Truth about Leo (5 page)

Whereupon Julia promptly swooned at the sight of so much blood, leaving Dagmar to clean him up. She had done so, not particularly bothered by either the man's bare chest or the blood, more concerned that he might die before the sun rose.

“Although why I care is beyond me,” she said, sitting on the side of the bed and wiping his sweaty face with a cold, wet rag. “You're not in the navy, and you're argumentative and stubborn and not at all going to help us in any way. I shouldn't give two figs if you die.”

And yet she did. There was something about him, perhaps the way he insisted that he was already dead, or maybe it was the glint of humor she'd seen in the one eye he managed to get open, but there was something about him that appealed to her.

She studied his face. In repose, she could see the hard lines that ran from his nose to his mouth. He had a stubborn jaw; a thin, aristocratic nose that had obviously been broken since the lower half of it was slightly off center; and two dark, straight eyebrows that slashed across a high forehead. He wasn't handsome in the strictest sense of the word, and yet he wasn't difficult to look at. Absently, she reached out and brushed back a strand of hair that had glued itself to his damp forehead.

He moaned and turned his face toward her hand.

“You have had a time of it, haven't you?” she murmured, wetting the cloth and wiping his face again. He moaned a second time. “Should I marry you if you live through the night? Would you mind having a widow who you didn't know? But what if you survive? Maybe I won't need to marry you. Maybe you would be so grateful for my care that you'd do anything for me, including sending me to England with a large purse. No, that won't work. It will take you weeks to recover, assuming you don't die as the doctor says you will, and we only have three days left. It's either ransom or marrying, I'm afraid, and a ransom is just too heartless. Ah, well. If we marry in Denmark, I can divorce you later if you turn out to be unbearable.”

The hours dragged by with the speed of an elderly caterpillar. The small hours of the morning passed to late hours, and finally the sun rose. With it, Dagmar's hopes sank, for Leo seemed more fevered, if anything. With Julia's assistance, she managed to get another dose of draught down him, but he was barely able to swallow the foul mixture.

Exhausted though she was, Dagmar gathered up a bonnet and shawl, instructing Julia, who had snatched a few hours' sleep, to watch over their patient. “I must find a clergyman.”

“Is he…gone?”

“No.” She felt as if the weight of the world was pushing her into the earth. She didn't want to make the decision, but she had to. Leo could die at any time, and if he died before they were wed…she refused to consider what it meant to lose her last hope. “I must have a clergyman marry us before I see Colonel Stewart.”

“You are making the right choice, my dear. But I thought you said that an army major would not be suitable?” Julia asked, glancing fearfully at the door, behind which lay the still figure of Leo. “Will the colonel bother himself with a member of the army?”

“I fervently pray he will. If he dies, the British ambassador will have to take responsibility for Leo, and that care will extend to us, as well. If he lives…well, we'll have to deal with that if the situation arises. I'll be back before he's due for the next draught. If he gets restless, wipe his face. He seems to like that.”

“I wish you would let me fetch a pastor,” Julia said in a plaintive tone. “I'm sure I will not take care of the major nearly so well as you do.”

“It's going to be difficult enough to convince one of the clergy to come out at this time of the morning to perform a spontaneous marriage ceremony. I have a feeling that it'll take all my skills of persuasion to bring it off.”

And she wasn't wrong. Pastor Anderson, who tended to the flock in Dagmar's area, flatly refused to conduct a ceremony.

“You have not gained the crown prince's approval,” the man yelled down to her from an upstairs window. He appeared to be in a nightshirt and cap. “I will not risk angering His Royal Highness simply to gratify one of your whims.”

“Fine,” Dagmar said, too tired to spend the time it would take to argue the man around to reasonableness. “I'll simply find someone who isn't deathly afraid of Frederick.”

“You do that,” Anderson replied, then withdrew his head and slammed closed the shutters and window.

“Obstinate old goat.” Dagmar wrapped her shawl tighter around herself against the chill of the early morning and hurried down the street to the next church.

Two hours later she was ready to drop, but was no closer to becoming a wife. At last, in desperation, she stumbled into the palace and requested a meeting with Frederick. When that was denied, she scribbled out a brief note and told the footman to take that to the crown prince. Five minutes later she was ushered into his presence.

“If this is another one of your tricks…” Frederick warned, waving the note at her.

“It's not.” She sat without waiting for him to indicate she should do so, too tired even to ogle his breakfast remains.

