Page 9 of The Count’s Charade

“Yet he staggered to this place, losing blood all the way, I surmise. He must have been too weak by the time he found shelter to seek a way to stop the bleeding.”

The sight of the man folded in her lean-to returned to Grace’s mind, and she recalled the awkward position of his arm. He had evidently tried to hold back his ebbing blood by hugging into himself.

“That he has lasted as long is a miracle,” Ffrith went on. “It would be a fellow of rare spirit who could recover his strength after so debilitating an experience.”

Despair engulfed Grace. While she had been comfortably asleep in her feather bed above, the Frenchman had lain there, dying by inches.

The light was dim when Henri came awake. He had been aware of vague shadows, of voices that came and went, interrupting his unquiet dreams. There had been strange features once or twice, but not those he remembered. An image floated in his mind, a female countenance. He would have been hard put to it to describe it, but to say there was great sweetness in its smile, reassurance in its friendliness, comfort in its warmth.

He lay for a while staring up at the shadow above his head that he identified at length as a wooden tester. Henri relished the quiet, enwrapped in a feeling of safety that must be an illusion. Was he yet alive? He felt no pain, and thought it odd, as if there ought to have been reason for him to feel it. No memory came to disturb the all-enveloping peace. Perhaps he was dying, and soon the angels would come for him.

A trifle of thirst dragged at his attention, and he remembered someone had given him water, in a spoon. Thirst? Then he was indeed alive. Spirits had no need of water. A need that intensified, pulling him out of the comforting haze.

Unconsciously, he shifted his head on the pillows, and immediately heard movement to one side of the bed.

“Open your mouth, if you please.”

Something hard and cold was at his lip. He did as he was bid, and a dribble of cool liquid slid blessedly into his mouth. Henri swallowed, and opened his mouth for more. Several spoonfuls later his thirst was assuaged, and he tried to tug his hand out from under the covers to push the spoon away. A sharp twinge reminded him abruptly of his injury, and Henri winced, a groan escaping his lips.

“Take care!”

The spoon dropped from sight, and he felt coolness at his chest as the covers were shifted and someone lifted his good arm for him and placed it comfortably outside the quilt. Henri caught at the hand, and turned his gaze to find the face he remembered, alight and leaning over him. It had grey eyes.

“Toi, alors? Je te reconnais.”

“Pray, sir, do not excite yourself,” begged the same comforting voice he recalled having heard before. It returned to him that she was English.

“I remember you,” he repeated in her language.

The smile appeared and Henri felt an inordinate measure of relief. The memory was real. Then he was no longer dreaming. The woman shifted, releasing her hand from his grasp, and the light left her face. He realised a candle was burning close by. Was it night? How long had he lain here?

“You have the time of day?”

“The time?” Surprise was in her voice. “Yes, sir, it is past eight, and nigh on dusk already.”

Henri found himself little enlightened by this intelligence. He would have asked more, but that an earthier need was beginning to impinge upon his senses. How to express it? His mind balked at the notion of asking for a chamber pot. And he knew he had not strength to manage on his own. As if she read his mind, the woman’s next words offered him a ready solution.

“I am going to leave you presently, sir. There is a young fellow here by the name of Reuben, who will attend to your personal comfort while I am gone.” A note of anxiety crept into her voice. “Do you understand me, sir?”

Henri made an effort to express his thanks. “You are very good, mademoiselle.”

Then the face was leaning over him again, and her tone dropped. “I must beg you to listen carefully, sir. Are you listening?”

His gaze roved the contours of her face, and he nodded, only half aware of what she said. She had not the sort of prettiness that drew the eye, yet her countenance had an unusual quality to which he could put no name.

“Say nothing of your origins to this fellow, if you please,” she was asking earnestly. “You must speak, of course, I see that, but pray do so in English. Reuben will note that you are foreign, but I have a reasonable hope he will not recognise your accent, if you will but refrain from using your own language.”

The sense of this began to penetrate, and Henri frowned in an effort to understand. “You ask that I speak no French?”

“Exactly. I have a particular reason for keeping your nationality secret for as long as we can. Will you do it, sir?”

He tried to nod. “As you wish, mam’zelle.”

The smile rewarded him, and he gazed up into the countenance, wondering at the transformation effected by it. It vanished as she shifted upright.

“Reuben has brought you a nightshirt, and when he has made you more comfortable, Jemima will bring up some broth. I hope you will try to take a little, sir. You have come this far, but you need to build up your strength.”

She turned away then, and Henri watched her slip behind the open door, accompanied by a heavy clunking for which he was at a loss to account. He found himself tired and his lids sank slowly as a haze began to infiltrate his mind.