Late in the evening, Laura awoke to find she had fallen asleep in the chair beside his bed. She sat up, heart pounding, and turned to the bed. James lay quietly, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling shallowly, and she sagged in relief. Asleep, it was easy to see the ravages of James’s illness. His pale face was gaunt, weary grooves lining his mouth and eyes. He frowned and muttered in his sleep.
Laura rubbed her temples, where a headache had formed. Her neck was stiff from the position she had fallen asleep in, and she rolled her head, trying to ease it. Laura went to the bed, straightening the covers as she searched his face.
As she turned away from the bed, his hand wrapped around her wrist, startling her. “Stay.” Laura looked back at him in surprise. “Please.”
“I will.” Laura had intended to stay with him through the night anyway. But it was most unlike James to ask for a favor. She laid her hand on his forehead to check for fever.
“I’m not out of my head. I just . . .” His hand began to shake, and he pulled it back. His entire arm spasmed. “I hate this.”
“I know.”
He turned his head away, saying, “No. Never mind. You should go to your room and sleep. It’s foolish for you to stay here.”
“Not as foolish as it is for you to pretend you need nothing and no one.” She smiled at him. “I’ll just go change into my dressing gown. I’ll be back soon.”
When she returned, James’s eyes were still open, and his arm was once again still. Laura sat down on the side of his bed, taking up his hand even though she had no need to check for fever.
“Don’t wear black for me,” he told her.
“James, really, must you bring this up?”
“Glad to see I can still annoy you.” He smiled, but the sight of it on his wasted face sent a chill through Laura.
“If that is all it takes to please you, you should be a happy man indeed.” It was hard to maintain her crisp, cool front. But James would hate her growing “maudlin,” as he would term it.
“And, please, I beg you, do not let Mother have a daguerreotype made of all of you artistically posed and weeping into your kerchiefs.”
Laura couldn’t help but chuckle, having seen one or two such mourning mementos. “I promise I will dissuade her.”
He fell silent, his thumb tracing a circle on her palm. “I’m sorry.”
She glanced at him in surprise, but he kept his gaze on her hand, so that she could see nothing in his eyes. “For what?”
“For . . .” He shrugged. “Ruining your life eleven years ago, I suppose.”
“I think you acquired more of your mother’s love of drama than you’ll admit.” He looked at her then, startled, and she went on. “You didn’t ruin my life. You may have noticed I didn’t wither and die because I didn’t marry Graeme. In any case, you couldn’t have forced me to give up Graeme. I chose to do so. You were simply . . . the bearer of bad tidings.”
He made a breathy noise that she thought was meant to be a laugh. “Now there’s an apt description of me. But I was harsh.”
“You aren’t prone to softening blows. But maybe that makes it easier in the end, after . . .”
“After the weeping?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Sometimes it’s better to be quick and sure than to be kind. I can tell you that if I had a splinter in my finger, I would go to you to pull it out.”
“And I’d be happy to do it.” There was a twinkle in his eyes, quickly gone.
After that he was quiet, and Laura took her seat in the chair again. The night wore on. Laura slept now and then, waking to check on him.
Other than changing into a dress the next morning, there was little to distinguish the day from the night. James continued to grow worse. Laura acquired a headache. She was achingly tired. She wished she had someone to whom she could talk. But the truth was, at Grace Hill her closest friend was James’s dog.
Late that night, James began a fit of coughing, and guiltily Laura realized she had overlooked his breathing treatment this evening. She was tired, but Owen had just taken Demosthenes out for his bedtime ramble, so it was up to her to help James with the vapor therapy.
Taking out the brown bottle of medicine from the cabinet, she turned to carry it back to the bed. Her foot slipped on the edge of the rug, and she lurched into the dresser, hitting her elbow. The bottle shot from her grasp and crashed to the floor, spilling its contents over the wood floor.
Laura let out a cry of horror and sank to her knees beside the mess. Tears spilled from her eyes. Silly to cry, of course; Walter would get more from the apothecary in the morning. But in her tired state, bombarded by her jumbled emotions, spilling his tonic seemed the last straw.