Virginia Henley (58 page)

“May God rest her soul. I need to go out and cut some rue. If Catherine awakens, don’t come up to her. She has the contagion, I’m afraid. Check to see if there’s dried dill in the kitchens and I’ll join you there, Mr. Burke.”

Hepburn searched the herb garden, found no rue and decided that wild rue would do just as well. He took off across a meadow then slowed at the hedgerow, looking for the plant’s telltale yellow flowers. When he found it, he cut a huge bunch and hurried back to the house. In the kitchen, Burke had found the dill, and Patrick washed and stripped the blue-green leaves from the wild rue and put the two herbs into a pot with water and wine.

“I’ll brew it for you, my lord.” Cook handed him a huge slice of meat pie and watched him devour it. “Take her some broth.”

“Thank you.” With the pot of broth in one hand and a bucket of fresh water in the other, Patrick went back upstairs.

He found Catherine awake and moaning softly. Once more she was flushed with fever, yet she started to shiver. He propped her up against the pillows and wrapped a blanket about her. “This broth will warm you. You cannot get strong without nourishment.”

Her eyes glazed over. “I’m going to die,” she whispered.

He took hold of her shoulders possessively. “No, you are going to live,” he said decisively. His grip tightened fiercely to reassure her and transfer some of his strength to her.

Patrick put a towel in front of her like a bib and held a spoonful of broth to her lips. With infinite patience he managed to coax some down her. She stopped shivering and he noticed a sheen of perspiration on her brow. He let her rest for a while, and then fed her once more. When she could take no more, he bathed her face. Then he sat on the bed and held her hand. It wrung his heart to see her this way. “Little love,” he murmured.

While she slept, he bundled up her soiled clothes and set them outside the door. Using a bucket he emptied the bath and put the water down the jakes, and then he brought fresh sheets and towels from the linen cupboard. Mr. Burke brought up a steaming jug of wine boiled with dill and rue, and Patrick set it on the windowsill to cool.

Catherine’s sleep became increasingly restless until finally she awoke and began to thrash her legs about. “I’m dying!”

He went on his knees and gathered her to him. “Hush, darling. I won’t let you die.”

She looked at him with wild, accusing eyes and tried to fight him off, whimpering, moaning, panting and raving.

The heat of her body branded his arms, and her moans wrenched his heart. When she began to kick him, he held her legs in a vice-like grip and examined her groin for a plague boil. He broke out in a relieved sweat when he found none and knew he needed to cool her body. He decided to put her in the empty tub, then pour the tepid water over her, but when he went to lift her, she screamed in agony and he realized she was in terrible pain.

Patrick brought the bucket of water to the bed and sponged her over and over. He managed to cool her enough that she stopped thrashing and her shouts lowered to incoherent mutters. Gingerly he lifted her arm, dreading what he knew he would find.

Patrick recoiled inwardly. As he gazed down at the ugly purple swelling in her armpit he felt total panic. Cat was going to die an agonizing death, and there was nothing he could do about it.

H
epburn cursed aloud. He did not waste time praying—he was too cynical to expect help from that quarter. He hardened his resolve.
I may not be able to keep her from dying, but I can do something to relieve her agony.

He brought the jug from the windowsill to the bedside table and half filled a goblet. He sat down on the bed and pulled his struggling wife into his lap. Rue was a powerful herb that reduced pain. He had seen it work magic on men wounded in battle, and he was determined that it would ease Catherine’s suffering.

Patrick held her wrists in an iron grip and forced the liquid down her. She began to retch. Quickly, he dragged the chamber pot from beneath the bed. He held her firmly, his hands feeling the convulsive spasms of her stomach as he lowered her head to aid her vomiting. Catherine retched, heaved and spewed.

Hepburn cursed vilely, venting his frustration yet at the same time steeling his emotions to dose her again in the hope that some of the brew would stay down. As he had dreaded, Cat began to retch, heave and spew once more. She gasped, choked, retched and heaved. Patrick lost all hope that she would survive. All that mattered to him now was that he stop her agony. He massaged her belly and when he felt the knotted cramp begin to ease, he forced down more rue. “Hang on, ride the wave of pain, stay with me, Hellicate!”

