Should he have forced her to keep walking? Carrying her had seemed the right decision in the moment—to hold her close to his body, to share some of his warmth—but perhaps it was all wrong. Perhaps he was making the situation worse. Perhaps—
The tree. He knew it immediately for the tree the postilion had meant. It was an enormous gnarled oak, its top half blackened and burned by what must have been a direct lightning strike. And on the left side of the road, as the postboy had told them, was a small dirt path.
He tightened his grip on Margo’s shivering body and turned left. “Almost there. We’re at the tree now.”
“Is it blasted?” she mumbled, her voice a trifle slurred.
Fuck, he hated this. He hated rain and autumn and Derbyshire. He hated that Margo was cold.
“Yes. Entirely blasted. I think it’s been cursed.”
She breathed out, and he thought it might be a laugh. “Whole trip—is cursed.”
“Don’t say that. This could be a very nice cottage.” He could see it now, thank Christ, up ahead through the trees. “Just a bit farther, darling, I promise.”
He could feel her breath in his ear, jagged with her shaking, and he wanted to run, but he made himself be careful with her. In another minute or two, they were there, and he tugged open the front door to the small building. Relief speared him at finding the door unlocked and the interior snug and dry.
There was a table, one chair, a narrow bed. A grate with no coal, but a small stack of dry wood and a tinderbox.
He didn’t want Margo’s wet clothes to soak the sheets, so he deposited her trembling body on the chair instead. Her eyes were half-closed, but she made an effort to rouse herself when he set her down. She tried to smile. Her lips were blue.
Fucking hell. He slid his travel bag from his shoulder—the waxed leather had kept the rain mostly out—and pulled out his remaining dry shirts. His hands were shaking too, he noticed vaguely, though he thought it was fear rather than cold.
“Going to start a fire,” he said, “then get you warm, all right? You’re going to be fine.”
“Have any ch-chocolate?”
He thought for a moment she was delirious, and then he realized she was joking. “Left it in the carriage,” he said. “With the champagne flutes.”
He made the fire as quickly as he could, talking nonsense to Margo and trying to make sure she stayed awake. It seemed critical for some reason that she remain conscious.
When the fire was roaring, he turned back to Margo, who was huddled inside his greatcoat on the wooden chair. As gently as he could, he untangled her fingers from where they clutched at the cuffs, then slid the garment off her. It occurred to him that she was dripping, so he sacrificed one of his precious dry shirts to blot her pale face and wrap round her hair. He unfastened the five hooks on her gown and tugged at the ribbon that gathered the bodice of her chemise. She was stiff, liable to hug her limbs into her body, but he persisted, one cautious unfolding of arm or leg at a time.
Soon he had all the freezing wet layers of fabric off of her body and then—finally—he slipped his other dry shirt over her head. She seemed to catch his intention, because she pushed her hands through the sleeves herself.
He didn’t want to touch her—not now, while he was drenched and freezing—but he had to get her wrapped in the bedsheets and in front of the fire. There seemed nothing to do but divest himself of his own garments as well. He had no more dry shirts, so once he was down to his smallclothes, he dragged the sheets from the bed, gathered Margo in his arms, and swaddled them both in rough white cotton.
He settled himself on the floor a few feet from the grate, Margo tucked against his front. It was warm—the fire felt like heaven on his cheeks and nose.
“There,” he said idiotically to Margo, “you see? You did it.”
Slowly, her shivers subsided. The stiffness in her limbs that had spiked his alarm eased. She softened against him, huddled in their nest of blankets.
And finally, Henry remembered how to breathe.
“Margo?”
“Hmm?” She was more than half-asleep now, but she opened her eyes. Her lips were slowly flushing back to pink.
He didn’t know what he’d meant to say. Everything had been so bloody cold—the terror spiking his bones, Margo’s hands on his back, the diamond-blue pallor of her mouth. Now relief was shuddering through him, and he pressed his face against her damp hair, willing himself not to shatter.
She was safe. He was the one who trembled.
“You can sleep now,” he said.
She tucked her head under his chin, her cheek pressed against his chest, her mouth at the notch of his collarbone. “You—too,” she whispered.
And he did.
