A crease formed on his forehead as his eyebrows pulled close together. ‘That does not make any sense.’
She brushed his fevered mouth with hers. ‘Loving you does not make any sense and I have never let that stop me before.’
Opening the portmanteau, she pulled out a bottle of wine. She uncorked it with shaking hands and held it to Samuel’s chapped lips. She cradled the back of his head as he drank greedily from the bottle and then closed his eyes as if the effort took too much out of him. Setting down the bottle of spirits, she got to her feet and picked up the kettle. She opened the door and Scovell stood right outside it, and she asked if he would boil it for her.
‘And please request the surgeon to come as soon as he is available.’
He merely nodded in reply.
She walked over to the bed and carefully took off Samuel’s soiled bandages—the stench was overwhelming. She gagged. There was a bullet hole on the right side of his chest just below his shoulder. The wound looked an angry red and a yellow pus oozed out of it. Infection was setting in. She remembered hearing Wick say that spirits could ward off infection, so she poured the rest of the bottle of wine over them. Then she pressed out the pus and scrubbed the wound with her red soap and the small jug of water. Taking out a clean sheet from the portmanteau, she ripped it into two-inch scraps. Once she had a pile, she wrapped them tightly around Samuel’s chest and over his shoulder.
Samuel’s eyelids fluttered and his breath was shallow and gasping. ‘I—I did not know if I would see you again. I—I prayed that I would.’
Frederica kissed his bare shoulder and then his cheek and then his brow, before covering him to his chin with the blanket on the bed. It was slightly cleaner than the rest of the farmhouse. She wished that they were back at her mother’s rented house on Rue de Lombard.
Caressing his cheek, she said, ‘You will see me every day for the rest of your life. We are going to grow old together, remember? And you are going to take me around the world. You promised.’
He shook his head slightly on the feather down pillow. ‘I have run out of time, Frederica. It has taken almost all my will to live this long. I was waiting for you.’
Frederica gulped down a sob and laid her head lightly against his good shoulder. She needed to touch him. To feel his feverish warmth. Now that she had seen him, she could not let him go. She would fight with the devil himself to keep her husband.
‘Then you must borrow some of my will. I have enough for two people. Possibly three. I am not losing you again. Do you hear me? Never again. You are mine and I don’t share.’
She heard a light tap on the door. Frederica sat up, and Scovell entered the room with a kettle in one hand and a small cup in the other. Taking them from the colonel, she thanked him for brewing it.
Frederica set down the cup and poured the hot liquid into it. ‘This will help with the pain.’
Holding his head with one hand, she helped Samuel sip it slowly. His skin was still pale, but she fancied he did not look quite as grey.
‘I don’t think I can sip another bit of that awful stuff.’
‘You will. I brewed it myself.’
‘Hire a cook.’
Frederica gave a watery chuckle, but forced him to finish the first cup and drink a second one. His body needed to be cleansed both inside and out. If only she could give him a proper bath. She would burn the clothes he was in.
Samuel gave her another weak smile and closed his eyes. His pulse slowed down and he no longer felt as hot.
He was slipping away from her.
She cupped his prickly cheeks with her hands. ‘If you think after all these years, I am going to let you have your way and die, you are most certainly mistaken, Samuel Corbin. You are going to live. And I am going to frustrate you for the rest of your life... You—you are going to exasperate me to no end. And we—we are going to beso blastedhappy, that we only fight part of the time, instead of all it.’
He nodded so slightly that she almost missed it.
Grabbing his wrist, she eagerly felt for his pulse. It was still there. Samuel had only fallen asleep. Relief flooded over her from her head down to her toes. Where there was life, there was hope. She was a Stringham and they were used to getting their own way.
She intertwined her fingers with his and kissed his hand. ‘This is one argument that you had better let me win.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Samuel’s eyes burned as he opened them. He hoped that this was not hell.
He did not recognise the small room he was in, but he did the woman sleeping next to him on top of the coverlet. It was his wife, Frederica. For a moment, he feared it was a dream. Perhaps he had made it to heaven after all. But then his own odour hit him. He smelled of blood, booze and cow. Turning his head to the side of the bed, he saw a bottle of wine. He picked it up, only to find it empty. It was probably on his chest with the rest of the spirits.
‘Did you have to dump out the Bordeaux?’
Frederica’s eyes popped open and she sat up next to him on the narrow cot. He felt her cold fingers touching his neck for a pulse. ‘Would you have preferred I used a less expensive wine?’