The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,130

She yanked the door open and tumbled inside.

Oliver looked up from the round wooden sucker he had clasped in his hands. He saw her and his face lit up. He grinned, showing her three perfect little teeth. “Goo!”

On the fourth day of Con’s freedom, he woke shivering. His head pounded and his limbs ached. He burrowed deeper into his coverlet and trembled with fever until he could no longer pretend he wasn’t nauseated, then lifted himself enough to turn over the edge of his bed and heaved sickly yellow bile onto the floor.

When it seemed he had no more in him to give up, he groaned. Then another wave of nausea hit him. He struggled to contain what meager contents were left in his belly, but the feeling couldn’t be halted. He vomited again.

No one heard this weak moan, either. His brain pushed against his skull until his head could explode from it. He looked up carefully toward the bellpull. Too far. He’d never reach it.

His eyes closed halfway. His mouth tasted bitter. He was freezing. He looked down at his hand clenched on the edge of the mattress and a cold terror gripped him at the sight of speckled red bumps scattered across his skin.

Oh, God. Gaol fever.

He let out a wail of distress. A yell surely heard throughout the house. Then his head dropped against his pillow. Soft, cool fabric soothed his hot cheek but the embroidered coverlet pulled over his legs did nothing to quell the frigid knowledge that he was going to die. Just like his father had.

“No,” he croaked. He tried to say it again, louder, but he was seized by a petrifying torpor. His head lolled and rested listlessly to one side. His arms and his legs…God, he couldn’t feel them. His heart raced at this new symptom. It beat against the wall of his chest, but it was no use. He could see and hear, but his lips didn’t move. He was going to die, and he was never going to have the chance to tell Elizabeth that he’d forgiven her.

After what felt like years of paralysis, a maid entered. She walked toward him, hesitantly at first, mayhap confused by his unmoving eyes. Then she screamed. She spun on her heel and almost crashed into the open door as she hurried from the room, all the while screeching, “He’s dead! He’s dead!” at the top of her lungs.

He really didn’t appreciate that.

His mother ran in shortly after. He tried to smile at her, or reach for her, but he couldn’t. He was trapped. Panic overwhelmed him until he was barely aware of her touching his skin. He tried pursing his lips, blinking, anything to be able to communicate with her.

Her breath hitched. She leaned across him, peering into his face, and he blinked again. Then she clutched her hands to her breast and sobbed with relief. “He’s not dead!” she cried, much to his relief. “Find Tony. Fetch Dr. Bourne. Bring more blankets, and hot water.”

Con wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the hot water, but then, he couldn’t very well argue, could he? He could do nothing but be fussed over, and slowly lose what vitality he had left.

For days he lay helpless in his bed. His arms and legs shifted restlessly, but he had no control over them. Even lethargic as he was, he couldn’t seem to stop twitching. His head swelled until the pressure of it made him nauseated. Every limb on his body ached like the devil. He developed a dry cough that wracked pitifully from his lungs. This was nothing like the fever he’d developed from his knife wound, because he was horrifically awake for it all. He was dying, and he knew it.

He silently begged them to fetch his wife.

Finally, blessedly, Elizabeth came.

She ran to his bed and fell across him. He would have urged her not to risk herself with his contagion, but he was so very glad to see her, and then, he couldn’t tell her not to. He didn’t even want to. She smelled like heaven, like talc and spilled milk, like clean bedsheets, and he would have shed a tear of gladness if he’d been able.

She rolled slightly off of him, enough so he could breathe better, and cuddled against his shoulder into the length of his side. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and stroked his chest with her long, slender fingers. “Constantine,” she whispered