Chapter 32
January 7, 1883
The room was so dark when he opened his eyes, Jack wondered if he’d gone blind. In any event, he had a blinding headache.
He’d been foolish, racing to get back to Nicola, convinced that something was wrong when she didn’t turn up behind him. He pictured her falling again, immobile on the ice, unable to call for help.
There was something wrong all right. He couldn’t move. It was he who was immobile.
He tried wiggling a toe. Whether he was successful or not, he couldn’t tell. All of him felt stiff and sluggish, as if he were encased in wet sand. He closed his eyes, since there was no point in keeping them open, remembering the sudden slip and flip through the air, the obdurate black tree waiting to stop him.
Was he lying in his coffin? No, a bed, even though the mattress seemed to be made of stone.
Jack wrestled with the quilt to free an arm so he could touch his sore head. He was apparently turbaned like some sheikh. Where he could reach, he patted down the rest of his body and discovered he was strapped to a wooden board, thick lashings of leather cutting into his bare chest.
No wonder he was so uncomfortable.
Jack didn’t think he was in Tulip Cottage. The whole place didn’t smell right. Not that the odor was bad, just different. Odd spices and laundry soap and…dog. Damp dog.
“Hey!” he called out in the darkness. A muffled bark came from beyond the door, so his nose hadn’t failed him.
The door burst open, a shaft of light falling into the room.
“Jack, you’re awake!”
His ears weren’t failing him either. The woman’s voice was scratchy. Soft, barely above a whisper. Silhouetted by the lamplight behind her, he couldn’t see her face, but he knew. It was Nicola.
And she had spoken.
Perhaps he was dead after all.
“Ham, please wake Dr. Oakley and tell him his patient is alert,” she rasped.
Who was Ham? It didn’t matter. Nicola was here, still in her skating costume, her fair hair loosely braided over one shoulder. She resembled an angel he didn’t deserve.
“Come closer,” Jack said. “Is it really you?”
Her shadowy form hovered over him. “It is really I.” She clasped his hand and squeezed.
“Where are we?”
“Ham Ross’s farm at the bottom of Honeywell Lane. He heard me when I found you.”
“Heard you. You are talking,” he said in wonder.
“And screaming, I’m afraid. My throat hurts, and Dr. Oakley has forbidden me to speak.”
“And she’s not paying a bit of attention to me,” the old doctor said, coming into the room bearing an oil lamp. “Go finish your tea, Miss Nicola. The honey in it will do you good. Ham’s own bees, you know.”
“No, thank you. I’ll stay.”
Jack tried to sit up, forgetting that he was tethered. “What’s wrong with me? Why am I tied up like this?”
“Just a precaution. You slammed into a tree, my son. Head first. We thought it best to keep you still until all your parts are back in working order.”
Good God. Was he paralyzed? He tried wiggling his toes again and again couldn’t tell.
“If you insist on staying, hold the light for me, will you, my dear?”
Nicola took the lamp and she was limned in gilt. Jack blinked against her beauty, then the glare. Dr. Oakley tutted, then held Jack’s eyelids open with two fingers.
“Hm.”
“Hm what?” Jack asked.
“Your pupils are enlarged, and don’t quite match. Do you feel dizzy?”
Did he? Apart from being trussed up like a Christmas goose and the horrible headache, he was fairly jubilant. Nicola was talking! Well, whispering. It was a post-Christmas miracle.
“I’m not sure. Can one feel dizzy lying in bed?”
“I assure you, one can. Is the room spinning? Can you see more than one of me?”
Jack didn’t want to look at the doctor when golden Nicola was right there. He focused on the doctor’s nose. “No, sir. Just you.”
“That’s an excellent sign. I examined you while you were unconscious, and I don’t think you’ve broken any bones. You have a hard head.”
“So my mother always told me.” An awful thought leaped into his hard head. “You haven’t notified her, have you?”
“It’s my understanding she’s in the south of France. And it’s the middle of the night, son. I thought it could wait until morning.”
When Jack had signed himself into Puddling, he’d had to list next-of-kin. As tempting as it might have been to declare himself an orphan, he did not.
