Love, Come to Me(93)

“Mrs. Rayne?”

“What is it?” Lucy asked, instantly ashamed to hear how sharp her voice was. But she felt like a thief who had been caught in the middle of a robbery, and irritation was the only way she could mask her guilt.

“Mr. Rayne is calling for you.”

Lucy shot up immediately. The letters fell from her lap to the floor in a rustling cascade. She threw them a harried glance.

“I’ll pick them up,” Bess said.

“No. No, I’ll do it later. Leave them there, please.” Pressing trembling fingertips to her mouth, Lucy hesitated, her eyes flickering to the staircase. Abruptly she was afraid. Why was he calling for her now? Was God giving her one more chance to hear Heath speak her name before—wildly she shook off the thought.

Bess’s expectant gaze spurred her into action. Lucy gritted her teeth, taking one step forward, and then another, and she found as she made her way up the steps that she had left her fear behind. A calm sort of blankness settled over her. Her heart had stopped in midbeat, suspended in the middle of her chest like a frozen pendulum.

The nurse, her expression solemn and compassionate, met Lucy at the bedroom door. “It’s worse now,” she said.

“I’ll see to him. Leave us alone, please.”

Heath stirred faintly and moaned as she approached the bed. “Lucy . . . I want Lucy . . .”

Tenderly she laid her palm against his bristled cheek. “I’m here.”

But he didn’t seem to know her touch, and he kept repeating her name. Lucy bent down low and spoke to him quietly, interrupting his litany with endearments and soothing words until he quieted. She kept her hand on his face, leaning over him until the muscles in her neck and back were screaming in protest. She was tired of everything, of running on nerves and being drained of hope. She was tired of being alone, and she wanted her husband back, and she was sick of enduring the ceaseless fear that she would never have him back.

Gradually Lucy lowered her head until it was cradled in her other arm. She closed her eyes to face a darkness splotched with multicolored lights. Remnants of the past floated by her as she slept and dreamed . . . Heath, laughing at her transparent wiles . . . making love to her . . . burying his head in her lap and uttering a drunken confession . . . smiling at her in the glow of candlelight . . . holding her when she cried. His arms seemed to fade away from her, and she fought to stay near him, but as he drifted deeper into the darkness she couldn’t find him. Alone, she whirled around in the blackness, sifting through the shadows in a futile effort to touch him. But he was gone. She had lost him. And she had never told him that she loved him . . .

Lucy opened her eyes with a gasp, her heart pounding. A nightmare. Blinking, she raised her head from her arm and looked at Heath. His lashes lay like dark fans on his pale skin. Reflexively, her hand curved more firmly against the side of his face. The pulse underneath his jaw beat steadily under her thumb. His skin felt cool.

Was she still dreaming? Was the fever really gone? She was shaking all over, unable to believe what was before her eyes. Checking him again, Lucy felt his quiet pulse, and the softness of breath against her fingertips, and the miraculous disappearance of the fever. She forgot her weariness and aching muscles as joy rushed through her. He was hers again.

Chapter 11

“Heath, what are you doing?” Lucy stopped short in the middle of the bedroom. She had gone to check on him as soon as she got home. It was a shock to see him out of bed and almost fully dressed for the first time in weeks. He turned to her as he buttoned his cuffs, casting a sardonic glance at her.

“Looks like I’m putting my clothes on, doesn’t it?”

“You’re not supposed to be out of bed.”

“I’ve been in that bed for two weeks. I’ve swallowed bottles of tonic, slept more than fourteen hours a day, and eaten every spoonful of the sickroom swill that’s been put before me. I think I deserve a few hours out of bed.”

Their eyes met, his glinting with cool determination, hers soft with cautious entreaty. Lucy saw that no amount of chiding, pleading, or persuasion would have any effect on him, and she lifted her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

“You always choose to test your limits. But this time it’s too soon—”

“This time the choice isn’t mine. I can’t play the invalid any longer. There are problems at the paper.”

“Mr. Redmond can take care of—”

“Damon came to visit yesterday while you were at your club meeting. He’s been having some difficulties lately”—Heath’s mouth twisted with self-disgust as he added—“mainly because he’s had to pull my weight as well as his. He’ll be here again today, for some suggestions on how he should work things out until I’m back.”

“I didn’t know he had visited yesterday,” she said, suddenly feeling the sting of exclusion.

“You didn’t have to,” Heath said softly.

She drew in a quiet, short breath of air. “Oh,” she said, and laughed shakily, trying to cover up the stab of hurt his words had caused. “You mean it’s your business. I didn’t mean to pry . . . You must feel as if I’ve been trying to keep you under my thumb.”

“I didn’t say that.”

But they both knew it was true. Slowly Lucy walked to the dressing table and sat down on the pretense of straightening her hair. Her eyebrows were nearly drawn together by the pucker that had formed between them. He must be nearly wild with his lack of freedom, of privacy. But could I have done anything differently the last few weeks? Could I have kept myself from being intrusive, worried, nagging? Only if she had loved him less. She had nearly lost him, and that had made her afraid to leave him alone for very long. It made her want to grab each moment she could with him, know his every thought, keep him all to herself. Unfettered, her possessiveness might someday turn her into a jealous shrew. She had to give him room, or risk turning him away from her.