Chapter 12
“Hear me out, man! You can’t go another hour without rest!”
Adam shook his head, though he knew Donovan was right. He’d never felt so exhausted after what had been the worst two days of his life.
He glanced from the door where he stood with Donovan to the bed where Linette appeared to be peacefully sleeping, though in truth, she still lay unconscious and had yet to open her eyes after the trauma she’d suffered. Dear God, if she didn’t stir soon he feared she might never wake!
“Adam, let me sit with her while you go lie down. Miss Biddle made up a room for you just down the hall. I’ll let you know at once if anything changes.”
Adam exhaled heavily, no longer surprised by the Duke of Arundale calling him by his given name. These past few days had bonded them as fast as brothers, which meant more to him than he could say. Reluctantly, he nodded, but he couldn’t leave without first checking on Linette one more time. He strode back to the bed, Donovan not far behind him.
“Her breathing is steady and calm, a good thing. There’s no festering in her wound and I just changed the bandage a few moments ago. If only she would open her eyes…”
Donovan’s expression as solemn as his, Adam could not help but stand there staring at her, the grievous injury she’d suffered filling him with fury.
The shot from the pistol had penetrated the top of her left shoulder, but fortunately had exited without shattering any bones. Yet she’d bled so much, a stark memory that made him grit his teeth. Add to that the purplish bruise on her right cheek where her captor had struck her, the whole terrible incident tearfully recounted by Estelle, and Adam wished he’d been the one to kick those bastards’ bodies into their unmarked grave. Yet he’d been occupied doing everything he could to save Linette’s life—
“We mustn’t lose hope,” Donovan said quietly, interrupting the dark turn of Adam’s thoughts. He nodded, and bent down to lift one of Linette’s slim hands in his own. Warm, but not too much, though she didn’t respond to his touch at all. Not even a flicker of her dark eyelashes against her pale skin.
“Go on, Adam. I’ll sit here right by the bed.”
“Very well.” His reluctance to leave her almost choking him, he nonetheless knew he needed to rest. The thought of lying down for even an hour or two made him feel twice as exhausted.
Without another word he left the room, not surprised to find a somber maidservant awaiting him to lead the way. Clearly, Donovan had been determined this time that Adam heed him.
His gut clenched as he walked down the hall, every footstep taking him from Linette’s side like a physical pain. Yet he could not deny that the freshly made bed inside the comfortable lamplit room beckoned to him. As the maidservant closed the door behind him, Adam sat down in an overstuffed wing chair to tug off his boots.
He never made it that far. Leaning his head back and closing his eyes, he was asleep before the mantel clock finished chiming eight o’clock in the evening.
***
“Adam! Did you hear me? Wake up!”
“W-what?” Jarred so abruptly from sleep, Adam for a moment wasn’t sure where he was…until he saw the grim look upon Donovan’s face. He jumped up from the chair, staggering until Donovan caught him and steadied him with a firm grip on his arm.
“It’s Linette, Adam. She’s awake.”
He didn’t need to hear more, a quick glance at the clock in the flickering lamplight showing half past two o’clock. He lurched for the door, the draperies pulled so tight he had no idea if it was deep in the night or early afternoon—
“Easy, man!” Donovan steadied him again, but this time he held on tightly to Adam’s arm to prevent him from lunging into the hall. He appeared older, his face lined with worry. “She’s awake, Adam, but she didn’t recognize me. Miss Biddle sat near the bed, too, and Linette didn’t know her, either—by God, what has happened?”
Adam didn’t answer, but wrested his arm away and careened into the hall. Yet by the time he reached the door to Linette’s room, his senses couldn’t have been more acute in spite of his hammering heart.
She was awake! She was awake!
He burst into the room so abruptly that Miss Biddle exclaimed in surprise, but she moved out of the way as Adam rushed to the bedside. He thought he might sink to his knees in relief at Linette’s lovely brown eyes fixed upon him, though her sudden grimace of pain forced him at once to calm himself.
That, and the distress that followed, Linette crying out as she tried to shift in bed.
