The Other Side - J. D. Robb [36]
Bettina stopped and thought, I will lift my hand. Harry’s hand rose, palm up, as she wished. She hurried to the bed and her actual body.
“Harry, what has happened? Are you hurt?”
“I feel damned strange dressed in your ball gown. These god-awful pins are sticking in my, I mean your, scalp.”
“Yes, the pins work loose sometimes,” she answered, as if explaining her body while someone else used it was normal. “Dear heaven, what has happened?” she asked again.
“My dear,” her husband’s distinctive drawl came from her lips, “I do believe your wish has come true.”
Two
FELL HOUSE
THE NEXT MORNING
“My lord! My lord! You must come. The countess is dying!” The maid burst into the earl’s dressing room without even a perfunctory knock.
“Freeba! Calm yourself.” Bettina ripped the towel from around her neck. The shave would have to wait. Before she could stand, the valet grabbed the cloth, wiping the soap from the earl’s chin. Bettina, clad in trousers and shirt, still only in stockings, dashed from the room in as much distress as Freeba.
Harry cannot be dying. She could not bear to live if he was lost to her. Life without Harry would be empty, dull. The horror of it made her heart beat so hard and fast that she raised a hand to her chest as if to keep it from bursting from her body. The gesture reminded her that she had another reason to fear losing him.
If he died in her body, she could well be trapped in his body forever. Twelve hours ago she would have thought nothing worse could happen than the two of them changing places. Now she could see her imagination was not nearly vivid enough.
Bettina tore into the suite of rooms that had been hers for the three years of their marriage. The curtains around the bed were still drawn tight, and the bedchamber was in unusual disarray. Clothes tossed on the chair, shoes left under it, and a stack of books opened, one atop another, on her writing desk. How like him, even in a woman’s body, to not give a thought to his clothes.
“The countess would not allow me to do anything to help her prepare for bed last night, except unlace her stays.” Freeba stepped in front of the earl to slow his progress. “I came in to bring her chocolate and found the room this way. She must be very ill, my lord. You know how careful she is with her clothes.”
“Never mind, Freeba. It hardly matters right now.” Bettina stepped around the maid and went straight to her bed, pushed aside the curtains. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Harry was no more than a lump under the linen, but the groans as much as said, “I am in misery here.”
“What is wrong? Explain!” Bettina demanded.
Freeba gasped at the unsympathetic tone of voice, and Bettina dismissed the maid from the room with a curt wave.
Alone with Harry, Bettina repeated the question, trying for a more sympathetic tone.
He spoke, though his face, which was actually her face, was buried in the pillow. Still, the words were quite intelligible. “I have the worst ache in my gut.”
She understood in an instant. With a roll of eyes and a relief most profound, Bettina expanded on her husband’s terse explanation. “Does it feel like some monster from hell is working its way through your stomach and below and the only relief will be when it explodes out of you? But before that can happen the pain fades, but only for a few moments.”
“Yes.” He sounded amazed at her insight.
“It happens every month, my lady,” Bettina said with a sarcastic emphasis on the honorific. “Indeed, it will happen monthly right before your courses for the next twenty years.”
“God help me.”
“I endure it every four weeks,” Bettina answered with a prosaic nonchalance. “Are you saying that I am able to tolerate pain better than you are?” If he had gone through childbirth as she had, he would not need prompting to answer.
“We have to find a way out of this, it’s unbearable.”
“The cramps will end.”
“When?” he asked.
“Harry, they will end soon, and you will not die.”
“What else should I expect? Tell me,” he