Chapter 12

Twelve

Damn the mud, damn the rain, damn the carriage, and damn that blasted statue and everything that had led to its creation. Lawrence did not have enough damns inside him to express his anger, frustration, and fear at the situation he found himself in. As he clutched Minerva tightly to him and rushed down a slope, then up a small rise to the small, sad church and the drenched parsonage beside it, he was ready to damn his entire life.

“Where are we going?” Minerva asked in a small, breathless voice as she clung to him. “Could we not return to the club so that I might bathe?”

Lawrence nearly missed a step. He glanced quickly down at Minerva as he sped forward. Her eyes were closed, and her already pale face was splotched with fever. She had seemed cognizant of their surroundings in the carriage, and even after, when she’d foolishly helped him and Silas move the damnable thing, but the strain of that effort and her subsequent fall must have been too much for her. Her eyes were closed now, and it was only a miracle that helped her maintain her grip on him.

“We’re going to try the parsonage,” he explained to her, attempting to keep his voice light, but knowing he failed. “With any luck, the parson will have a wife with competent healing skills. She’ll have you out of these muddy clothes, bathed, and tucked away in a nice, warm bed with a bowl of broth in no time.”

Minerva made a sound that might have been an attempt at an answer to his statement, but which came out sounding more like a pained wail of desperation.

That sound caused Lawrence to pick up his pace, despite the difficulty of running in the mud and rain with Minerva in his arms. Everything depended on him finding help for her at the cottage he raced toward.

He was relieved at least to see the parsonage appeared clean and well-kept. It seemed somewhat dark to his eyes, but the thought occurred to him that Minerva would most likely enjoy that.

With a quick shuffle of her increasingly heavy form in his arms, he freed a hand enough to knock on the door. When no immediate answer came, he knocked again with more force.

“Hello?” he shouted, all too aware of Minerva shivering as she pressed her body into him. “Hello? Is anyone at home? We need help.”

His calls went unanswered, and he knocked again before cursing under his breath. The parsonage was not so large that its inhabitants could not hear him. He was either being ignored or, as was more likely, no one was home.

A twist of panic filled his insides. Minerva needed immediate attention. She needed to get out of the rain and into a warm, dry bed as swiftly as possible. He considered kicking at the door until it caved in, but that would only compromise the warmth and protection of the house once they were able to enter it.

Minerva made another plaintive noise in his arms that nearly broke Lawrence’s heart.

“There, there, my love,” he said, forgetting for a moment that they were not married, not even courting. “I’ll think of something.”

He turned away from the parsonage door, glancing around for a moment. In one direction, he spotted Silas working to convince the horses that they wanted to pull the damaged carriage the rest of the way to the parsonage. In the other was the church.

He hurried down the small lane that connected the parsonage to the church. If the parson was not at home, perhaps he was within his church, writing the week’s sermon or taking care of other spiritual matters.

The church door was unlocked, which was a relief, but the entire building felt as empty as the tomb on Easter. It contained two small rows of pews, and for a moment, Lawrence considered laying Minerva on one of them while he continued his search, but he found himself deeply unwilling to let her go.

A short search of the church proved that it was empty as well. It had not been abandoned entirely, however. The air still held the scent of wax candles and woodsmoke. The linens on the altar were all in place and in good repair. The parson’s small office off to one side of the sanctuary contained books, vestments, and even a teapot that still held some water. But no parson.

What it did hold was a set of keys hanging on a hook attached to the end of the room’s bookshelf.

“I hope the good parson can forgive me for taking these and testing them in his own door,” Lawrence said, grabbing the keys, then hefting Minerva in his arms to restrengthen his grip on her. “Desperate times and all.”

By the time he stepped back out into the driving rain with the keys, Silas had brought the carriage all the way up to the top of the rise. He’d steered it toward a tiny stable behind the house so that the poor horses could have a modicum of shelter.

“Is she better?” Silas called as he worked with the horses.

“No,” Lawrence shouted back as he headed for the parsonage’s door to try the keys. “We need help.”

Silas nodded, then continued his work to secure the carriage.

Lawrence adjusted Minerva in his arms once more, alarmed at how much his muscles ached, but unwilling to let her go just yet. He tried key after key in the front door lock, and when he found one that worked to turn the mechanism and open the door, he shouted in victory.

His shout was met with a weak groan from Minerva that killed any sense of triumph he had.

“We’re inside now, love,” he said, barging into the house as if it were their own.

“Housebreaking again?” Minerva said in a suddenly lucid voice.

Lawrence laughed with relief, but that relief was short-lived. Minerva lapsed into a swoon as soon as he tried to set her on her feet.

“Ups-a-daisy,” Lawrence said, catching her and pulling him against her. “I’ve got you.”

His efforts to remain light-hearted and to project that all would be well, now that they were in the house, continued as he looked around the tidy space.

“Someone has kept this place looking nice,” he spoke the sweetest variation of his still anxious thoughts as he glanced around. “We should find everything we need here.”

