Page 39 of Black and Silver

Minerva nodded, but rather than resting and letting him get on with things, she pushed and struggled to get out of bed.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” Lawrence said, turning back and blocking her way. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Getting up,” Minerva croaked. Lawrence opened his mouth to protest, but Minerva countered him with, “I wish for more than my hair to be clean. You’ve obviously taken a bath, so I would like one as well.”

Lawrence blew out a breath and let his arms drop, defeated. He could not very well deny her the same pleasure he’d given himself. Not when he could see how musty she still was from the mud.

Against his better judgment, but eager to please her as well as protect her, Lawrence helped Minerva rise and return to the cottage’s main room. It was considerably warmer than before, and although Minerva was still shivering and unsteady on her feet, the room was more comfortable for her.

Even ill, Minerva was stubborn. As much as Lawrence tried to hover and assist her, she insisted that she was fully capable of bathing herself. She batted away Lawrence’s every attempt to help her undress or soap up the sponge he’d used earlier on her hair. He conceded defeat when she asked him to turn around while she accomplished the actual bathing, but unbeknownst to her, he watched her reflection in the cottage’s windows to make certain she did not struggle unduly.

He insisted on helping Minerva to dry off, though he still kept his eyes averted, and then put his foot down and carried her back to bed.

“This is all entirely unnecessary,” she croaked as he fed her honeyed tea and broth he’d made from a jar of bouillon paste he’d found in the pantry, along with a bit of bread that had gone stale, but was not yet moldy. “I can feed myself.”

“Can you?” Lawrence asked, one eyebrow arched scoldingly. “Clarence doesn’t think so.”

He glanced to the skull, then nodded, as if Clarence had stated his agreement.

Minerva merely looked at him with a stare that would have made evil spirits shudder in their boots, but that quickly dissolved into a sigh.

“The two of you have joined forced against me,” she said.

Worryingly, she only finished half her meal, then settled down to sleep without a fuss afterwards. Her slumber was heavy right from the start, though she continued to cough and shiver, even as she snored.

Lawrence returned to pacing, consumed with the desperate need to do something. He felt very much as if he would go out of his mind if Minerva did not turn a corner soon.

A small bit of relief came when Silas returned to the house about an hour after dark.

“There’s a wainwright in the village,” he announced, his voice thick with exhaustion, as he removed his coat and hat. “He’s happy to repair the carriage, but he requested that I bring it there on the morrow.”

“Will the carriage make the journey?” Lawrence asked.

Silas nodded, but without confidence. “If we unload it to put as little strain on the axle as possible,” he said. “It’s merely cracked, not broken yet.”

“We’ll remove the statue before you leave,” Lawrence said. A half-smile flitted across his face before he said, “We can store it in the church until we’re ready to move on.”

Silas laughed at whatever picture that suggestion created in his mind.

His expression lightened for a moment before he went on to say, “Oh, you’ll be pleased to know, my lord, that I asked about the parson at the village. He’s away visiting relatives in Winchester until the end of the month. He only just left the day before yesterday.”

“Which explains why there is still bread and a bit of milk in the house,” Lawrence said, grateful for it.

Silas nodded. “I’ll fetch more provisions in the morning, when I take the carriage to the village. And I was told there’s a village wise woman who might be able to dose Lady Minerva with some sort of healing tincture as well.”

“Thank God,” Lawrence breathed out. “I’d prefer a London physician, but between you and me, it is often these village healers that do a better job of it while causing less damage to their patients.”

Silas agreed with a nod, and the two of them set to work making pallets for them to sleep on for the night. Lawrence supposed he could have attempted to share the bed with Minerva, but he did not want her to wake in the night and fear he had undertaken any sort of impropriety with her.

Not that Lawrence had much rest that night. Every time Minerva so much as sniffled, he leapt up and ran to her bedside to see what was the matter. He went running so much that halfway through the night, he moved his pallet into the bedroom to sleep on the floor by her side.

In the morning, the rain had gone, but Minerva’s fever was hotter than ever. So much so that she barely stirred when Lawrence hovered over her, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead.

“I wish I’d paid more attention to whatever malady that was at the quarantined inn we passed,” Lawrence worried aloud as he stood over her.

“Er, it was a putrid fever, my lord,” Silas answered from the other side of the bedroom doorway. “Some of the others in the stable, where I passed the night, said three or four people had already died of it.”

Lawrence caught his breath. That was not what he wanted to hear.

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