?” Jamie's voice rose from the chair. “Is he awake?”
“A little,” she replied without looking up.
Jamie came to stand behind her at the bed’s side. When he glanced at her Belle saw the subtle softening of his features that spoke of his love for her. Then it was gone, eaten by his grief and concern for his employer.
Belle’s heart clenched. What would happen to Jamie’s love for her when the squire died, which he surely would. Would Jamie’s grief prevent him from offering her marriage because, in his eyes, she was his friend's widow?
“How is he?” Jamie asked.
“No better,” she replied softly.
As if he were listening to their voices, the squire stirred. There was a new pace to his breathing. Belle grimaced at the way the air rattled in his lungs. She didn’t know what it was that kept Nicholas Hollier clinging to life, but cling he did.
The squire's gaze shifted toward the sound of Jamie’s voice. His eyes struggled to open. “Where is Cecily?”
“She won't come, Nick, even though it eats her alive to refuse.” His voice was deep with sadness. “She says you are no longer hers to care for.”
Belle heartily wished the woman would change her mind. Any sort of aid in tending this patient would be welcome indeed.
The squire's eyes closed. A moment passed. Belle thought he’d drifted back to his fevered dreams, but his eyes opened again. This time, he turned his gaze toward Belle. It was pain of the heart, not of the body, that filled his eyes.
“She'll come if you ask it of her. Please,” he whispered. “I need her.”
Belle's breath left her in a slow stream of air. It was his life the squire had just placed in her hands. She nodded. “Aye, I'll go to her for you.”
Gratitude darkened his gaze. The tension ebbed from his body, leaving new peace in the way he sprawled upon the mattress. “Thank you,” he said simply.
Sadness and awe filled Belle. He didn’t want his wife here to save him. It was a farewell he needed to say to the woman he loved.
Nick looked to his steward. “Jamie, it's time my brother came home,” he murmured.
Beside her, Jamie caught his breath at the request. The grief on his face deepened. When his steward made no reply, Graceton's master stirred again, blinking as he fought to remain conscious. “Say you'll call him for me,” he whispered.
“Aye, Nick,” Jamie replied, his agreement falling reluctantly from his lips.
Content that what he requested would be done, Nick let himself drift back into his heated sleep. Belle looked at her husband. Jamie leaned his brow against the bedpost. His eyes were closed.
“Damn me,” he whispered. “This is all my fault. If only I’d realized how determined you were not to marry, save for your heart's sake,” he told his employer, then thrust back from the bed. Anger turned his mouth to a harsh line.
“Aye, I'll send for your brother, but you’ll not be shed of life so easily.”
It was a commanding look he sent at Belle. “Go fetch that maid of yours to care for him then meet me in the stables. Once Cecily is here, he'll improve; he always does.”
Whirling, he snatched up his doublet from where he’d dropped it and strode for the door.
Belle stayed where she sat as she watched him go. No matter what Jamie wished, there was no cure for what ailed the squire. Aye, and no matter how gifted this Cecily Elwyn was, the woman was no miracle worker. It was only a matter of time before the Lord took Squire Hollier’s soul home. That much Belle had known the first time she’d listened to the squire cough more than a month ago. At best, all the squire's two wives could do for him was make him easier as he met his end.
A shrieking frigid wind tore through the treetops, sending showers of drying leaves down upon Belle as she guided her horse after Jamie’s along the path. He’d set a swift pace. At first, Belle wanted to shout that all the haste in the world wouldn’t alter matters. Instead, the day's cold, seeming all the sharper after the excessive warmth of the squire’s chamber, ate up any desire to waste energy in complaints.
Belle huddled deeper into her fur-lined cloak then shivered as another gust of wind spattered icy rain against her stockinged-calves. She didn’t have a riding habit and Graceton didn’t own a sidesaddle. Although she didn’t mind riding in her everyday wear, not with her attire already so filthy that a little horse sweat wasn’t going to make them any worse, her skirts weren’t wide enough to cover her legs while she sat astride.
All she wanted now was to be out of this weather, even if meant arriving at Mistress Elwyn's cottage sooner than she cared to consider. God save her, but this whole meeting was awkward. Nay, awkward was what it would have been if the healer were some doxy of whom the squire was fond. Instead, Mistress Elwyn was the woman the squire so adored that he’d defied a queen to have her to wife. This was far beyond awkward.
They were well into Graceton’s parkland before Jamie drew his mount to a halt at the edge of a forest glade. Belle rode up beside him and drew her mount to a stop. The clearing that opened up before her was covered with careful plots, barren now that the herbs had been harvested. To call the building at the glade’s center a cottage was to put on airs. It was more haystack than house, what with grayed and aged thatching extending from roof’s peak to only inches above the ground. A new and neatly painted dark green door filled an oblong opening trimmed out of the thatch. A pair of shutters marked its only window. Except for them, and the distillery meant for the brewing of potions at its back, the hovel gave the impression of being more an elf or animal den than a home.
