Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

"Do not move." The voice again, the same one that kept luring her from oblivion. She must have been thrashing, because two hands pinned down her arms. "Remain still, Miss Whitmore. All is well."

Sickness sloshed in her stomach like waves beating the shore. All was not well. Nothing would ever be well again because Simon was dead and the children were gone.

"Here, rub this on the burns." Something smooth eased over her neck, perhaps a poultice, and the overwhelming herbal scent increased her nausea. Then a cool cloth mopped her brow.

"She has lost a considerable amount of hair."

"Hair will grow back."

"And the burns?"

"Minimal." More murmurs, all dismal and quiet, as if she could not hear. Maybe she couldn't. She did not know. Everything was heavy, vague, and throbbing. She squinted her eyes open, but they sank closed again of their own will.

The next time she forced them open, only one shadow stood beside the bed. A window must have been open, because the low and lulling hums of night filled the room. The fresh air was cool. White curtains fluttered. A lamp glowed.

"The dead hath awakened." Mr. Oswald tucked the soft bed linen under her chin. "Pray, how do you feel?"

Feel?

She moved a tongue over her dry lips.

He must have interpreted it for a sign of thirst, because he moved to a stand, poured a glass of water, then eased it to her lips.

The water cooled her sore throat.

But not her soul.

Like a heath in the desert, she was dry and parched and brittle and ready to break. Simon. She was not certain if she spoke the word or only mouthed it.

Mr. Oswald answered anyway, "You need only think of yourself."

"Where—"

"You are at Sowerby House. I would have taken you to Hollyvale, but somehow, I imagined you would both feel more at home here."

Both. She raised her head. "Simon—"

"He was pulled out of the fire first. Had you not been chained, we could have removed you before you sustained any of these burns."

She glanced down at herself in the bed. Her hands were bandaged, along with sections of her arms, and the burnt edges of singed hair tickled her chin. "He is alive."

"Today, yes." As if tonight he would be gone. Or tomorrow. Or the day after that. "He suffers grave burns on his back, broken ribs…" He seemed as if he would go on but thought better of describing such misery. "He has not yet awakened. His fever, I fear, is too high for the doctor to remedy."

"I want to see him."

"You are too weak."

"Please."

"I am afraid I cannot permit it."

Wincing, she threw off the covers. "Then I shall crawl to him myself—"

"That will not be necessary, Miss Whitmore." Mr. Oswald grinned, though something about his face seemed unsettled. He hesitated before slipping his arms beneath her and lifting her from bed. "I shall take you myself. But do take care not to move greatly, for I should very much dislike to bring you pain."

"I am not so very injured."

"Suffice it to say it would have been much worse if Mr. Fancourt had not shielded you. I imagine he saved your life."

With his own.

"As did I, of course." Mr. Oswald thudded the bedchamber door closed behind them, then eased her into the sconce-lit hall. "Last morning before I left for my Whigs meeting, I took to sorting through the remains of the Sowerby study in preparation for my own plans. I found a locked drawer, utilized my old talent of picking locks, discovered a very interesting letter, then showed it to Sir Walter later that day. He explained a lot concerning Mr. Fancourt's misconceptions."

"But how did you know where—"

"There are only so many W s about, Miss Whitmore. And Sir Walter, the barrister that he is, knows more of London residencies than I do." Mr. Oswald paused before a door. "But we shall talk more of that later. I imagine you wish to be alone."

She nodded, bolstered her strength when he settled her feet to the floor, and grasped the cold knob with sweat already dampening her palms.

"One more thing." Mr. Oswald stilled her before she entered. "If you wish to say anything to Mr. Fancourt, I imagine it should be goodbye."

Her legs nearly caved.

That was one thing she could never say.

The coward within her wanted to bolt. The room was too silent, the windows closed, the candle faint. She smelled Simon in the first breath, his scorched skin in the second.

She approached the bed.

Positioned on his stomach, shirtless, the raw wounds of his back were exposed. She tried not to look. She sank on her knees before the bed, face level with his, and brushed a hand down his battered face.

His skin seared her finger.

"Simon." She did not imagine he would respond to her call, but his brows knitted. "I am here," she whispered. "You must be strong." Silly, that she should tell him that. If he was anything in the world, it was strong. Deep inside of him, farther than anyone could see.

