Twenty-four

He didn’t wake up that day or that night.

When someone else was in the room with them, Kate bore up with great good cheer. “He must be tired,” she told Declan when he was ushered in, curious to view the invalid. “He needed a rest from our talking,” she suggested to Nora, who entered next. “He’ll wake as soon as he’s ready for another fill of words.”

“I don’t talk nearly as much as Declan,” Nora pointed out. “And he looks horrid.”

“That’s because beef broth spilled all over, when it ought to have gone into his mouth. You looked the same when I fed you broth as a baby.”

This was startling and intriguing enough that Nora had several more questions. Instead of leaving, she was persuaded to stay and tend Uncle Evan. “But only with water,” she said. “He’s already enough of a mess.”

“I agree,” said Kate, who marveled at how easily Nora took on a grown-up role.

That was something good to come of this time in the sickroom. And the chestnut horse Evan had ridden out had come back safely to the stable.

When Kate was alone, between the comings and goings of servants and her children, those seemed the only good things. Evan’s breathing was still steady and shallow, but nothing else changed. He was there in the bed, looking whole and ready to wake, but he was not really there at all.

Kate realized this in the wee hours of the morning, when night had already been endless, yet hours of it remained. A lamp flickered on a table beside Evan’s bed, and the dancing paleness of its light cast ghoulish shadows over Evan’s face. Was he moving? Was that a twitch of an eyelid? No—only the movement of the light, leaving behind a hollow shadow. Evan looked already to have receded, his skin drawn tight.

“I’ll give you some water,” Kate said, for something to say.

When she took the glass in hand, she was shaking, and she set it down before she slopped it all over Evan’s face. Her fingers were claws, stiff and tired. The water was no more than the bandage about his head, a means of pretending to treat an injury she could not understand.

She sank back into her chair, folding her arms at the edge of the bed, and looking at Evan, chin in hands. Could one be exasperated with someone whose life flirted with its end? She shouldn’t be, probably. But she was. “You went looking about for smugglers, stubborn man. I would have gone with you. But you wouldn’t have that, would you? You were the perfect friend to Con. You owed him, you thought.”

Shallow breathing, slow and steady.

“Good response. Right. I’ll pretend you’ve said, ‘I did owe him, Kate.’ And I’ll be glad, because he was lucky to have a friend like you, and I’ll be angry, because you put yourself in danger for a man beyond help. And I’ll be worried, because I never suspected there was any danger at all. I still don’t know the shape or source of it.”

God, she wished he would move. She would give anything to hear one of his flip replies, teasing her to unexpected laughter, or to see his eyes crinkle with sharing it.

Sitting at his side, keeping this vigil, was like finding the shape of grief.

“I would give anything,” she said quietly. “Anything mine to give. But that’s easily offered, isn’t it? The Almighty will not come down and demand this house in exchange for your recovery.”

If she were offered such a trade, she’d take it without hesitation.

“I know what you think you owe Con. And I know what you owe yourself. I do not know what I owe you, though. Or is owe the right word? I do not know what I can give, or what I ought. I was the perfect wife to Con, and I tried to be the perfect friend to you. The perfect mother, the perfect countess. But I became all cut up inside, and then you wanted a bigger piece.”

Was that right? That didn’t seem right. He had never wanted to divide her. Evan had told her she was just right. Evan had nicknamed her the rogue housekeeper, laughing.

Evan hadn’t wanted a piece, no matter how large or small. He had wanted her wholeness. He had given her children encouragement to step back into her arms and had not asked a place for himself.

He had wanted her happy and whole, and—and how could she not have understood? When he dropped the word love into their argument, it carried a sting. A bitter word, unwilling, with a tired, thin shape. The sort of word one flung at another out of obligation. Love unwanted was a painful thing. That he loved, and that it was unwanted, was what he had felt, and she could have sunk with sorrow at the realization.

She had forgotten that a different sort of love, the bedrock sort, could exist too, and so she had not recognized it for what it was. She had come to think of love as flashing and bright, plummeting and intense. The falling star, not the earth on which it landed.

As grief took many forms, so did love, its happy twin. It came in a disguise, behind the face of a friend. It spoke with a familiar voice. It shared her heart by adding to it, a bounty she had never expected.

“I love you,” she said.

