Page 31 of Hold Me Fast
Chapter Twelve
In the middleof the night, Tammie’s own restlessness woke her. She could not get comfortable. Her legs first and soon her arms had to keep shifting, trying to find a more comfortable position only to discover after a moment or two that the new position was as impossible as the one before.
Tammie recognized the beginnings of what would soon be hell. Next would come a fever and the aches throughout her body, turning into bone-wrenching pain as her own stomach and bowels turned against her. Even worse was what followed, but she had never gone very far into that. Always, she had stepped back from the brink, or Guy had found her and forced her to drink laudanum—by then, she had not resisted him, for she had believed her quest for a normal life was doomed.
Thank Jowan and Mrs. Wakefield for Evangeline! Evangeline swore it was possible to leave the drugs behind. If she wanted it enough. Evangeline had seen it with eight of her eleven patients, though two of them had tried twice and one four times before he succeeded.
“I will stay with you until you no longer need me, Miss Riddick,” she had assured Tammie.
That was acceptable. Tammie had tried at least five times, so she was due a win this time.
She was clearly not going to sleep. She had noticed books in one of the downstairs rooms. Perhaps one of them would suffice to take her mind off her growing discomfort. Her new wardrobe did not include a house coat to put on over her night rail, but she wrapped herself in one of the shawls and put on a pair of slippers. It would suffice.
With a candle to light her way, she found the room with the books. It was something of a general-purpose room, with comfortable chairs and sofas, a games table in a corner, a desk in another corner, and a wall of bookshelves.
Tammie headed for the bookshelves but tripped partway on something she didn’t see in the dim candlelight. She went down with a crash, and the candle guttered and disappeared into the sudden darkness.
Her shin hurt! Tammie sat on the floor, hugging it and swearing under her breath. She had recovered enough to feel around her for the candle when a voice from the doorway said, “Show yourself.” Jowan, sounding grim.
“Did I wake you?” Tammie asked. “I tripped over something. I am sorry for the noise.”
He sounded relieved when he said, “Tammie. Bran, can you light a candle or something?”
A moment later, candlelight revealed the brothers standing just inside the door, each barefoot and wearing no more than pantaloons and loose shirts. Tammie could also see a footstool lying on its side a yard away. “That must be what I tripped over,” she said. She looked around. There was the candlestick, within reach of where she fell. The candle had fallen out and rolled a few feet away. “Thank goodness it went out when I fell.”
Jowan took a few steps and offered Tammie his hand to help her up, and Bran passed her to fetch the candle. The brothers worked smoothly together. In the seven years since Jowan and Tamsyn had been so wrapped up with one another, Jowan had found a similar partnership with his half-brother. One without the complication of the physical attraction that had led his father and her mother to exile Tamsyn.
Tammie was jealous and ashamed of herself for the feeling. She should be glad for Jowan. She was!
“Having trouble sleeping?” Jowan asked.
Tammie nodded. “It is the beginning,” she explained. “An ache in the muscles that can only be relieved by movement, but it doesn’t go away when you do move. So, you move again, and again. But all the time it gets worse and affects more of you.”
“You sound as if you have done this before,” Bran commented.
They might as well hear the worst of her. They would see it soon enough. “Five times,” she said. “Twice, I only got this far, and Guy saw how restless I was and made me take a dose. Twice, I was really ill before he found me. Once, I managed to get far enough away from him that I made it all the way into hell.” She swallowed hard and admitted. “When he found me, I was glad to take the dose. I hope this time, with support to continue through the worst of it, I might make it out to the other side.”
The two men exchanged glances, and then Bran spoke, his voice gentle. “How bad will it get, Miss Lind?”
“Call me Tammie,” she said. “You are about to know me far better than you want to. That is if you plan to stay while I go through this.”
“We all plan to stay,” Jowan said. “Ruth, the doctor I mentioned? She says you need someone to be with you. Evangeline, yes, to nurse you. But just someone to keep you company when you cannot sleep, to listen when you need to talk, to read to you when you need to be distracted. Bran and I will take turns, if that is acceptable, Tamsyn. Tammie.”
“Tamsyn is dead,” Tammie explained. “I had to kill her, Jowan, or I would not have been able to endure. Perhaps, when I am no longer a slave to the drugs and the alcohol, she will be able to return, but for now, I am Tammie.” That was a hope she had never articulated before, even to herself. That Tamsyn might live again. Might write music again. Might once again enjoy a sunrise over the moors, a rainbow in the mist, the wild sea crashing on the sea cliffs with the gulls wheeling above.
Jowan swallowed hard but nodded. “Tammie, then.”
Bran had asked something, but it had skittered away from her jumpy mind. “What did you ask me, Bran?”
“How bad will it get?” Bran repeated.
“Very bad. First comes the restlessness and the itching. Next, the aching gets worse, until every muscle and bone in my body feels sore, my head hurts, and my nose runs, as if I have a bad ague. Then, and I do not know a polite way to say this, my body rejects food. I vomit. I have watery stools. By that time, I will be feeling hot, then cold, then hot again. I will sweat even though I am shivering with cold, and my body is covered in goosebumps. Then, in a blink, I will feel as if I am burning.”
“Is there anything we can do to help you feel better?” Jowan asked.
“Not that I know. Evangeline might know of something,” Tammie said.
Evangeline spoke from the doorway. The nurse was also in a night rail and wrapped in a shawl. “I treat the symptoms,” she said. “Cold cloths for fever. Warm ones to remove sweat. Blankets for cold. Drinks help, too. I have made several gallons of lemonade, so you have something to be sick with. It is worse, those of us who nurse such patients find if the patient does not have enough to drink.”
