My Own True Love (28 page)

Mikal put his hand on her arm as she mounted the step into the wagon. "Come home with me. We'll care for your husband at my house. It will be warmer than the
bardo,
at least."

Gratitude swept through her as she smiled at the man. "Oh, yes," she said. "Thank you. He needs all the help he can get."

He nodded pleasantly. "I'll hitch your horses for you, and drive carefully into town. He won't even have to leave his bed to get to my house."

"Door-to-door service. Thank you."

"I'll talk to your father about the horses." He helped her up the step. "You care for your man."

My
man,
she thought, pleasure at the words distracting her from worry for a moment, and stepped inside. Lewis was on the bed, pale and unconscious. Beth was crouched on the floor next to him, wrapped in a quilt.

Sara knelt briefly beside the half-asleep girl to say. "Get your things from Molly's wagon. We're leaving," before turning her attention to making Lewis comfortable for the ride into Duwal.

******************

"I saw something funny when Mikal was showing me around." Sara talked even though she wasn't sure Lewis was actually conscious enough to listen. She held his hand and occasionally stroked hair off his brow and talked. She'd been talking for at least an hour now. He hadn't been aware of the slow trip, or of being moved onto a hastily set-up cot in the back room of Mikal's shop. But his eyes opened and followed the glow of the candle she carried when she'd come in after settling Beth in the room the local Rom used for a school. She'd put the candle on an upturned box next to the cot, taken his hand, and begun talking to him. His eyes kept fluttering open and closed; occasionally he mumbled. She was cheered by his every small movement and kept on speaking.

"Maybe if I irritate you enough you'll wake up long enough to tell me to shut up," she said as she tenderly stroked the bare chest showing just above the bandages. "Mikal's wife said she'd bring you some broth after she got her children to bed. She has four so it'll be a while. About the sign," she went on, "it's funny. I mean, I thought it was a political slogan from my century, but there it was, written out in Bororavian in 1811. It just goes to show that there's nothing new, you know?"

"Sign?" he mumbled. His eyes opened a little, hardly more than slits, but he looked at her curiously.

"What sign say?"

"It said, It's the Economy, Stupid," she answered, knowing that hugging a conscious Lewis probably wouldn't be wise no matter how much she wanted to. She squeezed his hand and asked, "How do you feel?" He gave a faint smile. "Okay," she agreed. "Dumb question. Stay here." She hurried out and came back with a bowl of broth a few minutes later.

"Stay here?" he asked incredulously when she sat down beside him. "Stay here?"

Sara almost spilled the broth. She hastily put down the steaming bowl. "Feel like eating something?"

"No."

"Fine. Let's get you propped up and get started." She worked carefully to arrange pillows beneath his head and shoulders. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed with the bowl and dipped up a spoonful of the broth. "I'm not good at this angel-of-mercy stuff," she warned. "So don't push your luck. Open wide," she added with a cheerful smile.

"I hate you," he complained, but opened his mouth for her.

"That's not what you said a few hours ago."

"I must have been feverish. This is good."

She fed him a few more spoonfuls before she said, "Beng says you bled a lot but he doesn't think it's serious. He said he cleaned the wound with vodka. I hope that was antiseptic enough."

"What's antiseptic?"

"Stuff that kills germs."

"What're germs?"

"Drink your soup," she said. She was probably worried for nothing, she told herself. Lewis was going to be fine. He had a good appetite, and he wasn't exactly deathly pale. He was going to be fine. "You're going to be fine," she said, trying to convince herself with the words.

"Had worse," he answered. He hurt like hell, but he was alive, which he hadn't expected to be the outcome when he saw the big German with the saber coming at him. Damn long-armed bastard. "What happened?" he asked. "Where are we?"

"At a friend's. In the city."

He looked around. He'd already noticed that he was truly warm for the first time in weeks. "There's a fireplace," he said. "Lovely things, fireplaces." He looked back at Sara. She looked tired, and drawn with worry. "Beautiful Sara. Never looked lovelier. What happened to the guardsman?"

She looked away. The color drained from her cheeks. "I don't want to talk about it."

