Chapter 8
1123 Words
Chapter Eight
Icarus stared at Miss Trentham. What was she doing in his bedchamber? Why was she on the floor?
“Are you all right?” she asked.
No, he wasn’t. His body still thought he was drowning. His lungs were laboring, every muscle in his body shuddered violently, and he wanted to vomit. “Why are you on my floor?”
“You had a nightmare. I tried to wake you, and you hit me.” Miss Trentham groped for two objects: a chamberstick and a candle.
“I hit you?”
Miss Trentham touched her cheek. It was pink. “Yes.”
He’d struck her? Cold horror filled his belly. “Are you all right?”
“I believe I’ll live,” Miss Trentham said, with a wry smile. There was a tiny smear of blood at the corner of her mouth.
“You’re bleeding,” Icarus said, even more horrified.
Miss Trentham touched a fingertip to her lips, found the blood, and wiped it off. “It’s nothing.”
“I’m sorry,” Icarus said, appalled. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Of course, you didn’t.” Miss Trentham climbed to her feet, crossed the room, and closed the door.
Icarus blinked. He hadn’t even noticed the door standing open.
Miss Trentham came back to the bed and surveyed him. “You’re not all right, are you?”
“It was just a nightmare,” Icarus said, avoiding the question. “Everyone has nightmares.”
“You had one last night, too, didn’t you?”
The shudders were dying to shivering. “You should go,” Icarus said, hauling the bedclothes up around his shoulders. His voice was hoarse. Had he been screaming again? Was that why she was here? “I apologize for waking you.”
“You do that a lot, you know. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” Miss Trentham lit her candle from his, and sat on the end of his bed.
“What?” Icarus discovered that his face was damp. Tears, or sweat? He wiped his cheeks hastily.
“You don’t answer the question I’ve asked. Is it because you don’t want to tell the truth?”
Of course it was. “You should go,” Icarus said again. “It’s not proper for you to be in my bedchamber.”
Miss Trentham gave him a look that told him she’d noticed the evasion. “Do you have nightmares often, Mr. Reid?”
“Everyone has nightmares once in a while. Please go, Miss Trentham. Before someone finds you here.” He couched the request as an order, but Miss Trentham didn’t scramble off his bed and obey.
“What would it matter if someone did? Everyone here believes me to be your wife.”
Icarus gazed at her, shivering. At least his breathing was under control now.
Miss Trentham gazed back at him. Dressed in a nightgown and shawl and with her hair in a disheveled plait, she didn’t look at all aloof. “I think we should discuss your nightmares.”
Icarus didn’t agree. “Please leave my bedchamber.”
“Certainly. Once we’ve discussed your nightmares.”
“My nightmares are no concern of yours,” Icarus said stiffly.
“You’ve woken me two nights running, and you’ve struck me to the floor. I’d say your nightmares are my concern.” Miss Trentham tilted her head to one side. “Are the nightmares about India?”
“No.”
“Portugal?”
Icarus thinned his lips. “Please leave.”
“Did the French torture you?”
The muscles in his face tightened. Icarus tried to inhale, and discovered that his lungs had frozen.
Miss Trentham’s expression changed. Was that pity in her eyes? “They did, didn’t they?”
Icarus struggled to find his voice. “An officer in uniform is a prisoner of war, not a spy. He would not be tortured.”
“Yes, or no, Mr. Reid.”
“Please leave my room.”
Miss Trentham stayed where she was, on the end of his bed. “Yes, or no?”
Icarus flung back his bedclothes and stalked across to the door, wrenching it open. “Leave!”
Miss Trentham sighed. She climbed off his bed and walked to where he stood. He could clearly see where he’d struck her. “Talking about things often helps, you know.”
“I’ve not told anyone what happened in Portugal,” Icarus snapped. “And I’m hardly likely to start with you!”
“Perhaps you should,” Miss Trentham said seriously. “It might help you sleep better.”
Nothing would help him sleep better.
“Good night,” she said, and then she surprised him by standing on tiptoe and lightly kissing his cheek.
By the time Icarus found his voice, Miss Trentham had gone. He closed the door and touched his cheek. What had moved her to kiss him?
Pity?
There was no sleeping after a nightmare; Icarus had learned that early. He read for four hours, then stripped out of his nightshirt, sponged himself down with cold water, and dressed for the day. Another hour’s reading, and the inn stirred awake. Icarus rang for hot water, shaved, and went down to the parlor to wait for Miss Trentham. She appeared an hour after dawn.
Icarus stood. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” She advanced into the room. “I hope you got some more sleep?”
Icarus ignored this question. “Your cheek? How is it?” The left side of her face looked slightly swollen, and the left half of her mouth.
Miss Trentham wasn’t diverted. “I hope you got some more sleep?”
“It’s stopped raining,” Icarus said.
“Did you sleep again?”
Icarus pulled out a chair for her at the table. “After you.”
Miss Trentham folded her arms. “Did you sleep again?”
Icarus pressed his lips together and didn’t answer.
“Do you ever sleep again?”
“Sit,” Icarus said, losing his patience.
“I appear to have married a tyrant,” Miss Trentham said dryly, and sat.
The landlord’s daughter served them breakfast. At Miss Trentham’s request, Icarus forced himself to eat two eggs and two sausages. If he was a tyrant, Miss Trentham was a damned despot.
“Have you tried laudanum?” Miss Trentham asked, when he’d finished eating.
Icarus didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “I have,” he said curtly. “And I dislike it.” Dislike was an understatement. The orderlies had forced it on him when he’d been in the throes of fever, violent in his delirium. It had made the nightmares a hundred times worse. He’d been unable to break free of them, unable to wake up, unable to breathe.
“I think you should talk to someone about what happened in Portugal. If not me, then someone you trust. A chaplain, perhaps.”
“Can we please not discuss this?”
Miss Trentham leaned forward. “It could help you!”
“I don’t need help,” Icarus said flatly. “I told you, I’ll be dead by the end of the year.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What is it you’re dying of, Mr. Reid?”
Icarus pushed back his chair and stood. “Shall we make a start?”
Basingstoke was a small town, but it was fifty miles from London—a convenient day’s ride—and boasted a disproportionate number of inns for its size. Icarus knew, because he’d visited them all on Monday. Visiting them all again on Thursday was a waste of time—but it was better than discussing his nightmares or the state of his health.
They started with the Plough, and then crossed the King’s Arms, Toby House, and Hogshead off the list. Next was the Red Lion.
“Dunlop? Green? Never heard of ’em,” the landlord said impatiently. He was an overfed man, his waistcoat straining to accommodate his ample girth. “I told you that before.”
Icarus turned to go; Miss Trentham stayed where she was, her gaze on the landlord’s face. “But you have heard of them.”
Icarus swung back to the landlord.
The man flushed. “You calling me a liar?”
“Yes,” Miss Trentham said matter-of-factly. “I am.”
“Now, look here—” The landlord broke off as Icarus stepped towards him.
“Do you know where Green is?” Icarus asked bluntly.
“No, I don’t! And you can’t browbeat a man in his own—”
“What’s your name?” Miss Trentham asked.
“Busbee. And I must ask you to leave—”
“Mr. Busbee knows where Green is,” Miss Trentham said.
“Does he? How interesting.” Icarus flexed his hands and took another step towards the landlord.
“He’s in the stables!” Busbee cried.
Icarus halted. “The stables?”
“He’s one of my ostlers.”
- Writer