He should not die like this.

Not here.

He belonged back in those mountains he so much loved, where he had been free and built the life he'd always dreamed of. He should die with rich dirt beneath his head and the open sky above him. He should die for something worthy. For someone worthy.

Not her.

"John." His eyes squinted open, bleary and confused. "Mercy."

"They are not yet found." She should have lied to him, told him something soothing that would ease the desperation from his face. But he deserved the truth. "We shall find them. Mr. Wilkins would not have…he would not have…" She did not finish the sentence, for tears clogged her throat and Simon was already gone again anyway.

She fled from the room with warm trails streaming her cheeks.

Mr. Oswald still waited outside the door.

"You must help me find the children," she said.

"Of course. In the morning."

"No. Now." She squared her shoulders. "We must find them tonight."

Morning already pinkened the sky by the time Georgina and Mr. Oswald knocked on the fifth workhouse door.

A black-coated porter opened to them, shook his head when Georgina described the children, and slammed the door shut.

Cold, numbing dread tingled through her. She had been so certain Mr. Wilkins had placed them in an institution. What else could he have done with two children? Where else could he have disposed of them without anyone finding out?

"We shall find them." Mr. Oswald's hand stayed on her back, as they went back to the carriage. He swung her inside. "I have two menservants scouring the asylums, another hunting the poor farms, and another…"

Air stuck in her lungs. "And another…where?"

He pulled the door shut, met her eyes as the carriage lurched into motion again. "You do not appear well, Miss Whitmore, and as it is already light, I think perhaps it best you return to Sowerby."

"I will not return until I find them."

"You are as stubborn as I." He leaned forward. "Perhaps more so.

A quality that both infuriates and tantalizes me."

She had no strength for his flattery. She had strength for nothing—except holding up her head, blinking out the window, pushing away the incessant thought that the children were missing and Simon was dying.

She was not certain she could return to Sowerby House today, even if the children were discovered. She was too afraid of what they would say. That the doctor would shake his head outside the chamber door. That the room would be silent. The bed linens pulled over his face. His wonderful face. The face she needed.

"Georgina." Mr. Oswald's hand squeezed, firm. "You must not succumb to these dark and foreboding fears. I shall resolve them all. I promise."

Empty words. They meant nothing. All of his money, all of his arrogance could not keep a man from death.

"Whatever happens, you need not fear being left without attachment."

"You have no idea what I fear, sir."

"Perhaps not. Perhaps your fears, along with your secrets, are still just as much of a mystery to me as they were from the beginning." The carriage pulled to a stop, but he blocked the door with an arm and squeezed her fingers tighter. "I think you are the one puzzle I am content to never solve."

"I am not a game."

"Nor am I."

"Mr. Oswald." She squirmed from his hand. "Please, we must go."

He drew back, almost too quickly—and the hard press of his unsmiling lips faintly wiggled into her awareness. Had she ever seen him so grave?

But she could not think of that now. She hurried from the carriage and gathered her dress as they approached another grimy, redbrick workhouse, with black smoke fumes rising from the chimneys.

Before she entered the gates, the squalid odor flipped her stomach.

"One more, and then you shall have something to eat and drink."

"I am not hungry."

"I am a man used to attaining my way. If you wish to continue enlisting my assistance, you had best do as I instruct." He creaked open the gate for her, but instead of stepping inside, she hesitated.

She almost knew before she asked, but the words came out anyway, "Where did you send the other servants to look for the children?"

Mr. Oswald slipped a finger to his neckcloth and tugged, as if in discomfort. He averted her gaze when he whispered, "The river."

Exhaustion weighted her steps as she climbed the Sowerby entrance stairs. She should not have relied so heavily on the arm looped about her, but she sagged into Mr. Oswald anyway and allowed his strength to compensate for her weakness.

When the door whined open, spilling light into the darkness, she shrunk back. "I cannot."

"We have done all feasibly possible, Miss Whitmore. Enough is enough."

"We have to keep looking."

"On the morrow, we shall."

"But what if they—"

"My servants will continue their search throughout the night. In the morning, we shall aid them. But for the present, you shall climb into your bed, or I shall throw you there myself. And sit there, the night through, to make certain you do not stir." He guided her into the anteroom. "Although, I admit that would not suffer me greatly."