He held his breath and waited, willing the medicinal wine to stay down. Patrick knew that if it did not, he didn’t have the heart to dose her again.

He held her in his lap until at last she stopped writhing, and he knew the pain had abated somewhat and was no longer racking her body. Though she was still hot as fire, he laid her gently in the bed and covered her. Just as the rue had stopped her agony, the wine would make her sleep. His wife made such a tiny mound in the great bed, it brought a lump to his throat.

Hepburn cleaned up the vomit and emptied the chamber pot. It was dark again and he wondered where the day had gone. He lit the candles and common sense urged him to rest while he had the chance. The light reflected something that was shining on the carpet. He walked across the room, bent down and picked it up.

It’s Catherine’s wedding ring!
He envisioned her pulling it off and flinging it across the chamber.
She rejects the marriage, and she totally rejects me as a husband!

Though it mauled his pride, he knew in his heart that he deserved it. He looked at the tiny gold circle resting in his calloused palm and contemplated slipping it back on her finger without her knowing.
How expedient,
his inner voice mocked. Hepburn sat down in the big chair beside the bed. Now that Cat was asleep, his mind was free to wander.

For over ten years he had vowed and pledged that the king would return full value for what he had taken from the Hepburns. When James had proposed that he repay him with marriage to an English heiress, he had accepted on condition that he could take his pick.
I made sure that I chose a wealthy heiress with vast landholdings in both England and Scotland. The fact that Catherine was exquisitely beautiful was most fortunate, but it was also irrelevant.
Hepburn thoroughly understood his own motives, but that did not make them right. He could see now that the contract drawn up between him and Jamie was unconscionable.

Poor innocent Catherine didn’t stand a chance once I had marked her and her inheritance as mine. I stopped at nothing to seduce her and get my own way. I even used my occult power on her to gain my own ends. I bent Fate to my will, but Fate is having the last laugh.
He rubbed his eyes wearily. His inner voice taunted:
You never counted on falling in love, did you, Hepburn?

Patrick again looked at her wedding ring, and the pain in his heart was savage. He would never get the chance to tell her that he loved her, that she was dearer to him than life itself. She was too ill to even recognize him, too afflicted to understand the meaning of his words.
That is my punishment,
he thought bitterly. He covered his eyes and eventually gave himself up to Morpheus.

He fell into a dream so compelling that it seemed real.

 

Patrick awoke at sunrise, the moment Catherine began to move. She was delirious and more fevered than before. His heart was heavy as he gave her a sponge bath and murmured comforting words he knew she could not comprehend. He glanced at her belly, which was so concave he believed it impossible that she carried a babe. When he lifted her arm to inspect the bubo and she cried out pitifully, he was covered with guilt at the pain he caused her.

The purple swelling in her armpit was slightly larger, and he told himself that the kindest thing he could do for the woman he loved was leave her in peace.
That’s the craven way out,
his inner voice taunted.
Dose her with more rue. Fill the bathtub and immerse her again!

I have no right to make her suffer more. I’ve brought her enough emotional anguish; I won’t add to my sins by inflicting unnecessary physical pain.
As he stood looking down at her, Maggie’s words came to him.
Ye have the power, Hepburn. Use it!

A spark of hope ignited.
If I go into a trance, perhaps I will be shown the way.

The chamber suddenly darkened, and Patrick walked to the window, wondering what had happened to the brilliant morning sun. The sky had gone black, and as he opened the window a streak of lightning split the dark sky in half and a thunderbolt shook the house. He stared, mesmerized, as the violent storm danced and crashed about Spencer Park for the better part of an hour. The thunder was deafening, the lightning blinding in its savage intensity. It rolled, cracked and flashed over and over as if nature had gone mad and was ready to destroy the earth.