“I don't have time to deal with your petty issues. As if it wasn't enough that your ambassador demands I help some of your countrymen find a murderer…I'm ready to wash my hands of all the British!”

“I was born in Copenhagen!” Dagmar protested. “I'm not English.”

“Your mother was, and that's enough for me. Who is this Englishman who you wish to marry?” Frederick gestured at a manservant, who removed his dressing gown and helped the prince regent into an elaborately embroidered frock coat.

“His name is Leopold Mortimer, and he's a major in the British army.”

Frederick grunted and adjusted the lace at his wrists. “A gentleman?”

“Of course,” Dagmar said, crossing her fingers and hoping that she wasn't telling a lie. Leo had seemed well-spoken enough, and he understood Danish, which meant he had been educated.

“Nobleman?”

That was a trickier question. She knew full well that even an impoverished, unknown princess was expected to make a marriage with a man who at the very least bore a title. She decided to risk the truth. “No. But he is a major, and they don't let just anyone become majors.”

“Why has he not come himself to ask for your hand?”

“He was wounded in the arm. The doctor said he should not move around unduly.” That was certainly true enough.

“Wounded, eh? Is he conscious?”

“Of course he is.” She coughed delicately. “He might have some nonlucid periods now and again, as to be expected from one who was wounded so gravely.”

“So in other words, he's mostly insensible.” Frederick was silent for a moment. “Have you considered that the poor man might not want to be married, let alone wed to you?”

“I'm not a monster, no matter what you might think,” she said with dignity. “If, after he recovers from his wounds and we are safely in England, he does not wish to be married, I will simply have the marriage annulled. If that is too difficult, there's always divorce.”

“I'm told the British don't countenance divorce the way we enlightened people do.”

She shrugged. “I'm Danish, and we will have been married here. I will simply divorce him in Denmark if needs be.” Really, did he have to focus so much on the idea of the man rejecting her? She was a princess, after all, not to mention a gentlewoman of much distinction. Well, some distinction. Just a little bit.

Frederick grunted again and waved away the perfume pot his man was offering. “Which brings me to the question of why I should command the bishop to marry you when your own clergyman has refused to do the same.”

“Well for one, the major spent the night in my bed.” Dagmar kept her expression serene, no easy feat when she was on the edge of falling over into a stupor. “If you don't let us marry immediately, there is sure to be a scandal, especially when I tell everyone you refused support.”

“Bah,” the prince said, waving away the idea as he turned to leave the room. “I've survived worse.”

Dagmar played her last card. “More importantly, if Leo and I wed, then I am no longer your responsibility.”

Frederick paused at the door, glancing back at her, a thoughtful expression on his face. “And you promise that if you do divorce him, you won't come back to plague me?”

“I promise.”

“I will want that in writing. Witnessed.”

She managed to smile wanly. “I will sign a statement that, once married, I relinquish all claims upon you.”

Frederick thought for a moment then shrugged. “Very well, I give this marriage my blessing. I will instruct the bishop to marry you this afternoon. Be at the church in—”

“No, it has to be at Yellow House,” Dagmar interrupted, getting wearily to her feet.

Frederick never liked being interrupted. He scowled at her. “And why is that?”

“I told you that the major was wounded. The bishop will just have to come to my house—your Yellow House—to marry us there. Don't neglect to tell the bishop that the major is slightly feverish and might ramble a little bit.”

“I won't neglect to do that,” Frederick said, regarding her as one of the more repugnant species of insects. “I pity the poor fellow, but it's nothing to do with me. So long as you're out of Copenhagen in the next few days, I will advise the bishop to marry you no matter what the groom's circumstances.”

And so it was that early in the afternoon, Dagmar Marie Sophie, Princess of Sonderburg-Beck became Dagmar Marie Sophie, Princess of Sonderburg-Beck and Mrs. Leo Mortimer.

The bishop hadn't wanted to perform the office, but blanched when Dagmar, having had less than an hour's sleep, told him in no uncertain terms just what the crown prince would do if he found out that his commands were being ignored. Dagmar's small bedroom was filled with various clergymen, there to act as witnesses to this important event, and all of them stared with varying degrees of pity and disbelief at the raving man who thrashed on the bed.