Lewis considered her reticence. He recalled that Sara had had a knife. It could only mean one thing.

"You saved my life, didn't you?"

She put down the bowl. The spoon clattered against the earthenware. "A little." She looked back at him. "I don't like to think about killing somebody." But if she was going to run a revolution she supposed

•he was going to have to think about it. About minimizing violence on both sides, certainly.

"Don't think about it," he told her. "He deserved it."

She wasn't going to debate with Lewis on that subject, especially because deep down she agreed. "I couldn't let him kill you."

"Thank you," he said. He wished he could hold her but he didn't think moving at all right now was likely. His chest and upper arm burned like fire. And he was light-headed with the knowledge that she cared enough for him to risk her life for his. "It's the most wonderful gift anyone's ever given me."

Sara blushed and got awkwardly to her feet. "I think you need to rest now," she said. "Look." She pointed at the floor, out of his line of vision. "I've got a pallet set up next to the fireplace. If you need to use the pot I can get Mikal to help."

Lewis found that eating and a bit of conversation had totally exhausted him. He wanted to talk to Sara, to look at her, to ask just who the devil Mikal was, but more than anything else he needed the rest.

"I think you should call Mikal," he conceded, giving in to mundane necessity. "I'd be grateful for the help."

******************

In two days Lewis had not gotten any better. Sara tried to tell herself that he wasn't any worse, but even she could tell that he was running a fever. Nothing wrong with running a fever, she'd been told. The man had a sword wound; of course he was going to run a fever. She washed him with cold water for the fever, and helped Mikal's wife, Ana, change the bandages, and kept up cheerful conversation, but she was scared to death.

She'd spent the morning with Mikal and some Rom elders. Alze had arrived with news from the outlying villages. She begrudged every minute away from Lewis. She hurried to his side as soon as she could get away. He'd asked her for music when she'd left Beth watching him that morning, so she brought her guitar with her when she returned.

"Where's Beth?" she asked when she found him alone in the room.

He waved his hand. "I sent her out to play. She told me she made a new friend when she went to the market with Ana. A boy who speaks English. She likes speaking her own language." He gave her a weak smile. "You brought your guitar. Good. I heard you retching this morning," he added, and his smile turned downright smug. "When do you think you're due?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she answered.

"Why not?"

She sat down and started tuning the guitar. "I want to wait until you're healthy enough to put up a proper argument."

"Why would I want to argue?"

"You will," she assured him. "Right now you're sick enough and grateful enough to do anything I ask."

"I'll do anything you want," he assured her. "I love you. Let's get married."

"I love you too, Lewis, and we already are. Let's right about it when you're better." He was looking at her longingly, devotion shining out of his fever-bright eyes. It was definitely time to change the subject.

“Beth's picked up a lot of Romany, don't you think? Mine's gotten a lot better too, come to think of it."

"Sometimes I don't notice what language I'm speaking," he said. A look of confusion crossed his face.

She put down the guitar to take his hand. "We're speaking English right now," she told him. She laughed softly. "I've noticed that we switch back and forth a lot depending on who's around. Then sometimes when we're alone we use both languages and never miss a beat. We've got our own pidgen language."

"I like that," he said with a wistful smile. "A language all our own. We'll pass it on to the children,"

"We're not discussing children right now, Lewis.”

His eyes narrowed with an effort at looking stern. "When I'm better we will, madam. We always make love in Romany," he added. "Have you noticed that?"

"I’m going to play guitar now," she said.

Instead she gazed at him thoughtfully, for so long that he eventually asked, "What are you thinking?"

"I was remembering a conversation we had a while back. When I told you about me."

"An unbelievable tale. Or at least an unintelligible one. I believed every word I understood," he added hastily before she could make any protests. "Magic, and souls brought back from the future to lead past lives. It's the most nonsensical truth I'll ever be confronted with."

"Never mind all that. I wasn't thinking about me."

"Then, pray, what were you thinking about?"

"You." She gazed at him with an affection he had never really noticed from her before.

"What about me?"

