Anthony proposed last night, and I said yes!
We are keeping it a secret from everyone until he returns from Scotland with his grandmother’s engagement ring …
—from the diary of Miss Venus Merriwell, aged 21
Gal couldn’t stop shaking.
Whether from the cold or the fear or the ordeal—or an amalgamation of all three—he couldn’t say. In all honesty, he was so goddamn cold he was barely capable of speech anyway, so he didn’t suppose it mattered.
All that mattered was he was still here, and she was right beside him.
He had a vague recollection of Venus bundling him in a hackney. Of her holding him tight as she rubbed heat into his muscles. Then being draped around her as she hoisted him up the four flights of stairs to his sparse apartment.
“We need to get you out of these wet clothes.” She peeled the shirt from his skin and swaddled his top half in the blanket she had stripped from his bed before she set to work on his breeches. “We need to get you warm.”
“Where’s the boy?” Gal had lost track of him somewhere on the ice. “Did he make it?”
“He’s next door. With the reverend and the physician.”
“Will he make it?”
“The doctor is coming to see you next, so we can ask him.” She grunted as she wrestled the tight kerseymere down his legs, then steadied his quaking hands as he stepped out of it. He heard the sodden fabric slap against his bare floorboards as she tossed the last of his clothing to one side and supposed he should be embarrassed that he now stood as naked as a jaybird before her. But he didn’t have the energy. Every last ounce he possessed was being used to keep his body upright. Because for some reason it kept curling as if his muscles had all shrunk or shriveled. Muscles that now burned—except bizarrely with cold rather than heat.
She set to work drying him with a towel while he shivered on the mattress, and then she tucked him into bed while she lit a fire.
“Hot tea!” Mrs. Witherspoon dashed through his bedchamber door with a steaming mug and for the first time in his life he was grateful for it. As he cradled it in his hands, she apologized. “Doctor’s orders, I’m afraid, Gal, so it has to be tea not coffee, but it’s loaded with honey.”
“How’s the boy?”
“Doc says he’s better than he expected but not out of the woods completely. The cold has sent his body into a bad shock, most definitely, but so long as the plucky Johnny keeps rallying, he thinks the boy might beat it. All thanks to you.”
“Johnny? Is that his name?”
“Short for Jonathan, he said.” Mrs. Witherspoon smiled. “Jonathan Hicks.”
“If he can say his name, that’s gotta be a good sign, hasn’t it?” He searched Venus’s face for confirmation. “Means he’s conscious and compos mentis.”
“It does indeed.” She stroked his cheek, and he leaned into it. “Mrs. Witherspoon will keep us posted of any change, won’t you? And she’ll bring more blankets.”
She held him tight as soon as the matron left and Gal must have drifted off, because he woke with a start and Mrs. Witherspoon was back. There was a bed warmer near his feet and he was now swaddled in so many blankets and eiderdowns he could barely move. But at least he wasn’t shivering anymore.
On the other side of the room, the older woman and Venus were talking in hushed tones. “Doctor won’t be long, Vee, but says it’s imperative neither patient is left alone. At least overnight, as anything nasty will show itself in the first few hours.”
“You watch the boy and I’ll stay with Galahad.”
“The reverend says that for propriety’s sake he’ll…”
“I said that I’ll stay with Galahad.” Venus’s lovely blue eyes and tone brooked no argument. “He’s family. And hardly in any fit state to … you know…”
Unfortunately, Galahad couldn’t argue with that because he likely wasn’t in any fit state. He suspected his privates had shriveled and shrunk like all his damn muscles had.
Good grief! Had she seen that?
Concerned that she might judge him on it, he was sorely tempted to take a peek beneath the blanket to see how bad that shrinkage was, and if it was bad, to see if he could surreptitiously tease his frozen friend out of hiding. Although to what purpose he had no clue, as he could hardly whip it out to prove he wasn’t usually such a disappointment.
“Frostbite in the extremities might be a problem, too.” As if she had read his mind, Mrs. Witherspoon gave him something else to worry about. Noticing he was awake, she smiled.
“Do you have any numbness of the nose, fingers, or toes, Galahad?” He touched his nose and wiggled all ten toes to check if he could feel them and shook his head when he did. But his recently oh-so-rampant manhood was another matter entirely. He couldn’t immediately feel any sensation in his nether regions, and he could hardly wiggle that to check with ladies present. “Any pins and needles or blisters?” He shook his head again, quietly dying inside at the thought of blisters there. “Because if you develop blisters, those blisters could turn gangrenous and we would need to have all of that dead flesh chopped off.”
Chopped off!
Oh dear Lord!
Even Vee appeared concerned at that. “I shall check him every half hour, Mrs. Witherspoon.” Then she gave her a look. One that told her to shut up and stop scaring him. “There will be no gangrene on my watch.”
