Page 83 of A Wounded Duke's Passion
“Oh, Anna,” David said, handing her a handkerchief. “My poor dearest.”
Anna rubbed her eyes roughly with the fabric and crumbled it between her hands. “What if she never wakes?” she whispered, longing for an answer and terrified to receive one. “What if—what if Lady Hastings—what if she killed my sister? How can I bear that?”
David stood before her and grasped her shoulders very gently. “Anna.”
She looked at him through the mist of her tears. He smiled tenderly.
“She will wake up,” he said, carefully enunciating each word. “We have to believe that. She will wake up. Yes, the fall was terrible, but the surgeon arrived quickly. He was able to stop the bleeding, and Bridget is a strong woman. She is nearly as formidable as you.”
Anna choked out a wet, uneven laugh.
“She will survive,” David said. “It may take her some time to wake, but she will. Bridget is not going to be defeated by the likes of Lady Hastings.”
“You cannot possibly know that.”
“No,” David said. “But I will make myself believe it, for your sake and for hers. I do believe that the world has an ounce of justice in it, and Bridget will live. She would want us to have faith in her recovery.”
Anna rubbed her eyes again, dabbing away the tears. “You are right,” she said. “I must have faith that she will recover. My despair will change nothing. It is so hard, though. So very hard.”
“I know.”
He squeezed her hands and lowered himself onto the floor beside her chair. Anna had the wayward thought that no gentleman suitor would ever do that. He would continue standing or order a chair brought to him. That was why she liked David, though. Sometimes, he was informal. He did the wrong gesture or said something awkward. And she did not care a whit.
“How are your parents?” he asked after a moment.
“Distraught,” Anna said. “My mother has been ill since Bridget’s fall; she has scarcely left her bed. My father blameshimself and believes that if he had not insisted on the engagement to Lord Thornton, this would not have happened. I have…”
Anna twisted the handkerchief in her hands.
“You have…?” David prompted.
“I have not confronted him over the matter, but I wish to,” Anna said. “I do not know the source of Father’s debts, but it was cruel of him to force Bridget to rid him of them. Now, he has his debts and may lose my sister! I am so angry with him, David. I have never felt so wrathful in my life, and I do not know what to do with these feelings inside me.”
“You are a devoted sister to Bridget,” David said. “It is understandable that you would be angry at such things.”
Anna sighed. “It feels ungracious somehow. He is suffering, too.”
“That is the folly of being human,” David said. “Sometimes, you feel more than one thing at once.”
“You are so wise,” Anna said, her voice teasing. “Look at you.”
His lips twitched in amusement, and they lapsed into comfortable silence. They watched her sister together. If Anna had not known about Bridget’s terrible injury, she might have just assumed that her sister had fallen into a peaceful, ordinary sleep. The color had returned to Bridget’s face, and the rise and fall of her chest revealed no inner distress.
“Has His Grace come to see her?” David asked after a long moment.
“No,” Anna replied. “He sent a letter with his apologies and a request for information about Bridget’s condition. If memory serves, he also offered the services of his physician. The man himself has not come, though. I do not know if that is for better or worse.”
“No?”
“I suspect that he blames himself for Bridget’s misfortune,” Anna said, “so he stays away. That is unfortunate because His Grace did nothing… well, there was something untoward.”
The whole ton had heard the salacious story of how Bridget and the Duke of Hamilton had engaged in an illicit act in the gardens before being confronted by the Marquess of Thornton and Lady Hastings, but that scandal had been mostly buried given Bridget’s subsequent accident.
“But,” Anna continued, “I am certain that many others have committed the same transgression, including the Duke of Hamilton. In my mind, that is no reason for him to remain away. However, if he did come to see Bridget, I fear that my father might have some strong words to express. I do not wish to see any more fighting and arguing, while my sister lies wounded on this bed. That will accomplish nothing.”
“I do not know if I agree,” David mused. “I think inevitably that there will be some manner of confrontation. Perhaps the Duke of Hamilton and your father will come to an amiable agreement.”
“You are so optimistic,” Anna said. “Bridget will wake, my father will listen to reason, and the Duke of Hamilton will marry my sister.”