“No, you must lie still,” he said in a voice he scarcely recognized, hoarse, ragged. He swallowed hard, telling himself fiercely again that he must tamp down his rampant emotions. She needed him to be a doctor at that moment, only her doctor!
He could see that in addition to her pain, she appeared confused, her brow knit as she stared at him. He waved for Miss Biddle to hand him a glass of water.
“You must drink, Linette,” he urged her gently, leaning down to lift her head from the pillow. “You’ve been asleep for several days—”
“Linette?”
His heart sank at that moment, but he nodded. “Yes, that’s your name, Miss Linette Easton. I’m Dr. Whitaker…Adam.”
He saw on her face not a flicker of recognition, and he almost faltered as he raised the glass to her pale lips. To his relief, she began to drink thirstily, but he only allowed her a couple swallows before he laid her head back down upon the pillow. “A little for now, all right?”
She nodded, which gave Adam hope that she responded so readily to his question. A good sign, in spite of appearing not to recognize him or anyone else standing around the bed. He glanced at Donovan and Miss Biddle, and kept his voice low.
“I’ve seen this before. A loss of memory after serious injury…but it usually resolves itself within a few days. At least she’s awake—thank God, for a short while, anyway. She’ll probably sleep again soon…”
A soft sigh made Adam fall silent. He glanced back at Linette to find she had turned her head to one side and fallen asleep, and only then did he see that his hand holding the glass of water trembled.
“Here, let me take it.” Miss Biddle gently took the glass from him, her eyes filled with compassion. “If I may say so, sir, you’re a good doctor.”
Donovan nodded at the foot of the bed, though his expression remained grim. Adam knew what he was thinking before he even spoke. “A few days, you said?”
“Maybe only hours. Maybe much longer. Her body has suffered a severe shock. One can really never tell…”
Donovan’s resigned sigh echoed the pall that seemed to hang now in the room even though their fervent prayers had been answered.
Linette had awakened. She had survived the worst hours when death had hovered so near to claim her.
Now Adam bowed his head, Miss Biddle setting the glass upon the bedside table to stand with her hands folded beside him. Donovan heaved a ragged sigh and abruptly left the room as if this latest revelation was too much for him to bear.
Adam didn’t blame him. To see only confusion in Linette’s eyes when he’d hoped so to hear her say his name or see her muster a weak smile? He’d heard of gravely injured patients that never regained their memory, their past existence a blur to them, which made him begin to pray.
Not this, dear God. Please…not this.
Late March, 1820
Arundale Hall, Hampshire
“Oh, yes, Aunt Linette, the daffodils are pretty, aren’t they?”
Linette nodded at the sweet child standing next to her chair, Paloma’s wide-eyed wonder making her smile. Bright yellow daffodils bloomed as far as the eye could see around the palatial mansion where her family resided, the flowers swaying in the soft spring breeze.
Her family. So she had been assured they were from the moment she’d arrived at Arundale Hall two months ago, their love and care and doting attention soothing her and giving her courage, especially in those moments when she struggled to remember more about them.
Like now. Paloma had brought a pair of her favorite dolls outside into the garden, and had chattered on about how Linette had given one of them to her at her birthday party last year at their house in Porthleven. Except Linette couldn’t remember that party or giving her the doll or even Paloma, for that matter, at least no further back than when she’d been introduced to all of Donovan and Corie’s children upon her arrival in Hampshire.
And whenever she tried too hard to remember, knowing how much the return of her memory would bring joy to her family, she felt a dull pain in her head, which lingered still.
She had done her best to divert Paloma from asking her about the doll to admiring the daffodils instead, but she’d known her tactic wouldn’t work for very long. Already her young niece had reached for the doll that she’d settled in front of a miniature tea set arranged on the blanket spread upon the grass.
“Mama gave me this tea set at my birthday party, too. I wish you remembered, Aunt Linette. We laughed so much and ate the most scrumptious lemon cake.”
Sighing inwardly, Linette reasoned that in her own innocent way, Paloma was trying to help. Yet she could only shake her head and shrug, which made her flinch at the sudden dart of pain in her mostly healed left shoulder.
