Chapter 30
Fay sat at his bedside, poring over the cumbersome, leather-bound medical tome Great-uncle Edgar had given her after much wheedling. For the week since he’d been brought in, bleeding and unconscious, she had hardly left Tristan’s side. The fear she had felt when she saw him being carried to a room, made worse when Great-uncle Edgar expressed his lack of confidence that Tristan would pull through from such an injury, had led her to realize she’d been fooling herself all those weeks. She wasn’t over Tristan. She still loved him.
She refused to get her hopes up about him feverishly saying he still loved her as well. It would hurt too much if he came to his senses and took it all back, and she’d had quite enough pain for a while. She was sure it was enough for a lifetime, but was also sure there was plenty more ahead of her, thanks to the damn curse. All she could do was put her head down and power through it all, and cling to the hope that she might save Anne if given the chance.
She rubbed her eyes and tried the passage in front of her again. The confusing ancient spelling notwithstanding, it still made absolutely no sense. She only had basic secondary school first aid, and still thought she must have more real medical knowledge than any healer in this time. A lot of what she could make out was frightening rubbish, but she refused to give up. Well, she refused to give up overall, just for now she was going to take a break and rest her eyes by gazing at Tristan.
His face was still a mass of blue and purple bruises, blossoming from an almost perfect oval in the middle of his forehead, seeping down to two black eyes, with his poor crooked nose swollen and tender looking. While he slept, she checked his temperature by resting her palm against the side of his throat, not daring to touch his head. He seemed cool enough, so she flipped aside the blankets and checked his leg. The gash along the side of his left thigh was about ten inches long, and zigzagged with a railroad of black stitches. It was rimmed with yellow-green bruises but, thankfully, the angry red swelling had gone down after the third day. It was a miracle he was alive, without antibiotics or even aspirin. It was a testament to his strength and she felt oddly proud of him. She sighed and tried to push her feelings away. Life was easier without them, but the pesky things wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Lady Fay,” he said, sounding almost normal. His voice was strong, just a bit muffled from his swollen nose. “Are you reading?” He sat up, scowling at her.
She closed the huge book and put it on the bedside table. Its edges hung over the side and he looked at it as if it were a rotten pile of offal, complete with flies.
“Not anymore,” she said, once again feeling the side of his neck for fever.
He captured her hand, pulling it to his lips for a quick kiss, and then smiled. Even though he was a mess, her heart tugged to see that look she so treasured. The back of her hand tingled, but she couldn’t yank it away. He pulled her closer and she closed her eyes, trying to fight those tenacious feelings.
“You’re angry with me,” he stated.
She kept her eyes closed. “No. No, I’m not.”
She had been, thinking he should have believed her without hesitation, and that true love meant absolute trust. But after putting herself in his shoes and imaging if someone she’d dated for a short time burst out that he was from hundreds of years in the future and that he needed her to fall in love with him to break a curse … she laughed brokenly at the memory. Of course she would have run from such a person. She would have discreetly inquired with his family members if, perhaps, he was off his meds and might need their help.
“Look at me,” he pleaded. “Am I so hideous that you can’t?”
Her eyes flew open. “No,” she said hurriedly. “You’re as handsome as ever, bruises and all.” She sighed in defeat at his triumphant smile and tentatively placed her finger, feather light, against the bridge of his nose. “Does it hurt?”
“What hurts is the time I’ve wasted without you,” he told her.
“God, you’re really good at that,” she muttered. Still, she believed him. His pained eyes told the truth. “I don’t blame you for leaving, I really don’t. I wouldn’t have believed me either.”
He glanced at the medical book again, frowning hard enough to make him wince in discomfort. “I will take the chance you may not recover. Once you’re at Dernier Keep, I will do all in my power to make you well again, starting with banning all books. We’ll find you healthier entertainment, my love. If you can’t stay with me for a lifetime, I’ll take whatever I can. I’ll face the fear of losing you. Living without you at all would be greater, I know that now.”
She had to go over what he just said before she could respond and, even then, all she could manage was, “What?” She gaped at him, his eyes still staring coldly at Great-uncle Edgar’s book. “What?” she repeated.
“It’s the reading that’s made you so ill,” he said. “I don’t know why your father allows it, but—”
She burst out laughing, quickly putting her hand over her mouth at his dismayed look. She didn’t suppose cackling inappropriately was helping prove her sanity. “What?” was still all she could say. “First of all, I’m not ill. I’m not insane and I can prove it to you if you let me. But what in the blazes are you on about with the reading?”
“It’s harmful to your humors to learn. Your delicate, erm, lady humors.”