“I believe so, yes. For the winter. I don’t think she needs to be disturbed. She wouldn’t be of any use at all. Not good in the sickroom, my mother.” Quite the understatement. “I’m sure I’ll be tip-top in no time.” He took another stab at the toe-wiggling.
Nothing.
“So we hope. But in the meantime, Ham has agreed to take you on as a boarder—you shouldn’t be moved just yet.”
“Can he cook?”
Dr. Oakley chuckled. “The man is a marvel in the kitchen. However, don’t get any ideas about seven-course dinners. It will be nursery fare for you while you recover—simple, easily digestible foods suitable for the sickroom. Tea. Hot soup. Oatmeal.”
Damn. The same old rubbish. Thwarted again.
“How soon can I get up?” Jack had half a mind that he needed to use the privy.
“Not for a day or two. We’re stabilizing your spine after the trauma you experienced, you see. You took quite a jolt. We want to monitor you for a concussion too. It seems I’m forever stitching up foreheads,” the doctor muttered. “In addition, you were lying in that snowbank for some time before Miss Nicola discovered you, and you probably caught a chill. All in all, complete bedrest is in order.”
Was he going to lose toes to frostbite? Jack decided not to ask.
“I want to stay and help,” Nicola said.
Jack’s heart leapt. She must truly care about him. But he couldn’t see how that would work out, especially if he was tied up and unable to kiss her.
Dr. Oakley shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea—you need your rest too. You’ve had an eventful day. We can have Mrs. Feather come down and assist Ham.”
“I heard that, and don’t like it much. Betty Feather is a featherhead.”
Jack squinted at the doorway. A grizzled elderly gentleman in his nightshirt and nightcap squinted right back at him.
“Mr. Ross, I presume. Thank you for your hospitality.” He tried to smile, but his tight skin didn’t cooperate.
“Well, I was handy. Harnessed up old Ruby, put you on my sledge, and brought you back. Even gave you my bed. I don’t mind—it was the most excitement I’ve seen since I brought Lady Sadie home by mistake.”
Jack was glad to be good for something. “I’m sorry to put you out of your own room.”
“Oh, think nothing of it. Moll and me are comfortable on the divan.”
“I’m sure your wife can’t be comfortable—”
Ham guffawed. “Wife! Never had one of those, and it’s too late to start now. I’m seventy-eight, you know. Set in my ways. Moll’s my border collie. She’ll sleep anywhere.”
And had recently been on Jack’s bed from the whiff of it. He hoped it wasn’t infested with fleas. “I don’t want to inconvenience either one of you.”
“It’s all right. The Foundation will see I get taken care of. It’s only for a few days anyhow before you can rest up properly up the hill.”
Jack hoped that was true. Tulip Cottage wasn’t much, but he was used to it. And now it seemed he wouldn’t be leaving it after all.
“Do you have any idea when I can leave Puddling?” Though frankly a journey anywhere at the moment wasn’t very tempting. Jack was as helpless as a new-born kitten. The straps felt heavy on his chest, as though they were made of iron and not leather. Horse harnesses probably.
Dr. Oakley patted his shoulder in a fatherly fashion. “Too soon to tell. You wouldn’t want to make a liar out of me, would you? Just try to relax for a few days. If you won’t have Betty here, Ham, I suppose I don’t have too much objection to Miss Nicola coming during the day to spell you.”
The doctor turned to Nicola, who gave him a bright smile. “Are you sure you don’t want to go home to Bath? You’re talking now, though it doesn’t seem that Puddling was responsible for your recovery. It only took a hard-headed man for you to find your voice.”
“Screamed like a banshee, she did. Woke me and Moll up out of a sound nap,” Ham said, chuckling.
“Thank you for my rescue, the both of you,” Jack said, looking only at Nicola.
She was cured, if hoarse. How soon before she would leave him and go off to live the rest of her life?
He might not be able to walk again—or have use of anything below his waist—and he’d never saddle her with a husband who couldn’t be one.
He was anticipating disaster—he’d probably be fine. And then Jack sneezed, causing the dog to jump on the bed and bark at him. He was too weary to bark back.