Leo was in full grip of the fever, his face wet with perspiration, bright red circles high on either cheek. Dagmar, sitting on the bed next to him, wiped his face and leaned down to whisper, “Leo, the bishop has asked if you take me as your wife. You must say yes. Can you do that?”

His eyes opened, but they were glazed and unfocused. “Hrn?”

Dagmar turned to the bishop. “He said yes, he will marry me.”

“He did?” The bishop frowned.

“He said it in English. He is an Englishman. Thus, he speaks in English when he's feeling out of sorts.”

“Out of sorts?
Out
of
sorts?
The man's about to expire from fever,” the bishop said, pointing.

The other clergymen backed hastily out of the room, several of them holding up their robes to cover their mouths lest they catch the infection.

“I ought to be reading the office of the dead over him, not marrying him to you.”

“He'll be fine,” Dagmar reassured him and sent up a little prayer that she spoke the truth. “And Frederick will be most unhappy if we aren't wed today.”

The bishop looked like he was going to refuse, but in the end, decided that he couldn't be blamed if the groom later claimed he had been wed against his will. After all, the crown prince had told him distinctly to see that the princess was married no matter what the man's state. With a clear conscience, the bishop hurried through the rest of the ceremony, ignoring the fact that the groom's statements were neither understandable nor coherent.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, the bride swiftly kissed the groom's damp brow, then with a businesslike manner wholly at odds with such a romantic moment, forcibly administered fever medicine to him.

Princesses who hide in an unused carriage solely in order to watch the new head groom disrobe will find themselves confined to their bedchamber for an entire week. Without any of the dreadful novels they so love!

—Princess Christian of Sonderburg-Beck's Guide for Her Daughter's Illumination and Betterment

Leo swam in a sea of hellfire, now and again drifting into a dense black cloud that seemed to swallow up all thought and time, only to later reemerge into the red mist consisting of heat and pain and a dreadful, all-consuming thirst.

Awareness of another being ebbed over him occasionally, and he assumed it was the harpy named Dagmar who initiated the torments that racked his body. She also fed him repulsive poisonous liquids, later torturing him by allowing him only the smallest sips of water rather than the gallons that his thirst demanded.

“Just a little, Leo,” she would whisper in his ear. “Too much and your stomach will rebel again. Just a sip or two, and I will give you more if that stays down.”

He wanted to tell her that he was onto her ways and knew that she was masking her cruelty behind a false face of concern, but it all seemed like so much of a bother.

Later, the demons came, men in brusque voices who prodded and jostled him until they finally lifted him away and carried him over rough ground, the pain of the movement making him grit his teeth against the need to cry out in agony. He wouldn't give the devils the satisfaction of knowing how much they hurt him. The black pit swallowed him then, and it was only later when the Dagmar harpy washed his face that he realized the demons had left.

“Where did they go?” he asked her, glancing around an unfamiliar room. It was small and dark, paneled in wood, and smelling of foul odors. He appeared to be in some sort of small bunk.

“Where did who go?” Dagmar harpy asked.

“The demons. Open the window. I want cool air.”

She blinked at him, then dipped a rag into a small bowl of water and gently wiped one side of his bare torso with it. The cool wetness of it felt so good, his fingers curled into soft blankets. “The sailors, you mean? They are above decks sailing the ship. I didn't know you were awake when they moved you. I can't open the porthole because the doctor said you were to stay out of drafts until you were well past the fevers. How do you feel?”

“Thirsty. Will you cease this endless torment and give me something to drink?”

“Yes, but only a little at a time. Your body doesn't like it if you drink too much at once. Here is some barley water. No, don't try to move. I will help you.”

She slipped an arm behind his head and propped him up enough to take a few sips at the cup. He wanted to snatch the cup away from her and gulp it down but was asleep before he could fully formulate the thought.

He spent two more days wandering the land of fevered imagination, waking one night to find himself utterly drenched in sweat but feeling remarkably cool nonetheless. He lifted his head. Near the foot of his bunk, a swarthy, bull-chested man sat whistling tunelessly while whittling a piece of polished bone.

“Hello,” Leo said in a conversational tone of voice. He tried to sit up but was too weak to do more than make a vague swimming motion with his limbs.

“Eh? Oh, yers awake.” The man contemplated him for a moment, then with a grunt and accompanying rude noise, lurched to his feet and flung open the door near him. “Oy! Get orf yer arse and wake the princess and tell her that his nibs is awake.”