Without warning, large hailstones came pelting down, bouncing on the ground and pinging against the open windowpanes. The hail turned to torrential rain and the thunder and lightning moved away. Gradually, the rain lessened its intensity until it became a gentle shower, and finally it stopped altogether.

Patrick breathed deeply and, no longer transfixed, took a step back from the open window. The curtains billowed inward and he felt the cool wind on his face. The atmosphere was no longer oppressive. He felt his skin chill and realized that the sweltering, suffocating heat that had blanketed the country was being swept away by a force greater than itself.

Hepburn knew he had been given his answer. He went to the bed and gazed down at his suffering wife. The plague could only be swept away by a force greater than itself. He must destroy it by intense and violent means, but could she survive the torture? It might kill her, but if he did nothing, his beloved was doomed. He pushed the tangled hair back from her fevered brow.
Catherine has enough reckless courage to face anything!

Patrick ran down the stairs and didn’t stop until he reached the kitchens. He found Cook hiding in the pantry, terrified by the upheaval in the heavens. “The storm is over. It is safe to come out. Miraculously, it brought cold air to the region. Now we need a miracle for Catherine. I want to make a poultice. Do you have meal and mustard seed?”

“We have plenty of oatmeal, my lord.” Cook handed him a pot and a sack of meal. “I’ll crush some mustard seed.”

Patrick trickled boiling water into the meal and sprinkled in the mustard. He stirred it until it made a thick hot paste, then he took the iron pot upstairs. He tore a square from a sheet and spooned on a huge dollop of the hot meal. Steeling his resolve and his emotions, he raised Cat’s arm and applied the poultice.

She screamed like a banshee, and the hair on the nape of Hepburn’s neck stood on end. As she clawed at him, he realized she would rip off the poultice. Quickly, he tore the sheet into wide strips and bound her arms to her body. “Forgive me, Catherine, forgive me,” he muttered.

Her legs were still free to kick, so Patrick took hold of one and began to stroke his calloused palm along its slim length in an effort to soothe her agitation. She calmed like a wild beast that had used all its strength, just before it sought escape in death.

A few hours later, he unwrapped her bindings and applied another hot poultice. The swelling was far larger and darker now, and Patrick focused his mind, visualizing all the poison being drawn from her body into the grotesque bubo.

Hepburn schooled himself to patience, as time seemed to crawl forward imperceptibly. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

Yet ahead of him lay a task he knew would be far more difficult.

Before the light faded from the late afternoon, he knew he must wait no longer. He carefully removed the bindings and the poultice. He visibly flinched at the size of the swelling. It had turned black and now filled the entire hollow of her armpit and was starting to discolor her delicate breast.

Patrick lit a candle, took his dagger from its sheath and held the blade in the flame for a full minute. As he let the metal cool, he gathered his courage.
May Fortune favor the bold!

Hepburn raised her arm and plunged in the sharp point of his dirk. Catherine screamed twice before she fell unconscious. Like a volcano, the plague boil erupted, spurting its putrefaction everywhere. The black liquid exploded over her body, spread across the sheets and splashed up into his face. The stench of the poisonous effluence was vile. He squeezed out the remainder of the dark puss with his fingers. While she was still mercifully unconscious he bathed her and put fresh linen on the bed.

Finally, almost spent, he sat down beside her and clasped her hand tightly. Catherine’s breathing was dangerously shallow, and he feared she was at the end of her endurance. He did not dare to take his eyes from her throughout the long hours of the night.
She cannot slip away—I have too firm a grip on her.

As the light of dawn filtered into the room, Patrick caught his breath in abject fear. Catherine’s hand was cold. He went down on his knees and said a humble prayer.
Please let her be alive. I will go and leave her in peace if you show mercy to Catherine.

Still on his knees, he edged closer and peered into her face. Her skin was deathly pale and waxy, her eyes were closed and there was a bluish tinge about her mouth, but, by all the saints, she was still breathing. He reached out to gently touch her cheek and found her fever had abated.
Her life has stopped draining away!