"Georgina!" With an overwrought cry, Mamma sprung from a chair in the anteroom and swallowed Georgina in her arms, squeezing tight enough all the burns flared.

"Gently, Mrs. Lutwidge," said Mr. Oswald. "Our little injured dove is not yet recovered."

"Oh, this is unbearable." Mamma drew back and blew her nose into a sopping handkerchief. "You must know I have been in utter hysterics ever since Mr. Oswald's servant arrived and told me the news. My poor dear girl." She inspected Georgina's face in the candlelight, tilting her head by the chin in both directions. "Thank heavens you sustained no burns to your exquisite face. Then, I fear, you should have never gained the attachment I have been hoping for."

"Mamma." The scolding came more from habit than true distress, as Mamma lifted an insinuating brow to Mr. Oswald.

"But never mind that now. Byron, dear, do say something consoling to your daughter."

For the first time, Georgina noticed him in the shadows of the anteroom, standing next to a chair, beaver hat shifting with discomfort between his hands. "Miss Whitmore." He bobbed his head. "I am rejoiced to see you are unharmed."

She knew she should thank him. For Mamma's sake, if nothing else.

But the truth was he likely wished she had burned.

Excusing herself, she exited the anteroom and forced her legs faster. The dark, empty corridors engulfed her. She heard too many things in their silence. "Passed several hours ago…never woke again…cried his wife's name…his children…"

When she reached the chamber, Dr. Morpeth pulled the door shut as he exited, wiping his hands on a towel. Blood pinkened the cotton. "Miss Whitmore, I would not go in there if I were you."

A spasm attacked her heart. "He…is he…"

"No, he is not dead." The doctor raked a hand through his frizzy white hair. "But he is in much pain, the fever is not yet broken, and I am in the process of bloodletting. I think he is best left alone."

The coward in her wanted to consent. How could she face him with the news his children were still undiscovered? That the servants were searching the Thames? That nineteen London workhouses and three asylums knew nothing of them?

She lifted her chin anyway. "I shall be only a moment."

That was all she—or Simon—would have strength for.

Of all the times she could have entered, he wished to heaven it was not now.

He was too weak.

His weakest.

He lay flat on his stomach, leeches on both of his bare arms and latched on to his legs beneath the sheets. Aches rippled through him. Hot, then cold; fire, then ice. He was exposed to her. His naked back, swollen and blistered. His bandaged hands. The blood spots on his pillow.

But it was the tears, gathered and leaking at the corners of his eyes, that scorched him with shame. He was a fool for the tears. He knew that.

But he smelled Mercy in the bed linens.

And someone had returned the trunk, because the lid was open near the hearth, and the rifle John loved was propped against the mantel.

"I do not think he lied." Georgina must have scooted a chair next to him, for her face leaned close to his, and her delicate fingers stirred his hair. "When he said…when he bestowed care upon the children."

Too many emotions cut through Simon. Rage, grief, confusion…then sadness. Utter sadness. Like lowering Ruth's body into the muddy six-foot hole and the sickening thud of dirt as he shoveled in her grave. Or Father's empty study the morning after Simon returned home. Or Mr. Wilkins' handkerchief soaking Simon's blood.

But it was more than that.

Deeper.

The sadness twisted inside of him like raging insanity, until he could no longer keep his eyes open or his body from shaking beneath the bed linens.

If they were dead, he would die.

"They're not." As if she had heard his torment. As if she knew. "God would not…He would not take them. Mr. Wilkins would not have killed them. Do you hear me?"

"I have to go." He lifted himself up on an elbow, ripped one of the leeches from the crook of his arm. Blood spurted. "I have to find them."

"You can do nothing that is not already being done."

"Help me."

"I am." She pressed his shoulders back into the mattress, then positioned the ceramic bowl on the floor and dangled his arm over the bed.

Crimson streamed down his arm, warm, dripping from his fingers.

"I will look again, and again, and again for you. I will never stop looking." She touched his tears. She bent closer, breath soft and sweet and cool against his sweating face. "John will take care of his sister. Wherever they are. I know because"—her fingers stilled on his cheek, then crept lower, then touched his lips—"because he is as strong as the man who raised him."

Simon was anything but strong.

He was dying. He knew. His children were lost and he could not even rise from bed and find them. He had failed in every way imaginable. He had lost everything. He was all the failures Father had predicted and more.

