Page 42 of The Wolf of Mayfair
Her cheeks, flushed from fever, had taken on a shade to rival the deepest crimson found in her auburn tresses. Those curls that now spread damp and limp about her pillow.
Past merged with present as distant and long-buried memories danced with the moment.
You are now my heir, the future duke ... Your brother proved himself weak, after all. He did not survive.
She will not survive. She will not survive.
Fevers ravaged bodies, and if a person managed to triumph over the ague, then they were forever transformed, left shallow, hollow, empty versions of their former selves—as Wingrave had been.
He reflexively balled and unballed his hands at his sides, his fingers sinking into the sodden fabric of his gloves.
I do not care. She is nothing to me. No one is anything to me ... certainly not—
“My lord.” That sharp, authoritative utterance brought him rushing back to the chaotic moment.
Mrs. Trowbridge pointed over his shoulder, and he followed that gesture over to the door, just as a team of footmen bearing a copper tub and bucket of steaming water poured inside.
Wingrave found his feet and hastened from the room.
The moment he stepped into the hall, the stalwart team of footmen came rushing out.
Wingrave looked past them, stealing one more glance to where Helia lay, but managed to catch but a sliver of a glance of her before a maid pushed the door shut, and then she was gone from sight.
Chapter 8
In death there is nothing new, or surprising, since we all know, that we are born to die; and nothing terrible to those, who can confide in an all-powerful God.
—Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
Helia was cold, so very cold.
No matter how deep she burrowed into the soft mattress and under the blankets, the chill racked her from the inside out.
She tossed and turned, bringing her knees close. She wrapped her arms about those quaking lower limbs in a bid to find any hint of warmth, but there was none to be found.
The world had gone ice cold, and that same numbing gelidity had invaded every corner of her body, until there was no escaping the unadulterated, bleak misery it wrought.
If only she could get warm.
She wept and wailed.
“You are going to be fine. Do you hear me?” a distant voice called. “You’re too stubborn and strong to die.”
Whoever uttered that assurance sounded deuced angry about it.
“I ... I can’t,” she wept.
“You’re a hale and hearty Scot, remember?”
A hale and hearty Scot? Only, she didn’t feel either of those things.
Another tremor overtook Helia’s frame.
She whimpered.
And then she saw them. Her ma and dad. They stood side by side, their arms linked, and Helia’s mother’s head rested so serenely against the laird’s shoulder.
They smiled and gave her a little wave.
