Page 91 of Too Wanton to Wed
Vision blurring, he covered her with every drop of the ointment. His entire body shook with anger and fear and desperation. He lifted the large folded linen from the bucket of ice water and carefully swaddled it around his daughter. She winced as necessity forced him to touch and move her, but she made not a single word of complaint. She was so fragile... Her brave stoicism broke his heart.
“I’m so sorry, sweetling,” he whispered brokenly. “Papa doesn’t mean to hurt you.”
Lily met his eyes and gave him a raw half-smile. “I knew it would hurt,” she said quietly, her voice as scratchy and halting as his own. “I knew it would hurt and I didn’t care. I came anyway. It was worth it.”
Alistair shot a disbelieving glance up at Violet. She stood immobile, eyes closed, silent tears streaming down her face. As if she could feel him watching her, her lips formed the words,I’m sorry.
He jerked his horrified gaze back to his daughter. “You knew this could happen? And you followed her here anyway?”
Lily’s eyes were glassy with pain, but her expression was one of determination. “Just ’cause I’ll get new scars doesn’t mean I forgot the old ones, Papa. But Violet wasleaving. Somebody had to bring her home. If you weren’t going to, then it was up to me.”
Alistair felt the weight of all eyes in the room upon him at once. There was no time for more words. Even now, time ticked steadily against them.
The physician burst into the room. In less than half an hour, he completed his initial evaluation. Alistair stepped closer, finally feeling hopeful. The physician shook his head. Hope was misplaced. The prognosis was not good.
Alistair’s nerves shattered.
He stood at the ready throughout the long afternoon, watching in heart-twisting silence as cream after cream, compress after compress, were applied to his daughter’s wounds. Violet hovered on the other side of the worn mattress, staring sightlessly with haunted eyes. She did not speak. Good. He did not wish to even look at her. He had eyes for no one except his daughter.
When night fell, the exhausted physician finally rose to his feet. He nodded at Alistair. It was finally safe to bring Lily home. The physician set off first, to ensure everything was ready for Lily’s arrival. The other four would follow in Alistair’s carriage.
Hating that just the act of lifting his daughter into his arms would bring her additional pain, he scooped her up as gently as he could and eased down the steps. A crowd had gathered. Roper and Violet staved off the vitriolic smithy and his disciples, allowing Alistair to climb into the carriage and settle Lily along one padded bench. He perched across from her, wishing to Heaven that he could press a kiss to her hair just one more time, but not daring to risk causing her more pain.
Roper took the reins as Violet slumped onto the seat next to Alistair.
To be fair, she looked as though no torture he could devise would be half as excruciating as the one raging inside her heart and mind. Her face was unnaturally pale, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen and the skin beneath puffy and bruised. Her fingers shook, and her breaths—when they came at all—were shallow and uneven.
But Alistair wasn’t feeling particularly fair. He was feeling like a man whose daughter might die from her injuries. He was feeling like a father who would sell his soul to the Devil in exchange for his daughter’s continued life.
He was feeling like a failure.
Lily was right. He was a terrible papa. He dropped his face in his hands and did his best not to cry. Lily needed strength right now, not further evidence of her father’s faults.
He needed to be strong, to show her his faith, his trust in the Lord that a miracle would occur, and she would somehow be all right. Numbly rocking back and forth, he closed his eyes and prayed. Again and again, the same desperate litany, without changing a single word.God in Heaven, take me if you wish, butpleaselet Lily live.
Every tiny moan that escaped her burnt lips was another dagger to his heart.
When they finally reached the abbey, a double row of footmen waited outside. Violet leaped down from the carriage to allow him room. He gathered his daughter in his arms as tenderly as he could and carried her inside.
With every step he took, Lily winced in pain, and with every wince, another part of Alistair crumbled inside. How he hated that the very act of carrying his daughter to safety caused her to suffer. He hated the world. He hated himself. He hated God.
Watch over Lily.That’s all he’d ever asked.Keep her safe.If he lost her now... Lord above, if helosther...
Mrs. Tumsen and a dozen housemaids awaited them at the door to the catacombs with apprehensive faces and lit candles in their hands.
“The physician is inside,” Mrs. Tumsen said as Roper unlocked the door. “He sent over another trunk of medications.”
Alistair nodded mutely. He did not trust himself to speak. If he opened his mouth even a fraction, he might scream or sob or do both at the same time, and what he really needed was to get Lily to that physician as quickly as possible.
Focusing as best he could on keeping one foot ahead of the other, he somehow made it from the catacombs to the sanctuary. Dozens of candles flickered around the cavernous chamber, giving life to the fantastical murals that had leapt from his daughter’s head to her walls. Oh, God, was this all he would have left of her if she died? The room that had been her prison was now painted in a dizzying trompe l’oeil to simulate the freedom she found only in her imagination. The freedom she would never have.
Alistair’s body shook. He wouldneverleave her side. He would sit here and rot here and die here if it was the only way he could still be surrounded by his daughter’s memory.
The physician was across the room, gazing up at an improbably large bumblebee flying over a panoply of rainbow-colored lilies. He turned from the wall as soon as they entered the room and hurried to the bed as Alistair tenderly laid his daughter atop the mattress.
“Go,” the physician said with a nod. “I will call you if I need you, or if anything changes.”
“I am not leaving this room,” Alistair said firmly.