“This is where she lives?” she asked Jamie in disbelief
“Aye, yon dwelling and this land is all hers,” came his almost harsh response. “Sir Robert Hollier gave full title to Mistress Elwyn’s mother and all her descendants in payment for bringing Nick back to life after his tumble into the fire.”
Belle shook her head. For herself, she couldn’t imagine bringing any injured child of hers to such a wild place, save that she wished that child to die.
When they’d dismounted, Jamie came to catch her mount by the bridle. “We'll leave the horses here,” he said, his tone brusque, as if he meant to break down yon door and wrench the inhabitant from her house's walls.
Belle put her hand on his arm. “I think it would be better if you waited here,” she told him. “As often as you’ve been here, she'll think you’ve only brought me to plead your case for you. Where she might close the door on the two of us, it could be she'll listen if it's only me.”
As she spoke, Belle lifted her hand to his cheek. To her pleasure and surprise, Jamie leaned his cheek into her gloved palm. Even shadowed by his cloak's hood she saw his gaze soften with the affection he yet held in his heart for her. She sighed against it, praying some crumb might survive the storm to come.
“You’re a good woman,” Jamie murmured, catching her hand in his to lace their fingers. “There aren’t many of your ilk who’d even consider doing what you do this day, especially not after the way Nick's misused you.”
Belle didn’t want to be a good woman; she wanted to be proclaimed to the world for what she was, Jamie's wife. With a wry smile, she pulled her hand from his. “I hope I won't be long.”
Leaving him to stand between the two horses for warmth and shelter from the wind, she turned and crossed the plots. A brisk tap on the door announced her arrival. One shutter creaked slightly as it opened and the occupant peered out to see who called. Not even the wind could mask the gasp as the woman within recognized who it was upon her doorstep. The sound of the bar lifting followed then the door opened, its leather hinges groaning.
Cecily Elwyn looked much the same as she had at the church. Her skirt was brown, her bodice red. A white head scarf covered her dark hair. Where only misery had touched her thin face a week ago, it was a far deeper pain that now etched itself upon her visage. After Brigit's ordeal Belle recognized the mark of nightly tears in the dark shadows that clung beneath the woman's eyes.
Then their gazes met. Belle caught her breath. No wonder the villagers accorded Cecily Elwyn a witch. The woman’s irises were a true yellow color, their depths flecked with pale green.
“Lady Hollier,” Mistress Elwyn said as she dropped a wee curtsy.
Perhaps it was the exhaustion, but this struck Belle as funny, or at least ironic. A nervous laugh escaped her as she bobbed in return. “Nay, I think I am only Lady Purfoy. It’s you who are Lady Hollier.”
Fear darted through the healer's eyes. Chewing her lip, Cecily began to back into her home. The movement was worried enough to make Belle regret her attempt at humor.
“Pardon, it was a poor jest and I meant nothing by it. I fear I’m so tired just now that I cannot think.” She stepped inside as she spoke.
It was the squire’s love Belle saw reflected in the wild construct's single room, as if Nicholas Hollier had set about making his wife’s home as comfortable as possible once he found he couldn’t budge her from her forest den. The interior walls gleamed with a fresh coat of whitewash. A plain bed, big enough for two, took up most of the single chamber's one end. Thick blankets and furs covered its mattress.
There was a hovel's usual open hearthstone at the chamber's forward end. A single stool stood near it. Hanging over the flames from a metal tripod was an iron pot, the smell of stewing chicken wafting from it. With no chimney, smoke drifted upward, puddling against the underside of the thatch as gray fingers probed its thickness for the roof's smoke hole.
What little space remained outside of that spoke only of healing. The wall behind the hearthstone was rife with great bunches of drying herbs and roots. More hung from the roof’s narrow crossbeams. Shelves lined the chamber’s back wall. Filling them as neatly as in any apothecary's shop were small jugs, jars, bladders, leather pouches and wee barrels. A small table held two mortars ready for use, as well as an array of small iron pots and bowls. All the equipment showed signs of use, suggesting that however many villagers despised her there were a goodly number who availed themselves of her skills.
“Why are you here?” Nick's wife demanded.
So blunt a question deserved an equally blunt answer. “I’ve come to ask you to return to Graceton.”
“Nay, I cannot.” Despite her hard look Cecily’s voice trembled. “You should be his rightful wife now. Perhaps the steward hasn’t told you. I've requested an annulment. Although it may be a year or more before it’s granted, no one need ever know Nick and I were wed.”
Belle nodded. “He said as much.”