In a fairy tale, this—along with a kiss—would have brought the sleeping prince magically awake. Evan reacted not at all.

But what if he could hear her in some way? What if some part of his spirit might respond to her words? She would bother him into staying. She would persuade him to wake, just by wanting it so damned much. Her heart beat for two.

“I’ve hurt you. I said I didn’t want anything to change between us, but I took every intimacy you would give. I was so selfish. I hope—that is not the way I always was. I hope that in itself was a change. And if I would change for the worse, why should I not change for the better? I don’t want to be fearful, Evan. I fear losing you, so much right now. I feared losing you the first time I saw you again in Cambridge. That fear is from love—but I’ll act on the love now, not the fear. I would lose you by risking nothing, so instead I will risk everything. Only wake, and I will show you.”

These words were not persuasive enough to initiate a medical miracle.

“Let’s try water again. The doctor thought it would help.” She rose on legs made unsteady by fatigue, fumbling for the glass. The flicker of the lamp, or her own bleary eyes, caused her to misjudge the distance, and instead of gripping it, she tipped it. Cool water hit Evan in the face before Kate’s wet fingers righted the dripping glass.

“Sorry about that.” She felt for a cloth then wiped his face with the edge of the sheet. “We seem to be short on handkerchiefs. Again.”

His lids moved. She was not imagining it this time, was she? No, it was not the flickering light. Dark lashes rose, fell again. The shallow breath became deeper, like the catching of breath after a long sleep.

“Kate,” he mumbled. “Water.”

She all but collapsed into her chair, then drew it closer to the bedside. “Yes. I’m here. Kate. Water. I threw it on you, but—maybe that was good, because you’re awake. Are you awake? Do you want water?” She took up the glass again, carefully, and cradled his head so he could take a sip.

“Why…?” His voice was thready and faint, his body still. She set aside the water and leaned close to his lips, listening. “Why do I smell like a butcher shop?”

She snorted. “That, of all questions, is your first? There was an incident with beef broth.”

“What happened?”

“Nora and I spilled it when we were trying to get you to take some. I took off your cravat and collar, but you ought to have a bath.”

His expression altered—a flicker of oh, please, you know that’s not what I mean. His hand moved, fingers flexing toward his head.

“You were hit on the head.”

A tiny nod. “A stone. Grazed me.”

Kate sat up straight. “A footpad threw a stone at you?”

“No, it fell. In the castle.”

“If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were delirious. But I do know what you mean. You went looking for evidence of those statues.” Kate cursed. “Was there a footpad at all? Were you by the Suir?”

“At Loughmoe.”

Kate cursed again. “Driscoll fed me a pack of lies. Or the men who took you to Driscoll fed them to him.” Far less palatable than potatoes, these were.

“My coat…the cinch…” His hand made a wave, a grasp.

“Your coat’s here. You had the cinch with you? There is nothing in the pockets now. Those footpads have unusual preferences.”

“No footpads. Old stone,” Evan mumbled. “Good way to be injured. Noble.”

The crook of his mouth, more than his fragmented words, told Kate he was making a joke. Relief was like a wave. “Yes, Evan. If one must be hit on the head, it should be by an old stone from a castle.” She smoothed back his hair, for a reason to touch him. “Now I know you will recover. And wasn’t I the one who was supposed to be hit on the head by a stone? You’d come up with all these ways for me to meet my end.”

“Had to test it for you. Seems it wasn’t a good idea after all.”

“I believe that. It won’t kill you, but it’ll make you powerfully determined.”

He moved a hand, brushing hers, and she caught it. “Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” he mumbled. “But Con was contrary.”

A random observation, but she took it in stride. “He certainly was. That was part of his charm, wasn’t it?”

“Too much.” His eyes were closing again, his voice growing fainter. “He said he’d care for her and the boy. He should have cared for all of you.”

“What?”she whispered, doubting her own ears. “Cared for whom?”

“Mary, Mary,” Evan said again. His eyes closed, his breathing slowing in the fall of sleep.

Kate stretched out beside him on the bed, boneless. Puzzled. And yet…not, exactly. Evan’s words had the ring of familiarity, something she’d learned but never allowed herself to know.

His longtime mistress had had his baby, and that mistress’s name was Mary. This much Kate had long known. Everyone in Ireland, it seemed, knew. Con had built two families for himself, and he had provided for neither.

