The Heiress Bride - Catherine Coulter [22]
“I can dress myself,” Colin said, and Douglas, seeing the fever burning bright and hot in his eyes, agreed.
He didn’t do it well, but he managed to dress himself quickly. However, the ride to the Sherbrooke town house was a nightmare Colin would just as soon not have lived through. He passed out when Henry and Boggs were helping him up the wide stairway.
It wasn’t until they were in the guest bedchamber that Douglas discovered the jagged four-inch-long knife wound at the top of Colin’s right thigh.
CHAPTER
4
“YOU MUST GET some rest, Sinjun. It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning.”
Sinjun didn’t wish to look away from his still face, but she forced herself to glance up at her sister-in-law. “I’m resting, Alex. It’s just that I must be here if he wakes up. He’s always so thirsty, you know.”
Alex said calmly, “He’s a strong man. He won’t die. I’m not worried about him now. I don’t want you to lose your health.”
“Do you promise, Alex?”
“Yes, I promise. His breathing is a bit easier, I can hear it. The doctor said he would survive this. He will.”
“I still don’t want to leave him. He’s had horrible nightmares.”
Alex handed Sinjun a cup of tea and sat beside her.
“What sort of nightmares?”
“I’m not sure. He’s frightened and he’s confused. Whether it’s real or just the fever, I don’t know.”
Colin heard her voice. It was pitched low and it was calm, but the underlying worry was there, thick and deep. He wanted to open his eyes and look at her, but he couldn’t. It was that simple. He was deep within himself, and he was afraid; she’d been right about that. He’d seen Fiona again, and she was lying there at the base of the cliff, quite dead, her body sprawled on the jagged rocks. He was standing there looking down at her. Fear welled up in him and he wanted to get away from it, but it pursued him, overwhelmed him, and he was dying of the fear and the terror of what he couldn’t or wouldn’t remember, and the god-awful uncertainty. Had he killed her? No, dammit, he hadn’t killed his wife, he hadn’t. Even this nightmare couldn’t make him believe that he had. Someone had brought him here, perhaps Fiona herself, and she’d fallen, but he hadn’t killed her. He knew it deep down. He’d backed away from the cliff edge very slowly, one step, then another. He felt dizzy and strangely detached from himself. He’d led men back there, to where he’d found her, and no one had asked him what had happened, how it was that Fiona was lying there thirty feet below, her neck broken.
Ah, but there was talk, endless talk, and that talk was more devastating than an outright accusation, for it swirled around him, always out of his reach, those damned whispers and innuendos; and it ate at him because he knew he could shout his innocence, but how could he explain how he’d come to be there on the cliff edge himself? That he didn’t know, didn’t remember. He’d just come to himself and he’d been there. There was no reasoning he could grasp, nothing. The only person he’d told everything he remembered had been Fiona’s father, the laird of the MacPherson clan, and he’d believed him. But it wasn’t enough, never enough, for he couldn’t remember and it preyed on him, brought him down when he slept, when he was at his weakest, this guilt that wasn’t really guilt. But he still felt the nightmares to be a penance he was obligated to pay.
He was thrashing now, moaning deep in his throat. The knife wound in his thigh burned and gnawed at him. Sinjun was on her feet in an instant, gently holding him still, her hands on his shoulders. “Hush, Colin. It’s all right. They’re just nightmares, nothing more than nightmares. Just phantoms to plague you. Nothing more. That’s right, listen to me. I won’t lie to you. Come closer, yes, here’s some water, it will make you feel better.”
She tipped the water glass slightly and he swallowed. She held the glass until he turned his head away. She dabbed the water from his chin, saying quietly to her sister-in-law, “I put some laudanum in the water. It should help him into a deeper sleep, away from the nightmares.”
Alex