Steelhands - Jaida Jones [72]
The window made rather a loud noise when I closed it, and I heard the rustle of the covers as she began to stir beneath them.
“Toverre?” she rasped, sounding a great deal like my great-aunt Bernadette, who’d smoked clove cigarettes for much of her youth.
“I am here at last,” I told her, turning the lock on the window and making sure it caught before I returned to her side. “And I’ve brought water, just like I promised.”
“M’mouth tastes like pig slop,” Laure said, and she pulled the covers down enough for me to see her bright red face. “I probably look like pig slop, too. Don’t even look at me. Don’t tell me if I do.”
“You have never looked like pig slop,” I said, holding out the water and helping her to sit up. “Not even when you were actually covered in it.”
Laure leaned on me instead of the headboard as I held the cup to her lips. Some of it spilled onto my blankets, but at least it was only water. If she was sick in my bed, now that would be a different matter.
“ ’M sorry about making you clean all that up,” Laure mumbled, after she’d had something to drink. “Thought for sure you weren’t coming back. You’d gone off to scrub yourself clean, or something, then ask for a change of rooms because this one’s no good anymore.”
“I’ll do all that later,” I assured her. “I’ll get clean eventually. With a steel brush and everything.”
“I hate being sick,” Laure said, leaning her head on my shoulder.
“I’m sure it will pass quite soon,” I told her, stroking her hair with my free hand. “And at your next physician’s appointment—to which I will accompany you—you will beat the attending severely around the head for allowing you to leave in this state.”
Laure chuckled, then let out a small sigh. “You know,” she said, “they didn’t even give me my blood back. I wanted it, too, because it doesn’t do to have it running around out there without me. They said they were sorry, but that wasn’t possible. Well ’s my blood, isn’t it? That’s like stealing.”
“You’re delirious,” I told her, gently patting her head. “Get some sleep, and we’ll talk about everything in the morning.”
“Can’t sleep here,” Laure said. She hid an overly scandalized gasp behind a clumped-up handful of coverlet. “What will everyone say? What will they think?”
“Now,” I said, trying to be reasonable, though I did realize it would injure both our prospects if people were to think we were engaged in that kind of behavior together. “I’ll tell everyone you were sick, and there’s no need to worry—no one would believe someone like you would ever spend that … kind of night with someone like me, anyway.”
“But we’re going to be married,” Laure said. “We’re going to have to spend that kind of a night together someday.”
Laure had a fever, I told myself, and could not possibly know she was bringing up such a delicate subject. If I was lucky, she wouldn’t remember having asked it at all, and I could also put the difficulty right out of my mind.
Truth be told, I had worried about the same matter myself enough times in the past. Our families would be expecting additions to the fold, little boys and girls they could train better than they’d trained me, and I shuddered at the idea.
“You’re grimacing,” Laure said. “I’m talking about sleeping with you, and you’re grimacing. Makes a girl feel … Makes a girl feel …”
“That’s just the fever talking,” I said, tucking her in. “Don’t worry about your work; I’ll see to it. And we’ll worry about all the rest in the morning.”
“Grimacing,” Laure mumbled, but she buried her face against the pillow and burrowed in deep. I had a long night ahead of me, finishing up one of her essays—she probably hadn’t even started it yet—and sleeping in the chair beside her, in case she needed anything.
I checked to make sure she