"I told you about me, but I don't know about you. How'd you end up being a spy? And being that creep Philipston's kid?"

"Creep?"

Sara hunted for a contemporary word. "How about blackguard? I'm not sure what it means, but it doesn't sound very nice."

"You only saw my father for a few moments, how can you tell he's not very nice?"

"Well, he didn't act as though he liked you for one thing. He certainly didn't like me."

"He would have liked you well enough," Lewis answered seriously. "In his bed. He has a taste for pretty girls."

“As mistresses?" she wondered.

He took exception to the arch innocence of her tone, "I thought we weren't going to discuss our future right now?"

"We're not." She leaned forward, chin cupped in her palm. “Tell me about you."

He put his head back on the pillow and looked at the low, beamed ceiling. He started by saying, "My father isn't very nice. You're right, he doesn't like me. When he thinks about me at all, that is. He married my mother for her dowry. He was a widower with two sons when he married her, and he took no interest in another child. I was eight when mother died, and he sent me to the navy when I was nine."

"Nine!"

"My mother's brother was a ship's captain, so he took me as a cabin boy. My father did eventually buy my commission."

"Nine?" she repeated. "But you were just a little boy. What kind of childhood is that?"

"Not," he said blandly, "idyllic."

He heard her take in a sharp breath, but she didn't offer any pitying remarks. "So how'd you end up a spy?" she asked.

"I volunteered. After I was wounded at Trafalgar—"

"Big naval battle," she said. "With the Armada or something."

"The battle did involve a Spanish fleet, but under French command," was as much correction as he felt able to make without laughing so hard he'd burst his bandages. His lady from the future was no historian.

"Well, I did my duty there and got wounded. I ended up spending nearly two years in England attending balls and frequenting gaming hells and dancing at Almack's with virginal misses when I wasn't whoring and drinking. Had the time of my life, though I was living on half pay and winnings from gambling," he added. "I did get to know my father over the gaming tables at Watiers."

"Hope you won a lot of money off him," Sara commented.

"I did." He smiled fondly at the memory of those bitter victories. "I got to know my older brothers as well, but I felt more like an outsider than a pink of the ton. I grew restless, running with the bucks, and waiting for a simpering, rich heiress to fall in love with me wasn't enough. Then my uncle reminded me that I was still a naval officer. He'd gone on to work in the diplomatic service. He asked me to do a small job for him. I started out as a courier and went on to other things. Spying's not the most honorable profession for a gentleman," he concluded, "but I've a talent for it. And cloak-and-dagger work suited my flair for the dramatic."

"And it's something to do with your life," she added. "Sounds like you'd rather work for a living anyway."

"A sad failing," he agreed. His wounds hurt and the fever made him tired. He wanted to sleep, but sleep would rob him of the chance to be with Sara. He so enjoyed talking to her, and felt they had such little time left to be together. The fever, he supposed, was making him morbid.

She stroked his hair. "I like your sad failing. I think I like you, Lewis Morgan."

"I thought you loved me."

"I do, but like lasts longer."

Before he could puzzle through this statement the door opened. Beth came breezing in, a small whirlwind in layers of clothing. A boy in a caped coat came in with her.

"This is Max," she said, introducing the boy. He swept off a fur hat, revealing brown curls, and bowed to Sara. "'E's a toff," Beth added, almost in apology. "But 'e speaks English, so I don't mind." She faced Sara with her hands defiantly on her hips. "Max's run away from home. I told 'im we 'ave a circus and we'll keep 'im."

Sara ignored Beth's belligerent posture and saw '.he pleading in the girl's green eyes. "Max," she said, turning her attention from Beth to the boy, "why do you want to run away from home?"

"Cause 'is pa's crazy," Beth answered for him. “Isn't 'e, Max?"

The boy's fair cheeks blushed bright red. He gave Beth a beseeching look. She took his hand. He looked back at Sara. "I have chosen not to live under my father's roof," he said, his English slow and formal. He shuffled his feet. "I met Beth the last time I ran away." He gave the slightly taller girl a look of adoration. "She said you would help me, Madam Sara."