Princess? Leo wondered if he was feverish. It was obvious from his physical state that he had been. Even the nightshirt he wore was glued to his body with sweat. He sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bunk, and reached up to rub his face, but a sudden sharp jab of pain in his arm left him gasping, his head swimming with pain.

“Here now, don't ye go blacking out again. Yer wife'll have my stones for supper if'n she thinks I let harm come to ye while she was havin' a wee nap. Put yer head down betwixt yer knees.”

The burly man put one giant hand on Leo's head and forced it downward. Leo fought both nausea and the feeling of standing on the edge of an abyss.

“What's wrong? What has happened? Is he ranting again?” A female voice reached his ears, allowing him to focus on it rather than the need to swoon. He frowned at the floor. The voice sounded familiar. The woman spoke in perfectly correct English, but it was softly accented, as if she wasn't a native speaker. Where had he heard her before?

“Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Can you help me get him back into the bunk? And if you could have one of the cabin boys bring me a fresh bucket of water, I'd be very grateful.”

Leo straightened up, at least feeling like he had a grasp on consciousness. A woman bustled toward him, clad in some gauzy white garment that was clearly intended to titillate a male of her acquaintance, although the shawl she had wrapped around herself hid most of the good parts from view. She had brown hair and hazel eyes, and an oval face that he felt he should know, but studying her, he had to admit he'd never seen her before that moment.

“Madam,” he said with dignity as the burly man complied with her orders without a word of protest, “I don't know who you are, but I must ask that you leave my room.”

“Don't be silly, Leo. If I leave, I can't get you back into bed. Ugh. Your bedding is soaked. Oh! Your fever has broken!”

Her thick woolen shawl slipped down her arms, falling to the floor with a soft whoosh as she clasped one hand to the back of his neck. He found himself staring at a pair of plump breasts barely visible through the thin lawn material of her nightdress.

She had pink nipples. He
loved
pink nipples on a woman.

“Thank heavens those fever draughts worked at last. Now you just sit there, and I'll get your bunk made more comfortable. Oh, Calvin, there you are. You can set the bucket down next to the wall, where it's out of the way while we strip Mr. Mortimer's bed.”

The woman fit word to deed as she pulled bedding out from around him, the lad of about nine who was evidently named Calvin complying just as wordlessly as had the other man.

“Who are you?” he asked, frowning as she fussed around him. “And what are you doing in my bedchamber in that advanced state of undress? Are you, by chance, a lightskirt come in hopes of earning a few bob? If so, I must disabuse you of that idea. Although your nipples are quite nice, I have evidently been ill recently, and doubt if I could perform to either of our satisfaction.”

The woman looked down at her chest. The lad looked startled, accepted the bundle of sodden linen that she had shoved at him, and backed out the door without a word.

“I'm not in an advanced state of undress. I'm glad you like my nipples, although I don't see what they have to do with anything in particular. And I don't know what a lightskirt is. My name is Dagmar. I am your wife.”

“Ha ha,” he said, shifting to the side when she dug out of a sea chest another armful of bedding. She spread it out on the bunk, holding on to his arm when he tried to stand. He weaved when he did so. “Ha ha ha ha ha. That was very funny. Even I, previously ill but now well, can appreciate that joke.”

She got him settled on the bunk and returned to the sea chest, pulling out a small package wrapped in red silk. From it, she withdrew a large paper.

He plucked fretfully at the nightshirt, wishing to remove its dampness but unwilling to expose himself to the lightskirt. She'd no doubt attempt to charge him if he did, and although he was a bit confused about just where he was and why his arm was sore, he was fairly confident that in time, memory would return to him. “I hate to ruin such a fine attempt of amusing me, but I can assure you that I'm not married.”

“You are.”

“You are mistaken. I would remember something like being married, especially to a Danish woman named Dagmar. I take it you are Danish?”

“Half. My mother was English. And I assure you that we
are
married.”

“I am very much not mar—” She shoved the paper under his nose. It took him a minute to focus his eyes on the writing, and then another minute to translate the Danish document, but once the pertinent points became clear to him, he felt a cold wave wash over him, making his skin prickle. “Damnation. I
am
married.”

“Yes.”

He squinted at the paper.

“To a woman named Dagmar.”

She folded the paper up and put it away in the chest. “That is indeed so.”

“
You
are named Dagmar.”

“I have been ever since I was a week old, or so Dearest Papa once told me.”

