Highland Bear (Book 4)

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Rohesia pulled the threadbare blanket tighter about her shivering frame. Her teeth chattering so hard she thought they may come flying from her very head. Her temples ached, and her head pounded. Her body was freezing on the inside, but boiling to the touch. She could not get warm enough, and yet could furnace a room with heat. The contradiction would not have been lost on her if she had been able to think beyond the ache her body had become. Her joints both stiff and extremely painful. Her nose stuffy, and her throat scratchy.

To top off all of this, Alfred hovered like an old maid. Unsure of what to do, and unable to take the expression from his face that constantly told her he was afraid she may drop dead on him at any moment. She had survived worse, and only come out of it with a loss of hearing…though she could not remember an illness this bad in many a year, and never without the luxury of anything she desired to help her recuperate. She was sure she would come to understand the general populace more, and appreciate their hardiness in the face of death, but at this moment all she wanted was to curl up into a tiny ball and die.

Failing death, warmth would be a novel and wonderful thing.

At least she was lucid, or at for the most part she was. Fever dreams had not yet set in…but there was time she was sure, and time was a cruel and merciless mistress. It had been just under a day since the symptoms had first driven her to her tiny bed unable to move without agony clawing through her system.

Her ire had caught an hour ago. As Alfred had informed her, his message to Robert telling him of her condition, with an apology at her being unable to attend a prearrange meeting, had been returned with nary a word more than needed to rearrange their meeting. A suitable date would be put forward when she was well enough.

She could not help but think that if Artair MacKay had received the same note he would have battled the devil himself to knock down her door and be at her side at this time. Not that he would be able to do anything to help. In fact, he would be as useless as Alfred was at this moment, hovering, driving her mad with his constant pottering. But at least she knew he cared because of it. Artair would have shown her that. Yet her future husband would rather rearrange a meeting which may never happen if God Almighty decided that this time it was her time to meet him in person.

Sniffling hard, and rubbing the frayed edge of the blanket against the tip of her nose. A comfort action she had had since she was a tiny child, it did nothing to alleviate any of the pain of uncomfortableness her body had placed her in. Her eyes ached, and it was only exacerbated by the tears which threatened and then stung as they could no longer be held back.

It was useless to think of Artair. He was not coming back, no matter how hard she wished for it. And she had wished. Every night in her prayers she had asked the Lord above to let them meet once more. If it was his bidding for them to do so. For the more she knew of Robert, the more she wanted Artair there for her. Robert would make a comment or commit an act, and she would find herself turning to laugh with, or complain to Artair about him. Which was a foolish act within and of itself, she hardly knew the male. And yet, it felt as if she had known him her entire life.