"I do beg your pardon, ma'am," Theo said, jumping down the last two steps. "Sylvester is ill."
"Ill? What on earth do you mean, ill? He's never had a day's illness in his life. And what kind of a slugabed are you, girl, to appear to your household at this late hour?"
Theo ignored this latter complaint "Sylvester has a war wound that afflicts him with severe headaches," she said with an attempt at patience. "I'm afraid I must leave you to your own devices today, I'm needed at his bedside. Please feel free to order things as you wish, and, of course, if you'd like to take the air, or pay some calls, then the barouche is at your disposal. Now, if you'll excuse me -"
"Goodness me, gal. If the man has a headache, it's ten to one he dipped deep in the cognac last night. He should take a powder and sleep it off. There's no need for you to dance attendance on him, and I wish you to accompany me on some errands. Mary's too busy sniffling and moaning to leave her bed."
"My apologies, ma'am, but I must beg you to excuse me. Foster will attend to everything for you."
Lady Gilbraith's complexion turned a curious mottled salmon color, and she began to huff, but Theo didn't wait for the head of steam to burst forth. She turned and ran back upstairs.
Henry looked up from the bedside as she came quietly in, but he moved aside when she came over.
Throughout that interminable day, and half the next night, she sat beside the bed, offering what little relief she could, concealing her horror at the hideous pain that turned a powerful, self-determining man into an inarticulate, groaning husk barely capable of raising his head from the pillow.
Henry, initially tight-lipped, changed his attitude as the hours went by, and she didn't flag, didn't shrink, from performing whatever service was necessary, and didn't hesitate to ask his advice. He found himself telling her of how he'd found the major in the prison transport, barely alive, his head wrapped in foul, blood-soaked bandages. He described the hellhole where they'd languished without medical attention or supplies for the best part of a twelvemonth.
Theo listened, and a few more pieces of the puzzle that was her husband fell into place.
"Were you at Vimiera with his lordship?" she whispered when they'd drawn away from the bed and were eating supper over by the open window, so the smell of food wouldn't increase his misery.
Henry shook his head. "No, ma'am. But his lordship talked of it during his illness."
"What did he say?" Theo tried to hide her intense curiosity.
"Oh, he was out of his head mostly, ma'am. It was all disjointed, like. Couldn't make hide nor hair of it, mostly. Besides, he couldn't remember what happened before that damned Froggie bayoneted him."
"Oh." Theo was disappointed. She returned to her vigil beside the bed.
"We'll give him the laudanum now, my lady?" Henry spoke softly behind her. "It's been all of fifteen minutes since he last vomited, and maybe he'll keep it down long enough to fall asleep."
"Will that be the end of it?" she asked anxiously, watching as he measured a few drops into the class of water. Sylvester seemed barely conscious, although his swollen eyelids jumped and twitched.
"Please God," the manservant said. "Here, my lord." He slid a strong arm around his neck and lifted him, holding the glass to his lips.
Sylvester swallowed the opiate without opening his eyes. He seemed no longer aware of either of his attendants and lay still on the pillows.
Henry stepped back, drawing the curtains around the bed again. "You'd best get some rest yourself, my lady. I'll sleep on the truckle bed in here."
Theo was dead tired; last night had been a very short one, but she looked doubtfully at the shrouded bed, listening as Sylvester's breathing deepened.
"He'll sleep now, my lady," Henry said insistently.
"Yes," she said. "Did he have these attacks when he was a prisoner, or did they come on afterward?"
"No, he had them even worse in France," Henry told her, his face screwing into an expression of loathing. "Damned French wouldn't give him anything, not even a drop of laudanum. And he'd be screaming… screaming that name all the time."
"What name?"
Henry shook his head. "I can't rightly remember, ma'am." He bent to pull the truckle bed from beneath the poster bed. "Gerald, I think it was. Miles… Niles… Gerald. Miles Gerald or some such."
Miles, or Niles, Gerald. Theo shrugged and turned to the door. "Good night, Henry. Call me if I can be of help."
"Good night, my lady."
Theo went into her own bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her. She was almost too tired to undress but somehow managed to drag her clothes off and fall into bed, sliding into a dreamless sleep almost immediately.
She awoke very early the next morning and, still half-asleep, slipped from her room and quietly put her head around Sylvester's door. She heard only the deep, stertorous breathing from behind the curtains, interspersed with low rumbling snores from the truckle bed. The sound of his sleeping filled her with sweet relief. What must it be like to live every day with the knowledge that that hideous, degrading agony could – no, would – sweep over you without warning, and there was no cure, no promise of a future without such a curse?
Back in her own room she rang for Dora and, when the maid appeared, asked her to bring up hot water for a bath. She bathed and dressed in leisurely fashion, sipping chocolate and nibbling sweet biscuits, contemplating her next move. She must go to Brook Street and enlist her mother's help in the entertainment of Lady Gilbraith. If she could shuffle off some of those responsibilities, she'd have more time to tackle the mystery surrounding her husband. Maybe Edward could find out if anyone who had been at Vimiera with Sylvester was in London. It would be a place to start… although not as promising as the Fisherman's Rest.
It was still very early, and when she went downstairs, Foster answered her inquiry by informing her that neither Lady Gilbraith nor Miss Gilbraith had yet rung for their maids. That gave her a couple of hours before they'd be up and about and demanding attention, Theo reasoned. "Have my curricle brought around, Foster, I'm driving myself to Brook Street."
While she waited, she went into the library and wrote a note to Sylvester, then ran back upstairs. In her own room she adjusted her hat in the mirror, arranging the silver plume on her shoulder, then, picking up her gloves and riding whip, she tiptoed out to Sylvester's door and opened it softly. The curtains were still drawn around the bed, but Henry was now moving around in the dim light, setting the room to rights.
"Is he still asleep, Henry?"
"Aye, m'lady." He came to the door.
"Give him this when he awakens, please." She handed him the folded paper.
The manservant took it with a respectful nod.
"Yes, m'lady."
It was a beautiful morning, and her spirits rose as she stepped up into her curricle. Something had happened during the long hours she'd spent by Sylvester's bedside, impotently sharing his suffering, wishing she could take it from him. Theo was in love with her husband. At least, that was the only explanation she could come up with to explain this joy she felt at the prospect of seeing him well again, with his dry smile and his strong, elegant hands and his cool gray eyes. Her blood sang and her heart danced. She knew she'd come to care for him many weeks ago, but she'd not expected this quicksilver pleasure at the very thought of him. Everything in the crisp and beautiful morning seemed especially magical. The deep russet tones of the leaves on the trees lining the streets, the tang of smoke from a bonfire, a trio of rosy-cheeked children playing ball in a square garden.
She bowled around the corner onto Berkeley Square, enjoying the neat fashion in which she caught the thong of her whip, sending it up the stick with an elegant turn of her wrist. Sylvester would have approved.