He thought for a moment. Even his mind felt a bit slow and feeble. “I'm married to a woman named Dagmar who is also a princess.”

“Congratulations, Leo. You have evidently recovered well enough to reason and understand basic facts. This pleases me. I wouldn't wish to be married to an ignorant man. Shall I fetch you some broth? Or would you like more barley water? I understand from the ship's surgeon that people who have recovered from lengthy fevers shouldn't eat solid food for a few days, but I'm sure some broth or gruel would be perfectly suitable.”

Leo sat there, damp, uncomfortable, and with a head that reeled not due to illness, but to the stark facts that the woman Dagmar had presented him. He was married? To a princess? How had this happened? When had it happened? And more to the point, why had it happened? “I wish to know more about this marriage that I don't remember and a wife I have never set eyes upon before and a title that I don't believe I've ever heard—is there such a place as Sonderburg-Beck? It sounds German, not Danish—but at the moment I desire clean garments.”

“Oh.” The woman stood in front of him and eyed him in a manner that he would have liked to find offensive but was too tired to work up the necessary emotion. “I suppose that would make you more comfortable. One moment, please.”

She left the room and Leo, with a shudder of distaste, peeled off the offensive nightshirt and tossed it into a corner. As the ground beneath him rolled slightly, several pieces clicked together in his mind. Porthole. Cabin boy. Ship's surgeon…by God, he was on a ship. How had that happened? He sat down abruptly on the bunk when the ship rolled again, hastily grabbing at the bed linen when the door opened and the woman who had somehow managed to marry him while he was unaware appeared. She was followed immediately by two sailors carrying a narrow tin tub, which was set down in front of him.

“I'm afraid you'll have to bathe in seawater, since the captain doesn't seem to be inclined to let anyone have fresh water for bathing, but I've found it's bearable once you get used to it. Thank you, gentlemen.” This last was spoken to a line of sailors who carried in wooden buckets of water, which they proceeded to dump into the tin tub. She waited until the last of them unloaded the water before moving over to Leo's side. “It's not very hot, but it's better than nothing.”

She stood expectantly next to him. He looked up at her and hugged the linens closer. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting to help you bathe. I've never bathed a man before, not in a tub, but Julia tells me that it's right and proper that I should do so, and she should know. She's a widow, you see.”

“No, I don't see, and I don't know that I care to. I do know that I wish for you to leave.”

Her forehead wrinkled in a manner that he found wholly adorable, a fact that he stubbornly refused to acknowledge. “Why?”

“Why do I want you to leave?”

“Yes. Julia said that most men like to be waited on, and although I have no intention of doing so in the normal course of events—begin as you mean to go on, my sainted mother used to say—allowances can be made for the fact that you've had a fever for almost ten days and probably feel quite weak.”

“Ten days!” He tried to remember what he had last been doing, but his memory was hazy at best. All that came to mind was the image of a fresh-faced girl, an obnoxious cat, and anger at the treachery of his horse.

“Yes. Get up and I'll bathe you.”

He pulled the bed linens up to his chin and gave her his most haughty look. “Madam—”

“Dagmar. Or
Your
Serene
Highness
if you wish to be formal.”

“—Madam, I have no intention of arising from this bed with you present. Please take yourself off so that I might cleanse off the effects of ten days' worth of sickness.”

She tipped her head to the side. “Are you shy? Do you not wish for me to see your naked form? Do you have some sort of defect that you think will cause me to divorce you?”

He sat up straighter, glaring over the top of the bedsheet. “I am not defective! Nor am I overly modest. I simply balk at the idea of parading my naked self in front of strange women.”

Dagmar thought for a moment. “Would it help if I've seen your upper parts without clothing? I even bathed them. Julia wouldn't let me attend to your lower half, since she said it was unseemly for an innocent and gentle maiden such as I to do so, and the captain assigned one of the sailors to attend to those needs of a highly personal nature that occurred now and again—this despite the fact that we are very much legally married by the crown prince's own bishop—but as you are now improving, I think it only right and proper for me to aid you in bathing.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “You wish to see me naked, don't you?”

“Yes. My sainted mother told me that there was much I had to be told on the eve of my wedding, but she died a few years ago, and of course, Dearest Papa died a little over a year ago, and Julia, although a widow, was unaware that she would be called upon to discuss such things with me as naked men and what to do with their various bits and pieces, so I'm not entirely sure how everything works.”