What could have created a permanent breach between Con and Evan but a matter of honor? Con could not be brought to care for the welfare of others, but he could not bear to be criticized for it. The appearance of honor was the only thing Con held fast to. Everything else was a possession to be admired, then forgotten.

Queasiness seized her, and she rolled from the bed and scrabbled for the chamber pot. She was sick into it, again and again, until she was heaving nothing but sour air.

This was what she had feared: not change she chose, but change in spite of herself. Change that rocked her world and made it unfamiliar. The two men she loved both hid secrets from her: Con to protect himself, Evan to protect his friend.

Oh, God—and they thought they were protecting her too, didn’t they? Keep this from Kate. She’s better off not knowing the truth. They could apply this to debt, to smuggling, to anything they wished not to bring into the light.

As if it could ever be better to live a lie that might crumble. Who was helped by hiding the truth? By pretending everything was fine, and they were all content? As long as they pretended, such contentment could never become real.

You are not perfect, but you are just right. If this were true, why hadn’t she been enough for Con? If she were just right as a wife, why had her husband strayed? Why hadn’t he cared about anyone’s well-being but his own?

Or maybe that was what one did, if one were an earl and one’s wife was just right. She hadn’t divided herself into pieces alone. The more she tried to be for Con, the more diminished she became. Yes, he was the one who had strayed, but they had first become unhappy together.

With watering eyes, Kate covered the mess in the chamber pot with a cloth. Her hands were steady now, steady as Evan’s breathing. He slept, and he would wake when he was ready. Already the night promised to end, the black outside the windows turning to gray.

“Some grays are good.” She watched him sleep, innocent of what he’d shaken within her.

It was for the best: that she knew. Right now, he slept on. His task was to heal. Hers? To stop being such a damned fool and to learn all she could. Con had left more affairs unsettled than even Kate realized. She would put them right—not for his sake, but for everyone else’s.

Easing open the door, she looked for a servant who might spell her at Evan’s bedside. Instead, she spotted two huddled figures in nightshirts, sitting in the corridor outside the bedchamber.

“Declan. Nora.” You know you have a half-sibling, right? And as much as I worry about money, the baby’s mother must. More so.

She was so surprised to see them that she almost spoke the words uppermost in her mind. They deserved to know, but there was much more she needed to learn first.

She crouched beside them, the lamplight from the room filtering over their pale, tired faces. “You must be worrying over Evan. He’s sleeping now, but it’s the good sort of sleep.”

Nora sagged against Kate. “Will he be all right?”

“He made a joke about being happy to be hit on the head by an ancient stone, so I think he will be absolutely fine.”

“We want to see Uncle Evan,” Declan said.

She hesitated. “He’s not your uncle, you know. And the room smells of sickness and old beef broth.”

Nora peered at the doorway, wrinkling her nose. “We can see him after the room is cleaned. And he’s better than our uncle, because we don’t have to call him uncle, but we want to. You and Da picked him as our godfather.”

“And he picked us to spend time with,” added Declan. “So he wants to be in our family.”

Did he?

They were so beautiful, these young people. She’d had a part in creating them, but they were not of her. They were themselves, better than she could ever have imagined.

She smiled, wanting to ruffle their hair, but restraining herself. “How did you two get to be so certain of everything?”

They looked at her blankly. “What is there to be unsure of?” asked Nora.

“A fine question,” Kate said. “Right now, it is the one uppermost on my mind—above all the other things.”

“It must be horrid being a countess,” said Declan.

“Sometimes it is. Sometimes it has its benefits. But being a mother is even better.” She dropped kisses on their heads, then stood. “Keep watch on the lamp for a moment, will you? I need to find someone to take my place in there.”

And then? She’d find the answers to her questions. Likely she could find out most of them without even leaving her household, for servants knew everything that was going on upstairs and down. A servant raised in Thurles, native to the land and raised among the longtime families, would know even more. Would know where to look for answers that she didn’t possess herself.

With quick steps, Kate followed the corridor from Evan’s bedchamber to her own suite of rooms. She opened the door and crossed to the nook belonging to her lady’s maid, Susan.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, shaking the shoulder of the sleeping maid until she turned over, startled awake. “It’s so early, I know. But Susan, you must tell me whatever you can.”