He looked so earnest she tried not to laugh anymore, but she nearly toppled off her chair. She smacked her hand down on the offending book.
“Ugh, more of this kind of science, I suppose? Where did you hear that?”
“Brom told me, but I confirmed it with a monk. A healer who saved me when I was grievously ill with fever.” He wrinkled his face up, once again wincing at the effort. “Or did he only tell me your condition would continue to progress? At any rate, I believe it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
She had to repeatedly tell herself he truly cared about her and her delicate lady humors, and his ignorance wasn’t his fault. As exasperating as it was, she found it sweet how worried he looked. He’d traveled to that monk to ask about her, and wanted to whisk her away to try and save her from her degenerate habits. She patted his hand and got up, going to the door to call for Batty, who she knew would be hovering, waiting to be needed.
Batty came in, clasping her hands in front of her, blinking rapidly at Tristan’s banged up face.
“Batty, remember when I told you I was from another century and came here because of a cursed wedding gown?” Tristan sucked in enough air to create a black hole in the chamber, but Batty only bobbed her head and hurried to the table that had some cleaning up things on it. Fay turned to him and said, “Ask her what I just said.”
“What did your mistress just ask of you?” he demanded, eyes wide.
Batty finished rinsing out a towel and went to his side, gently swabbing at his face. “That I clean your wounds, Sir Tristan. Please let me know if I cause you discomfort.”
He batted her towel away and turned to Fay. “I don’t understand.”
Batty explained that he might feel refreshed if he allowed her to do it, but Fay said, “I told you they only hear what the curse allows. I thought you would be the same but, for some reason, you understood everything.” She took a breath and told him what year she came from, her true last name, her neighborhood in London, the store she worked for. “I took care of the accounts for an entire department, reading, writing, and doing math all day long, and I promise you my humors are fine,” she finished.
Batty stood beside them, the towel clutched between her folded hands. When Fay stopped talking, Batty nodded briskly. “Amen,” she said, returning to the table to tidy up.
“She thinks everything I just said was a prayer,” Fay told him. “Hang on a second, I have more proof.” She ran from the room, up the stairs to her tower, and dug out the book. Returning to him breathlessly, she flung it at his chest. “Take a look at that. Then ask Batty about it.”
He looked down at it with disgust and mild fear, but eventually picked it up between two fingers. When it didn’t burn his flesh, he opened it, and paged through before stopping and squinting down at a passage.
“The writing is odd.”
“I feel the same way about how you lot write,” she agreed mildly. “Let me know if you need help. Here, this one’s particularly interesting.” She leaned over him and turned to the back.
“If you’re reading this …” he shook his head, but she only leaned over again and turned it to the apology letter. It took him a bit of stumbling and mumbling, but he finally looked at her with new eyes. “Batty, come and read me a passage from this book,” he said. The pages trembled in his outstretched hand.
“Certainly, Sir Tristan.” She gave Fay a slight shrug, but took the book and began to recite a poem about morning dew.
“That’s enough, thank you,” he said, waggling his fingers for the return of the book. “You’re dismissed.”
She curtseyed, cast a quick glance at Fay, and left the room, none the wiser that she’d been part of Fay’s sanity plea. Fay waited patiently for him to digest it all, barely able to breathe. When he finally met her eyes again, she could see he believed. He was shaken, as she’d been when she first arrived and had to accept it, but he believed. Relieved tears sprang to her eyes.
“How terrible it must have been for you,” he said quietly, reaching for her hand. “And I must have made it so much worse.”
She took his hand and shook her head. “You couldn’t have believed it without proof. It was easier to think I had an illness.” She stifled a laugh. “I swear to you, though. Our medical knowledge has come a long way in those hundreds of years. Reading or any sort of learning does not harm anyone. Maybe gives you a headache if the light’s bad, but that’s it.”
“Very well, if you say so. I will do better to believe what you say from now on.” He frowned at her mischievous look. “I pray you won’t take advantage of that.”
He pulled her close once again, so that she leaned over the side of the bed, barely still sitting on the edge of her chair. Another slight pull would have her on the bed with him. His blue eyes, competing with the shades of his bruises, drew her in so that no further tug was necessary. Next thing she knew, she was kneeling on the bed beside him.
“I want to kiss you,” she murmured. “But I’m afraid it will hurt you.”
“I daresay we’ve been over this before,” he said, reaching his hand behind her head to lower her face to his.
Their lips touched and it was all the same magic that had been there before, but now it was a hundred times better. Now, he knew who he kissed and he still loved her. It might have been enough that he’d wanted to be with her despite believing she was insane. The fact that he was willing to face her possibly deteriorating into whatever he’d feared she would become warmed her heart. He’d be with her through sickness and in health, she was certain of that now. She couldn’t have settled for that, though. She only believed it would be true if there was only truth between them.