“Can I go to bed?” Minerva asked on a heavy sigh, leaning her face against his shoulder.

“Absolutely,” Lawrence said.

He continued to glance around for a moment, then finally decided to pull out one of the chairs from the small dining table and seat Minerva there, in the middle of the floor, so that he could peel her out of her muddy cloak without making too much of a mess.

He removed his coat as well, and his boots and stockings. Really, to preserve the cleanliness of the parsonage, he needed to remove his clothes entirely, and likely toss them in the midden heap, but he settled for stripping down to just his shirt and breeches. His shirt had avoided most of the mud, at least.

Undressing Minerva was another conundrum. After the night they’d spent together, he did not think she would balk at being naked in his presence. There was Silas to consider, though, and if the parson and his potential wife should return home and find two naked people and a pile of muddy clothing waiting for them, their troubles could increase tenfold.

The imminent return of the parson did not seem likely, however, when Lawrence considered that both the fireplace and the small iron stove in the corner of the house’s main room were both cold. Wherever the parson was, he had not been home for days. It was a potential boon in some ways, but Lawrence did not like the chill in the house, nor the effort he knew it would take to warm it again.

“It will just be a moment, love,” he called over to Minerva, who slumped in her chair, eyes closed, as he flitted around the room, trying not to splatter mud everywhere as he moved his clothing. “I just need to light the fire and this cozy house will be warmed right away.”

Minerva snorted some sort of laugh, then lolled her head to the other side. “It always takes hours to warm an empty house,” she said.

Whether that was meant to be an admonishment or not, Lawrence smiled at Minerva’s returned lucidity. He doubled the pace of his work as he took wood from a basket to the side of the fireplace, and thanked God it was there, along with kindling and matches, and set to work building the fire.

Time slipped into a space where it had no meaning as he worked to get both the fireplace and the stove burning. He was single-minded in his mission to warm Minerva and to protect her from the elements and whatever illness had beset her. As soon as the logs in the fireplace caught, he returned to Minerva, lifting her to her feet so he could move her chair closer to the growing warmth.

“You should remove these wet, muddy things immediately,” he said, sinking to his knees in front of her once he had her reseated and pulling at the waterlogged laces of her traveling boots.

“Lawrence,” Minerva said in a groggy, scolding voice. “Now is not the time for such things.”

Lawrence glanced up at her warily. Perhaps she was not as rational as he thought.

“Believe me, my love,” he said, throwing caution to the wind as he pulled off one of her boots and the ruined stocking she wore with it, then worked on the other. “When the time comes that we are both well and safe once more, I should like nothing better than to be as inappropriate and wicked with you as we were last night. But for the moment, my attentions to your person are entirely practical, I can assure you.”

Minerva made a sound that might have been disbelief, but then fell into a coughing fit before she could say anything.

The fit frightened Lawrence down to the marrow of his bones. He yanked her second boot off, but waited on removing her stocking until he had straightened and held his arms out to her, as if she might need him to catch her as she fell.

The fit passed, though, and Minerva whined with discomfort.

“Is there any tea?” she asked. “My throat feels awful.”

Lawrence pulled off her remaining stocking, then stood, pulling her to her feet as he did.

“I shall check in a moment,” he said, reaching behind her to tug at the ties of her gown. “But it will be some time before the stove is hot enough to boil water.”

Minerva groaned her discontent at that, then shrugged and flailed as Lawrence continued to undress her. Lawrence couldn’t tell whether she was attempting to help him remove her soiled and heavy clothing or if she was fighting against him.

“At least the rain has washed some of the mud from your hair,” Lawrence said once he had her sodden gown and petticoats in a pile around her feet. Her underthings were clean enough to stay in place, but they were soaked through, leaving nothing to the imagination.

Lust was the farthest thing from Lawrence’s mind in that moment, however. He sat Minerva on the chair again, pushed her dirty things closer to the hearth, then rushed into the cottage’s only other room, the bedroom, to tear the thick quilt away and bring it to her.

“Up you come,” he told Minerva as he helped her to her feet once more, then wrapped her snugly in the quilt. “Right this way, madam,” he went on, still trying to keep things cheery, though his heart beat harder and his insides quivered with fear more and more with each passing moment. “I saw a nice, warm bed in the other room. I’ll have you tucked in and off to sleep in no time.”

“No!” Minerva protested, using more strength than she should to resist him when he tried to pick her up. “I have no wish to go to bed. I want to stay near you.”

Lawrence’s heart nearly melted in his chest. Instead of picking Minerva up and carrying her into the other room, he indulged in a moment of hugging her tightly. She sagged against him, as if huddling into his warmth, and rested her cheek on his shoulder once more.

“I have you, love,” he told her in his gentlest voice, kissing the side of her damp head. “Nothing is going to happen to you while you’re in my arms. I’ll keep you warm and safe for as long as we’re together.”

