She held little Eddie and kissed his golden curls until his cries ceased and his breathing became regular and deep.
Like her own.
#
It took Elias almost an hour to get out of bed. He swore in his head, for it sapped too much of his strength to speak.
He’d heard her. Her voice, so distressed, telling him her life and what he meant to her, had seeped into his thoughts and pulled him from his deep slumber. His fever had gone but he didn’t know for how long. His thoughts were still jumbled.
A child’s cry had pulled her from the bed. Elias wanted her back.
When he finally reached the draped curtain, he had to lean against the wall to remain standing. He looked into Richard’s room at the bed and Lily holding little Eddie in her arms, with Annabelle sleeping beside her, her small hand on Lily’s.
His wife looked peaceful, content, and happy. It was what he wanted for her. He could die happy.
But he wasn’t about to. She’d asked him to fight this for her. He didn’t intend to lose. But he would admit the battle was a difficult one. Still, not as difficult as thinking her dead.
He watched her sleep. He was tempted to go inside the room and wake her, ask her to come back to him. For he was weary. Too weary, in fact, to go get her.
He forced himself to walk, holding onto a chair and a table for support. He finally reached his bed and fell into it.
His neck and groin were still swollen and sore. His head pounded in his skull and he felt like hell all over. But he remembered her in his arms, in his bed at the inn. He remembered how she felt, so tight around him. He thought of groaning then wondered if it was wise that he should work himself up in such a way. But the scent of her covered him from being in her bed, in her arms. The memory of her smile, her kisses, her voice as she cried out his name made him feel hot again. He wouldn’t die. He wouldn’t leave her.
He fell into a deep slumber and didn’t hear Simon waking up and moving about downstairs. He didn’t see Lily leave her spot next to little Eddie in the middle of the night to prepare some tea for his dearest friend.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lily stayed awake all night with Brother Simon, feeding him her blends, and wiping his forehead with vinegar and water as she had done with Elias.
Strangely, Pip spent the night beside the brother. At first, Brother Simon reacted with fear but Pip purred and the sound seemed to calm him. After an hour, they became friends, with Brother Simon giving in quickly, mostly because he had no choice. Petting the feline seemed to calm his breathing as well. But not enough.
Morning came quickly. Lily didn’t want it to—for with every hour, her dearest friend, Brother Simon grew worse.
She didn’t know why it had waited so long to attack him, or why so viciously? Was it a stronger strain coming from Elias?
“Do you think the children no longer need you?” Lily asked at his feet. She’d done her best trying to make him comfortable, sitting him in an oversized chair with his feet up on a cushioned stool Lily had sewn herself. “Do you think your duty to Elias is over?”
He shrugged his scrawny shoulders under his robes. “Elias has you. I have not seen him so lost to anything—anyone, the way he is lost to you.” He closed his eyes and shivered and coughed beneath his blankets. Pip crawled into his lap and snuggled closer to him. He took a moment to gather himself again. He reached for her hand with a trembling one of his own. “My heart is glad for him,” he reassured her. “I knew he would be well for I saw him struggle to walk to the pulled curtain where you slept. It took him a long time and my heart roared for him in silence. For he is a strong, determined man and one I am very proud of.”
She wanted to be glad Elias had felt better enough to get out of bed but she couldn’t feel happy with Brother Simon so sick.
Oh, how she hated this sickness. How randomly it chose its victims. How quickly it devoured them.
“Brother Simon?”
“Aye, lass?”
“You do realize that you are petting a cat, do you not?”
He smiled and looked down at Pip. “She is soft and not so bad, after all.” He stroked the cat between the ears and was quiet for a moment.
Then he told her, “Beneath all the confidence and bravado, he is still the boy who hid under the bed.”
Lily didn’t think her heart could break for Elias anymore than it already had.
But no time to think on that now. She heard footsteps and looked up at the children coming closer, staring in horror at Brother Simon.
He spoke to them, assuring them that he would watch over them from heaven, but they all wept.