“No doubt the doctor will want to do a thorough examination to be sure. I’ll go chivy him now. I’ve also got a pot of soup on the stove. I’ll bring some over once it’s ready as the doctor said we need to warm our hero’s insides, too.” The matron smiled kindly as she squeezed his arm. “God bless you, Sir Galahad. You saved the day.” A compliment that did not cheer him in the slightest now that the prospect of being a eunuch loomed on the horizon.
After Mrs. Witherspoon left, Venus went to stoke the fire. While she did, Gal did a quick, precautionary fumble around what Muldoon called his wedding vegetables to check that they were blister-free and sighed aloud when he realized his groin still possessed some feeling.
Instantly, Venus’s head snapped around. “Are you all right?”
“As ninepence,” he said as he guiltily let go of his chilled genitals beneath the covers. “Isn’t that what you British say?”
“It is.” She smiled in obvious relief as she turned back to the fire. “Although I have no idea why.”
Venus had left the room while the doctor examined him an hour later, but Gal could sense her hovering behind the door listening. Even so, once the doctor let her back in, she still asked a million questions until she was satisfied he wasn’t about to die and followed him downstairs so she could probe some more out of earshot.
He hoped it was all evidence that she cared.
While she was gone, he took the opportunity to leave the bed, which was to be his prison until the morning, to stretch his thawing limbs and grab a shirt from his new wardrobe. He much preferred to sleep naked, but to be naked and shriveled with her sitting by his bed watching him like a hawk had made him self-conscious. He’d feel less vulnerable covered, especially if she intended to keep vigil all night as she had threatened.
Checking first that the coast was clear, he padded quickly across the room and began to rifle in his closet. His fingers found the shirt as the door reopened, and in the absence of anything else to cover his modesty, he used that as she walked through it.
“It seems, miraculously, that despite everything you are indeed as right as nine…” He wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised by her swift and silent return. Her eyes raked the length of him before they rested, transfixed, on the strategically placed bunched linen in his fists covering his unmentionables. “You are not supposed to be out of bed!”
“I know but—”
“You need to stay warm!” From nowhere, the schoolmistress had returned, and for some reason she was furious. “What is the matter with you!” She came at him, magic finger wagging. “What are you thinking?” She gripped his upper arms and shook. “What were you thinking! What were you thinking, Galahad, to jump into that water!”
All at once she was crying as she admonished him. Ugly, noisy crying that came from somewhere deep inside.
“You could have died, you idiot!” She pushed him, her face contorted. Wretched. “You could have died, Galahad! Died!” A tortured, feral sound came out. Part snort. Part growl. Part scream. She raised her fist as if she was going to hit him with it then pressed it to her mouth fighting for calm. But even that didn’t prevent the noisy outpouring of emotion that he had absolutely no clue how to deal with. “You scared the hell out of me!” She lunged and pushed him back against the wardrobe with two splayed hands. “You could have died!”
“I know … I’m sorry … I…” Gal hadn’t seen her look this terrifying since the night they had met, when she had flown out of nowhere and pinned him to the ground ready to kill him. Her rage was that visceral again.
Yet this wasn’t just rage.
He understood that, despite not knowing what to do about it beyond blink dumbfounded and keep apologizing. “But I’m not dead … I’m all right … You heard the doctor … I’m all right, Venus…”
“More by luck than judgment!” She screamed that, her hands fisting against his chest. When she drew them away, she stared at them for an age, then up at him shaking them. “But if you ever do something like that again, you will be! Because I’ll kill you myself!”
Her eyes were wild with fear and relief. “I almost lost you … I’ve only just realized that I love you and I almost lost you!”
His head spun as his heart rejoiced. “You … love me?”
In answer, she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his head as she kissed him. It was a hard, brutal, and angry kiss, and yet it was utterly perfect just the same.
Because she loved him and that was everything.
While he kissed her back, her hands checked him everywhere—face, neck, shoulders—clawing at him as she pressed her body against his with animalistic fervor.
Gal’s desire was instant.
Hot and all-consuming. The need to have her, all of her, suddenly as necessary as the air in his lungs.
In a tangle of limbs, lips, and longing, they staggered toward the bed as one. When she stumbled, he lifted her rather than delay their journey. Hauling her upward so she could wrap her legs around his waist and plunge her hands in his hair.
He practically threw her on the mattress and then fell on her while they both wrestled with her skirts. When he hesitated, when the significance of the moment finally hit him, she filled her hands with his backside and dragged him close. “Take me … Have me…”
He almost did.
Almost allowed his desire free rein, but the plaintive cry of his damn conscience was too loud.
“I can’t…” Gal pulled back, and it was the hardest thing he ever had to do. “Not like this, Venus … It isn’t proper when…”
“There’s no need for propriety.” She yanked him back, fusing her mouth to his. “I’m not a virgin.”