Madness (25 page)

“If she’s anything like you, the man is a damned fool,” Simon muttered from the bed.

Gabrielle started and smiled at the compliment. “Simon needs me.”

“Fine. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Clarissa said.

Gabrielle gathered up the supplies and moved over to Simon’s side. She alternated hot and cold compresses until the water cooled and the ice melted. He had more cold beef tea and struggled to keep it down, and began to sweat and shiver.

Gabrielle put blanket after blanket over him, and changed his sopping shirt three times.

Finally he said, "J-j-j-ust leave it. After all, darling, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.“

“And am always glad to see,” she said with a long sultry look despite her worry. “You’re magnificent. All over.” She hung up the shirt on a makeshift line of knitting wool stretched between two metal brackets on the wall, then moved over to look at him more closely.

He took her hand and kissed it, then laid it on his straining flesh under the covers. “Every touch from you is sheer heaven amid this hell.”

“I’m glad.” Her desire and longing to make him happy emboldened her. Despite his feeble protest, her hand slipped under the blankets, and her head soon followed.

It was a little more complicated to deal with his response than he with hers, she realised, but once she relaxed and he stopped struggling to pull her head up, the magic flooded through them and he fell into a profound slumber which mercifully lasted several hours.

While he slept, she organised the tiny cell as best she could. She hung another line from one corner of the door to the far corner of the room, and threw a spare sheet over it, curtaining off the drain. She then put the chamberpot behind it.

She set a second basin and pitcher of water at the ready, and all of the medicines which her friend Eswara the healer had suggested. Then she sat down to read.

She was just congratulating herself on having got through the first day without too much turmoil when Simon began to thrash about, shouting in both English and French.

The few words she could understand amid the babble told her he was seeing dead comrades, people blown to shreds by the war. Then there were garbled words and phrases about his family, which she did her best to try to follow, eager for any clues that would help her solve the mystery of his identity. He spoke mostly of roses and numbers, and the beauty of the places they had lived.

He spoke of England, Dorset so far as she could tell, the Undercliff near at Lyme Regis that she recalled so well from when she had been growing up.

Once again, she wondered at his identity as he raved. He was too old to be a friend of her brother's, too young to be a friend of her father's. He had to be an older generation of Rakehell, but the thought of them allowing any friend of theirs to get into such a horrendous state was unthinkable.

Which meant there could only be two explanations for it. One was that he had done something so dreadful, that even those most compassionate and powerful of men had abandoned him to his fate.

Or the second, much more likely possibility, that they had no idea. That the Rakehells didn't even know he was still alive….

She bathed his brow, and determined that she would find out the truth, and bring him back to his old life, if it was the last thing she ever did. Randall would help her, she was sure. He was an earl, after all. And his elder brother Michael a war hero, and a most determined man. He would never let a fellow veteran suffer so cruelly.

At last Gabrielle got Simon awake and calm only, but no sooner had she done so than he began retching violently into the basin, which he nearly filled, he was so ill.

By the time Clarissa came with more food and hot water at six the next morning, he was reasonably calm but absolutely exhausted. The night was a sad contrast to the romantic and loving previous one, but Gabrielle had tried to stay positive throughout, keeping him clean and tidy as best she could, reading to him, even getting him to try a game of draughts during one of his more settled moments.

They sat side by side on the bed, and played from left to right and back again, savoring every minute of their intimate contact.

He had to admit he enjoyed the company despite being rather ashamed of having become so ill.

Gabrielle waved away his sheepish apologies. “The marriage vows don’t state in sickness and in health for nothing. You have no reason to be sorry. This is your illness, not
you
. Please don’t worry what I think. You were turned into an opium addict through no fault of your own. I admire your choice in trying to combat the addiction.”

“I only wish I could do something for you.”

She smiled at him encouragingly. “I love the way you touch me. Just hold my hand or stroke my shoulder. That’s thanks enough.”

“You have no idea how hard it was alone,” he said quietly at another point during the second day.

She shook her head. “I don’t even want to think about it. Comfortless and alone, starving, with no water, it must have been a nightmare.”

He nestled against her more closely, as if he wished for every inch of their bodies to touch. “It was. Sometimes I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, or even what my own name was. All I knew was I shouldn’t touch the food. But I would just get so weak and hungry.

"I have to confess, I really did try to starve myself at one point. I just wanted to end it. But I always gave in. It was tempting to not simply eat the whole plate and kill myself that way. But I just kept hoping and praying. I was determined to see my brothers one day. Then they told me, one by one, that they were gone, and I swore I would get out of here one day, if only for revenge.”