“I can’t go back.” There was a pained intensity to Cecily's voice as she placed her fist against her bodice as if to ease an ache. “For ten years, he was mine. To be near him now knowing I must spurn his every fond look and touch, is more than I can bear.”
Belle sighed, all too well understanding this particular torment. It was no different for her with Jamie. The sense of connection only made the news she bore that much harder to spew.
“You must come back, Cecily,” she said, daring to use the woman’s given name. “It's time.”
The woman beside her drew a sharp breath as she recognized the message in those words. Tears started to her eyes. She blinked them away then shook her head.
“Nay,” she breathed in denial.
“Aye,” Belle told her, laying a hand upon the woman's shoulder. “Squire Nicholas—Nick needs you, Cecily, just as I need your skill to help make him comfortable as he passes.”
Cecily jerked free then backed across the chamber until she collided with the table. The pot rattled. Belle followed then took the healer’s hand. Cecily's work-hardened fingers clenched around Belle's, as if all that kept her standing was the gentlewoman's touch.
“You must have known months ago that he faced this,” Belle said, her voice soothing and low.
The color drained from Cecily's face as her single nod confirmed Belle's comment. Even so, a tear trailed down her cheek. Her mouth pinched as she held back a sob.
Belle laid an arm about the woman's shoulders. “Cecily, what I hear in your husband's lungs says to me that you've had him far longer than our heavenly Father originally intended. Come to him now, content to let him go. Take with you my assurance that as I give him over into your care it’s with no expectation that you hide your love.”
A keening sound escaped the healer. Her hands flew to her face as she buried her cry into her palms. “I'm not ready to let him go,” she mourned into her hands.
“Are we ever ready?” Belle asked, stroking a hand down her sister-wife’s back. “Come now. Find your cloak and we'll be on our way.”
Rubbing the tears off her cheeks, determination came to life in Cecily’s gaze. “What am I doing, grieving for him already? Where there is life, there is hope. A moment, my lady, while I gather the things I'll need for him. It’s fever and the filling of his lungs that plagues him now?”
“Aye,” Belle replied, then dared a tiny smile. “I was hoping you’d have something to offer him. God knows, he'll take nothing I make for him.”
Cecily laid a coarsely woven sack upon the table and began pulling items off the shelves on her wall. “Take no insult from his refusal, my lady. He'll accept only half of what I brew for him, and that only because I’ve given way to tears as I begged him to it.”
“I've noticed he's not at all an easy patient,” Belle said, making herself useful by dousing the flames on the cottage's hearthstone with water from a bucket, then laying the pottery cover atop it.
Cecily paused to shoot a wet and wary look over her shoulder at the woman who should have been her lady.
“Why are you doing this when I have stolen your husband from you?”
Wiping her ashy hands on her skirt, Belle smiled. “How can you steal from me what I never wanted? Besides, I’ve thought much about you since the wedding day. You and I, we are much alike I think.”
Cecily's brow creased in surprise. “We are? How so?”
“Neither of us are great beauties,” Belle said then realized how odd the comment sounded. “Pardon, I hope you don’t mind me saying so.”
Nick's wife only laughed. “I’ve never had any pretension to beauty, knowing what I am. How else are we alike?”
Grateful that she’d offered no insult, Belle continued. “We’ve both been scorned by those around us. And we both love a man it seems we're bound to lose.”
“Ah,” Cecily said with a swift smile as she turned back to gathering items off her wall. “But if you’re not married to Nick, why do you worry over losing this man you love?”
“I fear his love for me won’t endure past the squire's death,” Belle replied before she realized what her words revealed.
Cecily whirled to look at her. Intelligence gleamed in the woman’s strange eyes as she added the sums and read its total. “It’s Jamie you love,” she breathed in astonishment.
Belle grimaced. Once again she bumbled, spewing the truth instead of dissembling as a lady should. “We’ve done naught improper,” she said, only to realize that this wasn't true, not if Jamie was right about them not being married.
Drawing the string on her sack, Cecily smiled, her grin weak. “Of course not. Jamie's not one for impropriety.”
Her amusement faded and she sent Belle a rueful look. “You’re wise to fear Master Wyatt’s reaction. For far too long he’s lived only to satisfy Nick's need for him.”
Tears rose to fill Belle's throat as she heard confirmation of what she’d seen on Jamie's face. “So it seems,” she sighed.
“You're right,” Cecily said, coming to stand beside her. “We are much alike. I'll offer you my sympathy, guessing at the sorts of burdens you've borne and share with you my joy at finding a kindred soul.”
She dropped into a deep curtsy. “Thank you for coming to me this day. You’ve done me more kindness than I deserve.”
A wry smile touched Belle’s lips as Cecily rose. “Enough of that. If you’re ready, it's time we returned.”
Cecily's nod was brief and filled with confidence. “I am ready, my lady.”