Take that, curse, she thought as his tongue traced her lip. She pulled away, full of alarm.
“Oh, my God, Tristan, the curse.”
“Whatever it takes, we will make sure it is broken.” He smiled at her, and it was as if those harsh weeks she’d spent trying to eradicate him from her heart had never happened.
He gently placed his hand on the side of her cheek and regarded her as if she were a rare painting, something he would cherish forever. It almost made her woozy, her heart was so full. All she wanted to do was hold on to that moment forever. When she realized he was hers now, unreservedly, she leaned forward and put her forehead on his shoulder. Casting back over the course of her life, she knew she’d never been so happy, so content, as she was in that exact moment. Could it possibly be this wonderful for the rest of her life?
“What is it?” he asked, stroking her hair. “Are you not happy?”
“I might be too happy,” she said.
Throwing caution to the wind, she carefully lay beside him, draping her arm across his chest. Great-uncle Edgar wouldn’t check on him for at least another hour and Batty would have died before entering without being asked first.
His chest rumbled under her ear as he laughed softly at her assessment. “I hope you can get used to it. I only want to continue to make you happy. Send for your father and let me settle it at once.”
The relief was palpable, like a clamp being unscrewed and pulled off her chest. She didn’t know which was better, beating the curse fair and square or being so thoroughly in love. She felt so warm and cozy she wondered if her skin might actually be turning pink. For a brief second, she was grateful to the curse, unable to imagine finding such a love in her own time.
But what about Anne? The thought needled its way through her blissful haze and she sat up abruptly, knocking Tristan in the chin.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Why do you suddenly look so pale?” he asked. “What are you sorry for? Tell me it’s for hitting me with your hard head and not because that head has any idea about making me wait to speak to your father.”
She scrambled off the bed and paced, trying to work off the jitters her dilemma gave her. She recalled every kind, sweet, funny thing Anne had done since she’d known her. She was an only child, an orphan, and was miraculously given the chance to have a sister. And such a good one, at that.
If her theory about the curse was correct, it was set to roll over and start again in less than a month. Possibly as soon as a week, but she couldn’t be sure how long she’d actually been there. If she’d figured it out in the beginning, she would have made a tick every day, like a prisoner, to keep track, but up until recently she thought she had all the time in the world.
“Do you recall the first time you came here?” she asked, confusing him.
“Of course.”
“When was it, do you know the date?”
He shrugged. “Close to a year now.”
She flapped her arms. He was no help, but neither did she know the exact terms of the curse. She couldn’t believe she’d been grateful to it a moment ago.
She went to the window and pulled away the covering, hoping the icy blast would clear her head. She stared out at the snowdrifts piled up along the edges of the walls and the great icy clumps that the boys had broken up to be able to open the gates strewn along the edges of the path leading into the outer bailey. She’d thought the snow was beautiful when it first arrived, but now there was too much of it, threatening to cut them off from civilization. She didn’t relish looking at the sludgy grounds beneath the window but if she turned back to Tristan, her thoughts would be clouded by her feelings for him.
Was there a real chance she could save Anne? If there was, surely she had to take it. Perhaps in as little as a week, she could see Anne again. That thought made her fingers jitter restlessly against her sides. Wasn’t that everyone’s dream, to get more time with a lost loved one? And she had the chance to make it come true. But if she took that chance, would she lose Tristan? And then she might fail in her quest to save Anne, and have to go through the pain of her death all over again. She heard Tristan rustling in his bed. A moment later, he stood behind her, holding on to a chair to help support his injured leg.
“Tell me what you’re stewing about,” he demanded. To ease the harshness of his voice, he put his arms around her waist, pulling her back against him.
So warm, so safe, so strong. Could she risk losing him? The passage in the book flashed in her mind. He didn’t remember me. I can’t live through it one more time.
Anne was gone. Tristan was here with her now, holding on to her. A tear slid down her cheek and she closed her eyes against the defeat she felt. She was brought here and tasked to break a curse, a curse that had claimed the lives of at least three others before her. Anne was gone, and that would pain her for many years to come. But the thought of losing Tristan forever was too much for her to consider.
“I’m sorry, Anne,” she whispered, wiping another tear off her cheek. She would let go of her wishful, improbable plan to try and save her, and choose the love and life that was in front of her. She turned in Tristan’s arms and reached around his neck, pulling his bruised and beautiful face to hers for a kiss. Pulling away at last, she searched his blue eyes, finding the answer she’d been seeking. “I’ll send for my father.”