"And now? Do you still want to kill yourself the way you did that first night we met, when you took the laudanum bottle from me?"

He looked at her with such heat that she blushed. "No, definitely not. I have so much to live for now, it's like I've been given a reprieve, a chance of redemption. Now I want to get out of here to be the man who loves you above all else night and day. You're very alone in the world too, my love. I want to be your hero in every sense. I want to take your cares away, Gabrielle, and see you live a life with your sister which is filled with nothing but joy."

She snuggled against him with a winsome smile. "Amen to that."

She remained silent for a time, and he continued on as they played, “I always did have a good memory. I could see things in my head. Where I had last left my book, the page of it once I’d read it. I read very fast too, and could recall it all.”

She was relieved that he was free from pain and diverted, at least for the moment. She ventured to ask, “And you spoke several languages?”

“Yes. We had to in our line of work. Papa traded unabated throughout all the years of the Revolution once we escaped to England. Fabric, wine, but later on mostly fabric. People always need clothes, and an army always needs supplies.”

“Which brother was eldest?”

“Georges.”

A shiver ran through him which was so fierce he nearly fell from the cot, and
 
suddenly began to writhe and vomit.

She rammed the basin under his head, which he was clutching in agony. But he had said his brother's name and given her enough details about their background to give her something to go on when they began their search.

Her cousin Randall and the Rakehells knew people who could help investigate, reunite him with his family. Oh, she knew what Antony had told her, but she was sure it simply wasn’t true. This man was not a cold-blooded murderer, a rapist. A killer of children.

If he had been, the drugs and long imprisonment would have made him more hardened and vicious, of that she was sure. Why, he even blushed when she cleaned up after him after being ill.

She only wondered how he had managed to maintain his fine sensibilities through all the years of war and depredation. Not to mention incarceration. When was the last time he had been warm? Slept in a decent bed with a feather mattress?

Gabrielle didn’t realise she had posed the question aloud until he said through gritted teeth, “It’s been years. I can’t recall an open fire here. Just the baths every month, and the whore every three months if I wanted her. I didn’t always, not in that way. It was just a reflex, and, well,
 
contact with another human being was better than nothing. So we slept together. Just slept. And in the winter it was damned welcome warmth. You can see how chilly it is in here all the time, even though we've been having a mild spate of weather for the time of year.

"I never knew how healing human touch could be until I lost it. Most of the time that one point of contact with a living being gave me the courage to go on. To dream that I might have a normal life some day. But I swear to you, it’s been almost a year, Gabrielle, and they never meant anything in my heart—”

“Sush. it’s all right," she soothed, stroking down the back of his neck. "I believe you. I would never dream of being jealous of paid professionals, just so sorry for you all. But tell me about before you came here?” she asked gently.

“Prison," he said through clenched teeth. "But before that I lived in a tavern and brothel. A rough place, spit and sawdust on the floor, a thin cotton mattress. Before that, wherever I was billeted. The staff always got the best quarters there were to be had, but in some of the towns in Spain and Portugal, that really wasn’t saying much."

His voice was little better than a reedy gasp at times, so that she had to really concentrate to hear what he was saying, but it was better than him screaming in agony. So she let him continue on interrupted.

"It seems like I was hungry all the time, and have been ever since. I’ve come so close to the edge of starvation. I’ve foraged for the most unspeakable things imaginable. Pity to waste so much food, like the beef tea. I can’t tell you what I would have given for one cup of it when we were in winter quarters freezing.”

“And Georges and your other brother, were they with you?”

He nodded. “Georges at first. But it was too dangerous for—”

She would have asked him more, but his eyes began to roll in his head and just then, she heard a tapping on the other side of the wall, signalling that Clarissa had arrived again.

She soothed Simon so that he stretched out on the bed more as he clenched his teeth against the pain. “Easy,now.
 
Rest, love. Clarissa is here. I’ll be right back.”

“Cor, it’s gettin’ colder than a witch’s teat outside. Here, have the broth first. It’s still hot, and the water.” She handed in each item carefully.

“And this place is already running with damp.”

"Aye, that it is. I've brought ye both more warm clothes. We've another cold spell outside and the snow looks to be on its way."

"Thanks, you think of everything. I don't know what I would do without you."

"No need to fret about that. Glad to help."

Each of the items got fed through the hole one by one.
 
She gathered in the supplies, and started as Simon said quietly, “If the food is still hot, I’d like to wash up before I eat, if you’ll help me.”