CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
What is that sweet sound? Where is it coming from?Amelia tried to eke her eyelids open, but they were so very heavy, as if she had not slept for a week.
Yet, the sound continued: a soft, melancholic song, hummed in the back of a melodious throat. A song that seemed familiar, but she could not place it.
Is someone singing me a lullaby?She tried to open her eyes again and, slowly but surely, they cooperated.
Low light greeted her vision, flickering slightly as if it came from a candle or a lantern. Blinking to clear some of the blurriness away, she looked around her, and found the source of that beautiful sound.
She appeared to be on the settee in the drawing room at Westyork, and Lionel was lying on the floor beside it with a blanket rolled up and tucked under his head as a pillow.Hewasthe one humming that lovely song, his bespectacled eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling while he drummed a faint rhythm on his chest with his fingertips.
“Did I… lose some time again?” she croaked, her throat sore.
Lionel sat bolt upright, turning to look at her. “You are awake.”
“Apparently so.” She winced as a dull pain throbbed from one side of her skull to the other. “What… happened to me?”
“You do not remember?” He swiveled so that his body faced her. “What is the last thing you remember?”
She raised her hand to where it hurt, wincing again as a sharper pain shot through her head. “I remember hanging onto… that sticking-up bit of the saddle as if… my life depended on it. And feeling terribly unwell.”
Horror rippled through her, chasing the bristle of pain, for though she had no memory of expelling the contents of her stomach, there was every chance that she had. And right in front of the servants too.Goodness, what must they think of me?
“You fell,” Lionel said gently. “You landed rather hard, by all accounts, and bounced a fair distance. The physician said it was a miracle you did not break any bones.”
“Did I land on my head?”
“No, but you hit it,” he replied.
She mustered a smile. “My father always said I had a particularly thick skull that nothing could hope to get through. I am grateful that, at last, it has come to some use.”
Lionel raised an eyebrow. “Are you really making jests when you almost died?”
“Is there a better time?” She peered up at him, curious to know how long he had been there at her side.
He managed a small smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Ask me again tomorrow,” she replied, her skull pounding. “But if it makes you feel reassured, I do not think I am made for riding horses. I thought it would be liberating, or a welcome distraction at least, but I was mistaken.”
“You should have asked me to teach you,” he said, reaching for her hand.
His calloused palm was rough against her smooth skin, his grasp cautious as though he did not want to hurt her.
“You were not there, Lionel,” she reminded him, though not unkindly. “I had to dine alone again, and I daresay there is nothing more depressing than eating eggs and toast by oneself.”
He nodded slowly, biting his lip. “I know. I am sorry that I was not there. I regret it, if that helps to soothe you.”
“A little.”
They fell into a peaceable sort of silence, holding hands in the gloom of the drawing room. Beyond the windows, night had fallen. She could not see clearly, but it rather looked like tiny drifts of snow had gathered in the hatches of the panes.
“Is it snowing?” she asked, struggling to sit up.
Lionel’s other hand pressed against her shoulder, forcing her to lie back down. “It is, but you can see it when you are feeling improved. I will not have you risking your life for a second time just to see the snow.”
“But I would like to see it,” she protested. “I adore the snow, especially when it is falling. It might have stopped by morning.”
Lionel pulled a face, splitting his gaze between the garden doors and her, his frustration evident. In different circumstances, she was certain that he would have refused to let her get up, but there was something unusual about him that night. He was gentler, warmer, with an undercurrent of nerves that she had not seen from him before.