To his surprise, Minerva sobbed at those words. “I’m going to die,” she wailed softly, shivering slightly despite his embrace. “I’ll be dead and gone to Sweden, and you’ll never see me again.”

The corner of Lawrence’s mouth twitched. “Sweden?” he asked, moving closer to the increasingly warm fire with her. “Not heaven?”

“A whole new life is waiting for me,” Minerva mumbled.

“Not while I have you,” Lawrence said.

He eased her back onto the chair, wishing the room had a softer armchair that he could tuck her into. She really should have been in the bed, but until the whole cottage was warm, the wooden kitchen chair was the best they could do.

Minerva seemed to flag for a few moments as Lawrence rushed around the house, preparing the kettle for when the stove was hot enough for tea, then lighting the smaller fireplace in the bedroom. As he worked, he opened cabinets and pulled out drawers, searching for anything that might be medicine to stave off disaster.

He found plenty of bottles with stoppers that looked as if they could be medicines, but the labels were all handwritten, and he had enough trouble with letters that were printed. Handwriting was completely beyond his abilities.

And yet, he had to do something.

“Do you know what cherry syrup smells like?” he asked, pulling open one of the bottles whose label began with a “C”. That was all he could make out of it.

“Cherry syrup is good for coughs, not throats,” Minerva answered, surprising Lawrence. Even though he’d spoken out loud, he believed her to be asleep sitting up. “I need honey.”

“Oh?” he said, returning the bottle to the small cupboard where he’d found it. “Is that good for throats?”

“Yes.”

Lawrence found a small jar of honey and turned to take it to her, only to find Minerva staring at him.

“You cannot read,” she told him, her brow knit in thought.

Heat rushed up Lawrence’s neck to bathe his face. “I can read,” he said stiffly. “Only…only not all the time.”

Minerva’s frown deepened as he approached her with the honey. “What do you mean by that? One either reads or they do not.”

“The letters move,” Lawrence said, crouching in front of her and dipping his finger into the honey pot, then holding it to her lips.

“Letters do not move,” Minerva said, looking more than a little comical with her imperious expression, swaddled in a borrowed quilt, her dark hair matted with rain and some mud. “They stay put on the page, like sensible little soldiers.”

“Not for me, they do not,” Lawrence said, touching his honey-soaked finger to Minerva’s lips.

Minerva sent him a stern look of doubt, then parted her lips to suck the honey from his finger.

The jolt that shot through Lawrence defied his determination to remain completely immune to his baser needs as he cared for Minerva. His cock jumped to life as the suction Minerva employed on his finger reminded it of other ways she could take part of him into his mouth.

Minerva seemed to feel it as well. Her eyes went suddenly wide, and the movement of her tongue across the sensitive underside of his finger slowed to something sensual. He could feel that, given different circumstances, she would be quite adept at that particular form of pleasure.

The moment was fleeting, however. As soon as Minerva swallowed, her face pinched with pain once more.

“Perhaps I should lie down,” she panted once she released Lawrence’s finger.

“Yes, I believe you should,” Lawrence said, standing and returning the honey pot to the counter.

He came back to Minerva and lifted her into his arms. This time, she made no attempt to push him away or protest. Lawrence was able to carry her into the bedroom, unwind the quilt from her still hot, shivering body, and to tuck her properly between the sheets. He spread the quilt atop her as she sighed out and closed her eyes, then he searched the chest at the end of the bed, thankful to find more blankets there to cover her with.

When all that was done, he stood back, leaning against the doorframe, and simply watched her as she drifted off to sleep. He had never known the fear of watching someone he loved so much fall so ill so quickly. His mind danced with images of Minerva dying, as she’d insisted she would. She might fly off to her heavenly Sweden, but he would sink deep into the hell of Wessex if she left him so soon after they’d found each other.

He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there when the parsonage’s front door opened, then closed again, and Silas stepped gingerly across the main room, as if he were trying not to drip rainwater everywhere.

“The carriage’s axel is cracked,” he reported with a grim sigh. “We won’t be able to travel any farther until it’s repaired.”

“Do you have the tools to repair it?” Lawrence asked quietly, turning away from the bedroom and gesturing for Silas to move closer to the fireplace.

Silas shook his head. “Not only do I not have the tools, I don’t have the skills either, my lord. But there’s a village in the distance,” he added. “I can go there and see about hiring a wainwright to make the repairs.”

Lawrence nodded. “You do that. And perhaps you could determine the whereabouts of the parson while you are there? Or ask about cures for whatever ails Lady Minerva?”

Silas must have seen the worry in Lawrence’s eyes. He smiled compassionately and placed a hand on Lawrence’s shoulder. “I’ll do that, my lord. Don’t you worry. Lady Minerva will be well in no time.”

Lawrence returned the kind smile with one of his own. “Thank you, Silas.”

Silas patted his shoulder, then turned to be about his new mission. As soon as he was out of the cottage, Lawrence turned back to Minerva, his heart filled with worry. She needed to recover. She simply must grow well again soon. He had only just found her, but now he did not think he could live without her.