He lay there, asleep, locked in his own world, oblivious.
It was time to shrug off the false enticement of the morning dream, to get on with her life. The stranger was hers to care for, but not to keep. It was foolish to spin dreams around him. The moment he woke, he’d be off, back to his friends and family, leaving her without a thought. Alone again.
She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been lonely. All her life people had depended on her to take care of them. First Mama, then Grand-mère, then Papa, and now the children. She didn’t mind that so much—she was perfectly capable.
But it was lonely, always being the one who had to face the trouble, find the solution, battle the odds. And always alone.
She climbed out of bed. Thank goodness the stranger hadn’t woken. She would have been mortified if he’d opened his eyes and found her . . . touching him. He wasn’t her Raoul Dubois. He didn’t even know she was there.
Yet as she went though her morning routine—rebuilding the fire, heating water, washing, dressing, starting breakfast—part of her remained strangely desolate. It was always thus, she told herself, waking from a morning dream. Facing reality.
Dreams helped. But sometimes, some mornings, they only underlined her loneliness.
But Sir Jasper promised!”
Her voice—worried? angry?—woke him from a deep sleep.
A man’s voice rumbled in answer, harsh, threatening.
He tried to sit up. Had to help . . . protect . . . Nausea swamped him. He fell back.
Fragments of conversation came to him in drifts. “Check the records. Sir Jasper and I . . . an agreement . . . Hepromised.”
He knew her voice . . . somehow, but the sense of it . . . He couldn’t work it out. Couldn’t—damn it—remember.
He pressed his hands against his temples, trying to stop the throbbing, and felt bandages.Bandages?He closed his eyes. The voices faded . . .
Three
“He’s a prince,” Lucy insisted. “And he needs a princess to kiss him and then he’ll wake up.”
“That’s Sleeping Beauty, silly,” Susan told her.
“Same thing,” Lucy declared stoutly.
“No, because Sleeping Beauty is a girl and he’s a man.”
Henry joined in. “And a man can’t be a beauty.”
“Why not?”
“Because he can’t,” Henry said. “Only ladies can be beautiful.”
Maddy smiled to herself. She disagreed. This man was wholly male, and beautiful.
“I don’t care. He’s been sleeping for nearly two days, and nobody sleeps that long, so a wicked witch must have put a spell on him. And witches only put spells like that on princes and princesses. So someone needs to kiss him and break the spell.”
“A princess. Whoever kisses him would have to be a princess,” John said with authority. “And we haven’t got any princesses around here, so it will have to be a bucket of water.”
“No!” The girls were horrified. “Don’t you dare throw water on him, John Woodf—”
“Be quiet, all of you,” Maddy intervened. “John, stop teasing your sisters. The man isn’t a prince, Lucy, just a poor man with a sore head, which is no doubt the sorer for having a noisy bunch of children arguing over him. Now stay away from the bed, all of you—and for heaven’s sake, keep your voices down.”
With guilt-stricken looks at the sleeping man, they tiptoed away from the bed, continuing the argument in whispers. Maddy hid a smile. They had been, in fact, remarkably well behaved.
The doctor had visited again that morning and examined him. “As long as his sleep is peaceful and there’s no fever, there’s nothing much we can do. Let him sleep as much as he wants. If he wakens in pain, use the drops I gave you yesterday. If he shows signs of fever, cool him down and give him this.” He handed her a paper of powders. “And willow-bark infusion—small quantities, no more than four cups in a day. You have willow bark, I assume?”
She’d nodded.