"I love you." Her words washed over him, like the sweet taste of Blayney's molasses or the moist scent of forest fog in the mountains. "I love you, Simon. I loved you before you saw me. I loved you all the years you were away. I love you now." She slipped closer. Cheek on his cheek. Her own tears mingling with his. "I know you never wanted to marry me, but—"

"I should have—"

"Shhh." She covered his mouth. "Please do not speak—do not say anything. I could not bear it if you were so kind as to say things that were untrue. You must not blame yourself for anything, and you must go on painting your pictures, and you must go back to those wildernesses someday that you love." Her mouth fell on his. She roved across his lips with unrestraint—the shyness gone, bands broken, a desperate gentleness in the way she drank of him.

Heat burst. His chest shuddered, mind reeled, as she opened his dry soul with her tenderness. His burned hands longed to seep into her hair. To pull her close. To hold her. Never let her go.

"Much has happened and you must not be noble. I shall forget the kiss…in that room. I know you did not mean it. You must not feign your affections now out of any sense of obligation…or gratitude, Simon." She mouthed the words against his lips, "I would love you less if you did."

She ripped away from him and scampered from the room, slamming the door behind her, the rattle shaking him to the bone.

He could not think, he could not move, else he would have chased after her.

Because the kiss then—and now—had not feigned anything.

Mr. Wilkins stood before her in his dustless black clothes, extending a silver tray, smiling at her with eyes that seemed ethereal and taunting. "Miss Whitmore." He whooshed a silk linen from the tray. A red wine glass glistened underneath. "Drink this."

"No." She pushed away, but the wall was to her back. Darkness closed in on her. "Where is Simon?"

"You must trust me."

"No."

"Drink it."

"Please."

He pressed the glass into her hands, guided it to her lips, and she drank with a sickening weakness. Her body melted to the floor, convulsing, weeping —

"Miss Whitmore." Someone grasped her shoulders, flitting away the darkness. "It is but a dream. Compose yourself."

Sleep jumbled the words, but the need to scramble away slowly dimmed. Dragging the bed linens to her face, she rubbed hard at her wet cheeks before forcing her eyes open.

Mr. Oswald's candlelit figure hovered over her. "It seems I had occasion to enter your bedchamber tonight after all, does it not?"

"What is wrong?"

"You, for one." He set the candlestick on the stand next to her bed. "I could hear you from the hall, crying out in some sort of demented nightmare."

"I am sorry for causing disturbance." But it was more than that. He was not merely here because she had murmured in her sleep.

Something else, some other purpose, sharpened his expression in a way she could not read. His breath smelled of sherry. His silk banyan gaped open at the neck, and a knot worked up and down his throat.

"Simon." She sat up quicker. "He is—"

"Still in a fever, but Dr. Morpeth has leeched him yet again. His temperature seems to be in decline."

"I should sit with him."

"Unnecessary. I have a competent nurse already assisting the doctor, and I am certain another occupant would only be in the way."

Some of the tension settled. She dragged the bed linens tighter against her neck. She would have asked him more, what else could have brought him here, but all her eyes longed to do was drift closed again.

Then his face dipped closer.

Panic spiked. "Mr. Oswald—"

"Forgive me." Inches from his face, eyes clinging to her lips, he froze. "I would not have disturbed you so late if it were not so consequential to the tranquility of your sleep." He straightened and spoke louder to someone outside the room, "Send them in."

The door creaked open in the darkness, and two small figures were ushered into the room.

Air caught in Georgina's lungs. She told herself to throw back the coverlet, scramble from bed, touch them and squeeze them to make certain they were real.

But all she could do was stare, as the two shadows, hand in hand, edged into the scope of candlelight.

Both wore coarse, grogram uniforms, numbers stitched at their chests, with John's shirt sleeves tattered about the elbows and Mercy's dress hem touching the floor. Her curls were matted. His eyes bleary. Their expressions stricken.

"One of the servants discovered them in a private almshouse on the East End."

Georgina slipped out of bed, knees hitting the rug before them. "John." She grasped his cheek, numbed at the coldness of his skin. "Mercy."

The child dove into Georgina, face in her neck, breaths choppy and sob-like, though Georgina felt no tears. "My sweet girl. My sweet Mercy. Shh."

