Nicholas hadn’t thought of that, but then again he hadn’t been thinking about Sara, he’d been thinking about himself and how it had made him feel like a fool. How he felt manipulated and used for his money and title. When in fact, how must she have felt? He felt sick again and paled. Lady Fenton gave him the eye that said, “Do not throw up on this beautiful loveseat or I shall strike you dead on the spot.” He took some calming breaths before he stood.
“You should speak to your wife, my lord. She has much to say.”
Nicholas chuckled. He suddenly felt lighter but frightened at the same time. He remembered how he hurt Sara. It would be nothing short of a miracle for her to forgive him.
****
Sara tossed and turned for hours before she finally fell asleep, and when she did, she had beautiful dreams of a little boy dancing with her in the wildflowers. She looked up to see Nicholas running toward them, arms outstretched.
She screamed with delight in her sleep, but it was enough of a jolt to wake her up. She nearly fell off the bed, then with a gut wrenching sob began crying all over again. It was absolute torture. She could still smell him, still feel him, she could—
She looked around the room, everything looked in place but somehow something was off. It was when she heard a slight knock on the door that she realized the reason for her nervousness.
Nicholas, in all his glory was standing in the doorway with tears streaming down his own face. She tried to make words form at her mouth but found that she couldn’t do it. He had something in his hand, although she couldn’t tell what it was, it seemed like a piece of paper. He looked at her and smiled a beautiful smile, almost too beautiful, making her want to pinch herself. Yet she was too transfixed to say anything.
Wordlessly, he walked to the fireplace and threw the paper in, then walked over to her and said, “Tomorrow, we’ll talk tomorrow. I’m sorry.”
She felt like pulling him down into the bed right that instant, but she was still too hurt, too vulnerable from the things he said. He said he didn’t want her. It hurt more than she could imagine, and then he abandoned her. Now he was apologizing, but frankly, it was hardly doing the trick. She crossed her arms and nodded as he left the room.
When the door closed she walked over to the fireplace to look at the burning papers. Maybe it was her dreams, but it appeared that the very papers burning were the annulment papers, which was obviously wishful thinking on her part. She had left them in London with strict instructions to send them off. Had they not done so? Unless someone took them, or maybe Nicholas went and fetched them himself?
It was too much; she was giving herself a headache. She surely wasn’t going to sleep now, but she lay down anyway, for the baby.
Hours later, Sara was so exhausted, her eyelids closed involuntarily. Her only problem was getting comfortable. Earlier she’d been nearly freezing, now it felt as if someone had stuck her in a hot bath tub without an escape, she threw off the covers of her bed or at least tried, but she felt so weak. She panicked when she realized her entire body felt heavy and hot.
She had a fever.
She wasn’t sure how she knew except for the fact that she was burning up inside, and it wasn’t good. To have a high fever during pregnancy wasn’t safe for her or for the baby. She started thinking about her blue-eyed baby and began crying.
Dear God, protect him, protect him. She kept saying over and over again even though she wasn’t even sure it was a boy. The last clear thought she had was of Nicholas putting the annulment papers in the fire. “I love you,” she whispered out loud then fell into a deep, hot sleep.
Nicholas waited for hours the next morning. Every time he asked someone to check on Sara, they just shrugged it off and said it was normal for a woman in her condition to need sleep.
Her condition? What condition would that be? He kept wracking his brain for a reason until he finally found one that made sense. Not that he wanted to acknowledge it. He was just getting ready to pound down to Lady Fenton’s room when he heard sobbing from upstairs.
He ran up just in time for Lady Fenton to fall into his arms. “My God, my God, oh my dear God, I don’t know what to do!” Hysterical, she was pushing Nicholas over the edge of sanity as well.
“What’s wrong?” He shook her shoulders until she finally looked at him with quivering lips.
Her head continued to shake as she spoke, “It’s Sara. She has a fever.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The heart within Nicholas’s chest felt as though it had stopped pumping for a while. Fevers weren’t uncommon, but it was still a scary thought. People died daily of fevers, especially when they let hair-brained physicians bleed them out. He cursed under his breath and burst into the room.