C allum had no idea how he’d moved from his chamber to his bedroom, but he had.
He woke in shadowy fits and starts. His entire body ached as if he had been beaten in a back alleyway by a group of London toughs, an experience he had avoided once or twice.
The light burned his eyes. He tried to shield them, but his hand would not obey him.
He let out a small sound, which he had thought was going to be a roar of frustration, but it was the barest of moans.
“Callum,” a voice called him. “Callum.”
It was his wife, his Cymbeline.
He tried to say her name, but his lips refused to obey. She was pressing a cold cloth to his head, and he could hear the doctor whispering fervently.
He shivered. He was freezing and his body would not stop shaking. Agony traveled through him and he wished… Dear God, he wished he could stop shaking.
And he coughed then. Bloody hell, how he coughed.
It racked his chest, and he could not stop. Cough after cough tore through him, and he realized he could not breathe. He tried to suck in air, but his lungs were like two watery graves. He winced and groaned and coughed and coughed again.
Cymbeline tried to help him sit up, but he fought against her.
His mind felt wild, unattached to reason, to anything or anyone.
He needed to be alone to brace himself on the bed.
And he didn’t want her to see him like this.
He didn’t want anyone to see him like this, but the doctor was whispering frantically to her.
And they were trying to get him to drink water, but he didn’t want water. He simply wanted to feel better. Surely, he would feel better at any moment.
It was just a little cold. If they would but leave him alone, he would be fine.
“Your Grace,” the doctor said, “you are most seriously ill.”
“Balderdash,” he somehow got out between coughs that burned his whole body. “It is nothing. It is a trifling cold,” he managed.
“It is not a cold,” Cymbeline returned, taking his hand in hers. “My family is coming, and we are going to take you down to the country as soon as you’re well, so that you can rest and recover.” Desperation filled her voice.
The sound sent a note of fear through him.
She was afraid… Afraid he was not going to recover. She was trying to hide it, his beautiful, strong, brave wife. But he knew her. She could act as much as she wished, but he could hear the fear under her claim.
There was a longer pause from the doctor, and suddenly Callum realized just how ill he must be because another coughing fit rattled through him, and he felt as if his body was made of icy snow.
“Blanket,” he begged.
“No, Your Grace,” the doctor said.
“Blanket,” he roared.
And then Cymbeline said fiercely, “No. You are burning up, and we must get your fever down, Callum. No blanket.”
He sank against the bed.
He ached. He ached as he had never ached in his entire life.
“Callum,” she called, “please, my love. You must fight this. Fight with all you have.”
Fight? Of course he would fight this. He had been fighting his entire life, and he would not stop now. He wasn’t going to suddenly cease, but the weakness of his body shocked him.
His body had never betrayed him before, but it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps it wasn’t his body that had betrayed him.
It was he who had betrayed his body. There were all the times he had never listened to it, all the times he had ignored the exhaustion, the aches, the warnings.
All the times he should have gone to his bed when he was sick but had pushed himself to get work done.
And over these last weeks, he had taxed himself even further, making certain that he spent time with the woman he loved, the woman who made his life worth living, as well as doing all the work.
The sacrifices had seemed worth it.
Had it been too much to try to love her and do his work too? No. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t allow it, but he felt weak.
Dear God, he felt weak. And suddenly, he felt as if his entire life might be slipping away from him, as if suddenly that companion which he had been so certain he was not afraid of had come into the room.
Death.
He let out a shout of defiance. “Go away!”
“Callum, are you all right?” Cymbeline asked.
He began to shake his head. No, no. Death was not coming for him. It was too soon. His father had had until he was forty-five, and Death had come suddenly, taking him immediately with a little bit of pain, but this felt different.
This felt as if Death had slipped into the room and was laughing at him, laughing at him for believing that he could mock Death, control Death. He had not thought he’d been trying to control Death by living the way he had, but now he realized Death might come for a fellow in many ways.
His father’s heart had stopped, and he’d been gone instantaneously.
But what if Death came as an illness? An illness that racked his body and left him weak and ruined him, not just for himself, but for the woman he loved and also for all the people he was supposed to help.
What if Death had come to take him in a long, agonizing struggle because he had not listened to all the warnings? He was the Duke of Baxter after all.
No one could warn him.
Not even his wife.
And now, he feared he was going to lose her. He was going to lose it all.