John attempted to back away, but Georgina caught his hand. She pulled him into her, hugged him close. He made a slight sound, as if in pain, but conformed to her. They smelled of straw and filth and…Simon. Why did they smell of Simon?

She could live and die to that smell.

"According to the matron, the children were separated upon arrival." Mr. Oswald cleared his throat. "The boy did a considerable amount of protesting, I think, judging by the punishment he received."

Punishment. She did not wish to know what they had endured. She could not bear it. She could not bear anything except that they were here, they were alive, and Simon would not have to lose them.

She would not have to lose them.

Yet.

"You must see your father." She kissed Mercy's forehead, kissed her curls, then John's cheeks. "He is…that is, your father has been ill, so you must be brave when you see him. He needs you to be brave. You will, won't you?"

John stepped back and raised his chin, as if it was the one thing he was certain he could do. Not until he took Mercy's hand and led her back for the door did Georgina see.

Tiny lines of blood stained the back of his shirt and pants.

She caught her mouth and wept.

Nothing seemed real. Perhaps the fever did that—blurred everything and painted it softer, made every voice and every touch like a dream he kept awakening from. My children. He forced his sore eyes to remain open. They're back.

Sometime in the night, a kind-faced maidservant dragged in a copper tub and bathed both children. The doctor rubbed thick plaster into the tiny red stripes on John's back and legs, and though the maid glanced at Simon with pity, no one spoke of it aloud.

Simon could not have if he wanted to.

He was too afraid of himself. If he knew who had injured his son, he would have needs to revenge him—and if there was anything Simon was weary to the bone of, it was revenge.

Everything was over.

He told himself that a hundred times, as the doctor helped Simon situate to his side, as the children climbed in his bed and burrowed into his arms. He slipped in and out of sleep. Sometimes shivering. Sometimes sweating, as if the fever was breaking.

By the time sunlight pinkened the burgundy curtains and streamed into the room, his aches were less distinct. Morning rays illuminated tiny gray uniforms heaped on the floor, water stains on the rug about the copper tub, and the maid's empty chair.

Even the doctor was gone.

They were alone—Simon and his children—and the beat of his heart drummed with painful rejoicing. Lord, thank You.

By instinct, he pulled them closer, until John yawned and dragged a fresh nightgown sleeve across his drooling mouth. When he opened his eyes, they were bloodshot and confused. The fear in his gaze gutted Simon. What kind of father was he?

He should have foreseen the danger and stopped this from happening. He should have been able to do the one thing he desired more than anything else.

Protect his children.

A sleepy smile dimmed the terror in John's eyes. "Papa." How many years had it been since John had called him that? Why should he say it now—when Simon deserved it least?

Mercy rubbed her eyes and fussed in her sleep.

"Don't cry, Mercy," John said into her ear, his voice gentle and encouraging. "Wake up. Look. It's Papa."

She forced herself awake, blinked up at Simon with crusty eyes and pink sleep wrinkles denting her cheek. A tear rolled to the pillow. "Mr. Wilkins took Baby."

"I'll make you a new one," said John.

"But there is no more corn." She sniffed. "The corn is back home."

"Then we will go home." The words were out before Simon had a chance to reason them through. He had never considered where they would go from here.

Perhaps the cabin was wrong. He had lost too much in those walls.

But he needed the mountains.

They all did.

"We are?" John leaned up. "We're going home?"

"You would like that?"

John nodded, his smile a little shaky, as if the thought was too wonderful to be true.

Even Mercy grinned. "Papa, me can see the chickens again?"

"We will get new ones. After we get up a new cabin. New land."

"And me can see Blayney?"

"Umm-hmm."

"And have corn?"

He nodded.

They settled their heads back into the bed then, Mercy tracing his injured face and asking if a bear had tried to eat him, John rambling about rifles and woods and deer and traps. They all spoke in whispers. He rubbed their faces with bandaged hands. More than once, Mercy leaned up to kiss his cheek, and John beamed at Simon as if he was the sun and moon and stars.

From the doorway, something creaked.

Simon glanced up long enough to see Miss Whitmore's face through the cracked door. His heart thundered. Regret prickled, either from the rash decision to leave or the sinking realization she had heard.

The door pulled shut and her footfalls echoed away before he had a chance to call out.

He was not certain what he would have said if he did.