It was not just hope she felt as the days passed and his health showed every sign of recovering. It was knowledge, certainty. It was faith.
And so faith warred with sanity in her mind. And faith was winning.
Every day he was stronger. Every day he ate a little more heartily. He was still very thin, but some of the gauntness, the skeletal look, had gone. There was a suggestion of healthy color to his flesh. Every day he walked a little faster and a little farther. Every day he talked a little more and laughed a little more and teased a little more.
On the last day of the week they walked all the way up the hill-though they stopped several times to look down at the view and recover their breath-to me village. They were greeted with vociferous Welsh cheer at the tavern, where they stopped for lemonade. She knew that word would quickly spread that Viscount Cordell was not lying at home dying but was up and about and apparently recuperating from a long illness. She knew that they would now have callers and invitations. The tavern keeper had already mentioned an assembly that was to be held soon in the rooms above the tavern.
John had said they would be there and would lead the first waltz. Absurd man.
The thought of waltzing with him had made the tears spring to her eyes and she had had to blink and fumble in her reticule and wonder aloud if it was an insect that had flown into her eye and set it to watering.
The walk back down the hill had been less strenuous than the climb. But he had been tired enough to lie down-with her at his side-when they returned home. But only for half an hour. He seemed unwilling to lie down for longer during the daytime.
Yes, faith was overcoming sanity. She had almost relaxed totally into it. She had almost stopped doubting and fearing. He was getting better. It was not just a respite. The disease had gone.
It was with a sick lurching of the stomach, then, that she awoke one night to me sound of his coughing. She sat up sharply. He was standing beside the bed, holding back the bedclothes on his side of the bed.
"I woke you," he said. "And in the worst possible way. I just had to get up for a minute. The cough was nothing. But I know it puts terror into your soul every time you hear it. Forgive me."
She knew he was right. The few coughs she had heard from him in the last week were different. They were not the deep, racking, gurgling coughs she had heard too many times during the journey from England. They were symptoms of nothing. They were merely coughs.
She lay back down and turned onto her side as he climbed back into bed. Life had been so very joyous for the past week that it was difficult to pick out one single thing that made her happier than any other. But perhaps it was this. This lying beside him in bed, feeling the warmth of his body next to hers, hearing his breathing. This knowing that she was his wife and had the right to lie here. She was glad she had lain in his bed the very night of their wedding and every night since. She had not asked permission to lie there. She had wanted to be near when he needed her. It was why she had married him.
He had never told her to go away, to lie in her own bed. She would never go away unless he asked her to. Yes, this was the greatest joy. She smiled when he turned his head toward her, though they could not see each other very clearly in the darkness.
"I disturbed you," he said. "You were sleeping so peacefully."
"I am happy," she said. "You cannot know how happy I am, John."
He turned onto his side too, and slid one arm beneath her head. With the other he drew her closer so that her body was against his. He felt less angular and fragile man he had felt in the nights after their wedding, when she had held him in her arms.
"Are you?" he said. "Are you, love?"
She lifted her head hopefully. She loved his kisses. Especially when she was lying down and her knees were not so badly affected.
He smiled at her and kissed her. She experimented. Instead of waiting for him to prod with his tongue through the seam of her lips, she parted them for him. And when she discovered the pleasure of moist flesh caressing moist flesh, she opened her mouth. His tongue came sliding hard and deep inside and she was very glad indeed that she was lying down. She would have disgraced herself utterly by crumpling into a heap on the ground.
And then she felt alarm and pulled her head back sharply. One of her hands shot up to touch his forehead.
"John," she said. She could hear her voice shaking. "You are fevered. You should have told me."
His chuckle seemed to mock her terror. "My love," he said. "My own little innocent. I am the big bad wolf in your bed, I am afraid."
She understood instantly. She lowered her hand and was glad of the darkness. She felt mortified.
"Adèle," he said, "you married me to nurse me to my death. I know you love me, sweetheart. I know, too, that you did not expect this ever to be a normal marriage, a consummated marriage. Perhaps you never wanted it to be. And if you still do not, I will respect your wishes. I will be forever grateful for the selfless love you showed in marrying me. But if you do not want it, you are going to have to remove yourself from my bed now or sooner-and stay away. You do understand me, do you not?"
She felt such a deep stabbing of longing that she did not believe she would be able to speak if she tried. But she did try.
"Yes," she whispered.
"Or I can move to another room," he said. "There is no reason why it should be you, is there, merely because this is called the master bedchamber?''
"Don't go," she said, clutching his nightshirt. "Stay with me. Make me your wife. Oh, please, John, make me your wife."
She was frantic with need then. She had expected to die a maid. She had thought about it and accepted it as a consequence of her devotion to him. She would never marry again after he had gone. She had decided that and had never felt any doubt that it was a decision she would never want to revoke. There could never be anyone else after John. Never.
And now-there was to be John?
When his mouth came back to hers, she opened her own eagerly and waited for what was to happen. She knew-even the cold reason in her knew-that it was going to be the very happiest night in her whole life.
He had woken up wanting her-and knowing that he was now strong enough to have her. But the matter was not as simple as merely reaching for her and taking her. He was not quite sure he had the right. Was he really her husband? In body certainly he was and in mind he half was-more than half. As the days went by he found himself thinking more and more as the Regency John. But the other one- the twentieth-century John Chandler-was still there. Which one was he, exactly? Which one would he be for the rest of his life?
He had just become engaged to Allison. He had had a number of women between the ages of seventeen and twenty-eight, but he had committed himself to fidelity when he had agreed to marry Allison. Was it right to sleep now with Adèle?
But she was his wife.
And he knew that if he had to go back to the twentieth century he would not be able to marry Allison after all. He thought with grim humor of the reason he would have to give her if he was going to be honest. He could not marry her because he was in love with a woman almost two hundred years old.
Adèle was a virgin. With his Regency self he had no doubt of that, even though his other self might have taken for granted that at the age of twenty-four she must have had a few lovers. Was it right that he be the one to make love to her first? Who would be doing it? But he knew the answer to that. It would be her husband. He was her husband.
But what if the other John came back as sick as he had been? Would it be better for her not to have known the consummation? And what if he left her pregnant?