Chapter 9

NINE

Desmond awakened in the darkest hour of the night. His body ached, a sure sign that he had lain in bed for far too long. It was pitch black save for a single glowing ember in what he had to assume was the hearth. There was a bit of a chill in the air, though not so much that he felt compelled to linger any longer in his borrowed bed. There was a restlessness in him, a need to move, to do something .

A soft fragrance hung in the air that teased his senses to full wakefulness. Lavender and sage and other scents he could not recognize mingled together to form a soothing aroma. It was thirst however that had him sitting up in bed. When the pain didn't explode in his head once more, he tossed back the blankets and placed his bare feet on the floor. His confidence was short lived. The moment he attempted to stand, a wave of dizziness washed over him, forcing him to once more sink to the bed. But he remained sitting which seemed a small victory.

A noise sounded in the darkness, then the flare of a match striking tinder. The soft warm glow of a candle began to grow, spreading pale light in a circle around the woman who held it aloft. Soft as it was, still he winced, his eyes sensitive to even that small bit of light. Which led him to wonder just how long he'd been unconscious.

Squinting into the light, he saw a familiar form. Not a dream. Belladonna was there. The tender hands that had soothed and tended him while he was drifting in between wake and sleep had been hers. Desmond stared at her, watching her through the flickering flame of the candle. And it dawned on him that he needed her. It wasn't simply desire or attraction. It wasn't even something so mundane as infatuation or so as glorious as love, though he imagined all of those things were part of it.. He needed her like he needed his next breath. To be with her, to be near her, had become vital to his very existence.

Silence stretched between them, fraught with things he hoped for but dared not name. At last, she was the one to speak, the one to break that spell that seemed to surround them.

"You are awake! I am ever so relieved. I feared the severity of your wound might be beyond my powers to treat," she said. "Do not try to stand. You are still much too weak."

It was true, he well knew. His first attempt had proved that. But it begged an answer to a very particular question. He was far weaker than he ought to have been in simply a single day, head wound or no. "How long have I been out?"

"You have been here for more than two days. In and out of consciousness, but thankfully there has been no fever. The swelling and bruising on your forehead has started to recede some."

Desmond thought, for at least a split second, that he should correct her. He did indeed have a fever, but it wasn't born of illness. It was her. Reaching up, he gently probed his forehead. The tenderness at even that simple touch made him rethink the strategy. But he needed her to know something quite urgently. He felt in his bones that he needed to share that thought with her. "I am so grateful to have met you."

Her eyes widened and then she shook her head dismissively. "You can't possibly mean that. Not after all this. You were hurt because of me."

"It was an accident." Even uttering that, it felt false. Wrong. Untrue.

"You're not certain of that, are you?" She asked him.

No. No, he wasn't. Try as he might, he could summon no memory of what had transpired. The kiss—that magical and drugging kiss they had shared— in the cleaning was the last thing he recalled. "What else could it have been?"

She moved back to the table and poured a cup of tea, adding cream and sugar to it—strangely enough in just the amounts he preferred—before walking towards him. "It was not an accident, Desmond. You were struck down… felled by someone on the road, no doubt."

"A robbery," he insisted. "Footpads. They certainly abound here." The death of his brother-in-law was proof enough of that.

She shook her head, smiling sadly. "You were not robbed. All your belongings are accounted for, well save your shirt and neckcloth. Necessary sacrifices, I fear. Whomever hurt you was not motivated by greed."

There was no shadow of memory to tease him, only a feeling of rightness at her words. Despite his preference on the matter, it had not been an accident. But he feared the ramifications of reinforcing her belief that it was somehow her fault.

Try as he might, the details continued to hover on the periphery of his mind, remaining just out of reach. Rising to his feet, he peered out into the darkness from the narrow window above the bed. "Someone did this to me intentionally?"

She nodded again, passing him the cup. "Do sit down. I worry that you are exerting yourself overmuch."

He accepted the libation and then eased himself down onto the edge of the bed once more. His head ached abominably but sitting did ease the dizziness somewhat. "How did you reach this conclusion? Other than my things not being pilfered, of course."

"Tis a rare thing to hit only one's head," she mused. "Had you fallen or suffered some sort of accident, be it in a carriage or on horseback, or even being rundown by a horse, there would have been other injuries. But there is nothing. Not even your palms are scraped. Only the wound on your forehead. I think it likely that the wound you received came from a blow, being struck with an object wielded by another man… someone quite strong. I can't imagine how else you'd have received the injury in such a location."

He raised his hand to his forehead once more, gingerly probing the bandaged area despite the pain it caused. She was quite right, of course. The wound was just at his hairline. A pale glimmer of a memory came to him then, indistinct and mysterious. A person standing above him, holding a large rock, as he lay bleeding on the road. "I fear you are correct, Belladonna. I wish I could recall the details of the attack, but my memory only gives me vague shadows. Regardless, I can only be thankful that God led me here to you."

"If you listen to local gossip, it is not God who would have led you to my door," she said archly.

"I could have wandered aimlessly in the woods. I could have lain in a ditch by the roadside with no one to aid me. If it wasn't God who led me to your door, what else could it have been? I know I certainly feel blessed that of all the possible places I could have stumbled to, I wound up—inexplicably—on your doorstep. If you do not wish to call it God's will, you cannot deny that it was fateful at the very least."

"Where were you going after we parted in the clearing?"

He didn't know. Try as he might to drag any memories back to the forefront of his mind, they remained stubbornly out of reach. "I cannot say."

"Your memories will return in time, I'm certain… But, Desmond, while divine providence may have played a role, it was your own incredible determination to survive that brought you here to me. I am only glad that I found you when I did… Had you stayed out in the rain much longer, I fear what might have become of you."

"As do I… Tell me the truth, Belladonna. I can only think that you must have some theory as to what really passed. Why did this happen?"

"You will not believe me when I tell you," she said sadly. "Because it is a thing that challenged everything you know to be true and right in this world."

"Tell me anyway."

She took a deep breath, then she held up her hand, palm to the ceiling. Flame suddenly erupted, hovering over her hand, burning steady and strong but never touching her skin. "This happened to you because I am a witch. Because I am a witch and there are those who hate me for it."