“Miss Paloma, time to go inside!” called out one of the two nannies watching the children today in the garden. The young woman in her white starched cap and prim uniform rushed toward them with an apologetic look upon her face. “Forgive me, Miss Easton. Dahlia and Draydon were squabbling—”
“It’s all right,” Linette cut in gently, the day an unusual one when Corie wasn’t out here as well with her children, especially on such a sunny afternoon. The poor nanny looked a bit overwhelmed as she took Paloma by the hand.
“Shall I send for someone to walk with you inside, Miss Easton?”
“No, I’ll be fine, truly. I’d like to sit here for a while.”
The nanny bobbed a curtsey and then hustled Paloma away, the beautiful child glancing over her shoulder to wave at Linette.
That made her sigh, too, but she wouldn’t allow herself to be sad. Not when she was surrounded by so many people that cared about her and only wished for her to get better—
“How was your little tea party?”
The sound of Adam’s deep voice behind her made Linette suck in her breath. She tried to compose herself as she lowered the frilled parasol that matched the pale yellow of her gown and twisted around in her chair to smile at him.
“Fine, if you enjoy imaginary tea and biscuits.”
“Ah, then, we should scrounge up a real cup of tea, shouldn’t we? It’s about that time of day…and perhaps you’ve had enough sun for one afternoon.”
“Always the physician, Adam Whitaker. You can’t help yourself, can you?” She feigned a sigh, enjoying teasing him more than she cared to admit. He seemed to enjoy it, too, from his broad smile, and had told her more than once that her banter was a sign of how far she’d come since her injury.
Adam looked so handsome today, more than she’d ever admit as well. He was her doctor after all, though Donovan, Corie, and Estelle treated him as a brother and the children, a devoted uncle.
He’d moved into Arundale Hall after accompanying her from Cornwall at the end of January, taking a room in the opposite wing from hers. Adam had told her soon after she’d regained consciousness that he intended to dedicate himself to her care until he was certain she no longer needed him…though Linette couldn’t imagine such a day. In truth, she couldn’t imagine life without him at all.
He stared at her now, just as she stared at him, a masculine hint of orange and sandalwood causing the niggling pain in her head to reappear. He had told her, too, that he’d arrived in Porthleven just before Christmas, so she hadn’t known him long at all before she’d been hurt.
She wished so desperately that she could remember kissing him beneath a ball of mistletoe, as Paloma had recounted more than once, giggling all the while. Or that Linette had grown to like him very much in so short a time, as Estelle had insisted, though her younger sister had claimed they had seemed at odds more often than not.
Why? Over what? She liked him so much now, and they weren’t at odds at all. He’d been so good to her, so kind, and so reassuring when her head hurt as she tried so hard to remember—
“Easy, Linette. You cannot force things,” he said gently, his expression grown sober as she rubbed her aching temple. “Let’s go find some tea.”
He helped her up from the chair, always the gentleman, always so attentive, and offered her his arm to walk with her toward the house.
A gentle breeze blowing. The daffodils a brilliant yellow in the sunlight. The spring grass so green and fragrant and the sky so blue. A perfect afternoon…just like the one when she and Estelle had gone riding—
“Adam.” She swayed slightly, grown dizzy from the sudden sense of elation that swept her. “I just remembered something, I’m certain of it. That day Estelle and I went for a ride…the blue sky with no clouds at all…”
He drew her closer, his gaze intently searching her face, when just as suddenly the window of light that had opened in her mind seemed to slam shut. Try as she might, she couldn’t recall anything else of that day, her head beginning to throb.
“I…I think perhaps I should lie down.”
He nodded, not hurrying her through the garden but not delaying, either, until at last they reached the double doors leading into the house. They had no sooner entered the high-ceilinged foyer when Donovan’s voice rang out from the direction of the library.
“Adam, I must speak with you.”
Wondering at her brother-in-law’s urgency, Linette let go of Adam’s arm. “Go on. I’ll be all right.”
He didn’t appear convinced, and waved over one of the liveried footmen from the opposite side of the massive foyer.
“Accompany Miss Easton to her room.” Then, to Linette, “I’ll come upstairs to check on you as soon as I can.”
Touched more than she could say by his unflagging concern, she nodded and then he was gone, striding to the library.