The rain had been kind for the last few days, holding off and allowing her to spend her waking hours bathed in watery sunlight. She had ignored her letters and ledgers for vines and rootstock. Another draught of medicine hadn’t been a real option, not with her stomach still sore and delicate, and working until her wrists and hands hurt was the only other way to keep her panic over Pollard and the bryony girl and the spiraling death of the empire at bay.
She felt almost steady, now. Almost normal. Almost under control.
But there was still the soldier. If he knew to blame his caretakers for his blindness, he hadn’t yet been lucid enough to say anything about it. If Violetta knew to blame her for it, she had chosen not to say anything. Evelyn was thankful for the respite. She did not want to justify herself to anybody.
“Has he eaten?”
“Not since morning,” Violetta said. “I thought... I thought your ladyship might want to take his meal to him.”
Evelyn made herself continue moving, though her eyes narrowed. Was that an accusation? An invitation? A judgment or a show of deference? Did Violetta mean for Evelyn to drug the man again, or did she know Evelyn would and was expressing her disgust?
The answer was the same, either way. “No. Take care of it, I will finish up here and be in shortly.”
“Yes, my lady.” Violetta left her, footsteps soft against the paved pathway.
It was time she and the soldier had a talk, time she made sure he understood that his caretakers would know his secrets. Time for her to get a sense of why he’d come here. She reached for the sense of promise he’d given her that first night, but found it waning, guttering out in the winds of fear from The Verity.
Yes. It was time to speak to him, to stop avoiding, to go on the offensive. To control this one thing she still could.
She gave the soil one last press, forcing any last gasps of air from around the roots, and then stood, making her way back into the mansion proper.
She washed up and removed her overdress, then made her way through the sanctum to the sick room. Its door stood open, no doubt to lessen the stink that had built up inside. She watched as Violetta tipped the bowl of gruel to the soldier’s lips, the man propped against the wall, breathing audible but even. His eyes were open, the pupils covered by a mother of pearl curve of scar tissue, blending into the striated grey of his irises. Even in the dim light of the sick room, when his pupils would be widest, she could see no trace of black around the edges of the scarring.
Good. His blindness was immutable. Evelyn entered the room, and he pulled his head away from the bowl, tracking the sound of her skirts against the floorboard. He didn’t find her entirely, but his face pointed towards her left shoulder. Alert, then, not just awake.
“And you must be my captor,” he said, voice rough and quiet. Violetta pulled the bowl away from him and glanced at Evelyn. Evelyn gestured with the fan that sat closed in her left hand, and Violetta sat the bowl on the small table beside the bed and left, pulling the door half-closed behind her. Evelyn waited, listening to the girl’s footsteps. Violetta went first to Evelyn’s chambers, no doubt to fetch the laundry. And then, down the hall again, until the door at the far end opened and closed, the lock turning.
They were alone. “Your caretaker,” Evelyn corrected, smoothly, opening her fan of black fabric. The air was close, and though the wave of her fan freshened the stink, the slight breeze was worth it.
“That’s the other one,” he said. “The one who just left.” Evelyn smiled, faintly, and found herself relieved when she realized he couldn’t see the expression at all. “I make the medicines she gives you.”
“You don’t sound like a doctor. Or a witching woman. Who are you?”
“Your caretaker,” Evelyn repeated, sitting back in her chair and looking him over. His color was better, but his forehead still shone with a faint layer of sweat. If she touched him, she would feel the heat. Perhaps a little shudder as the fever worked the bellows of his lungs.
“So it is to be a mystery.”
“Your savior,” she added. “You were lying half-dead on the road.” Up to my house, she caught herself short of saying. If he didn’t remember where he’d been headed to, she wouldn’t remind him, not until she knew more of his intentions. “Would you have had me leave you there, to drown in the rains?”
“I do thank you for your roof,” he said. “I prefer not to be wet.”He had a wicked tongue left to him. He sounded bitter. Almost angry. Not particularly afraid.
He didn’t sound like a defector. “As a thank you,” Evelyn said, arching a brow, “I would prefer to know your name. And what an officer of the traitor government is doing in Delphinium.”
He laughed and walked his scab-knuckled fingers along the edge of the mattress until he found the nightstand. But the strain of leaning was too much, and he fell to a coughing fit.
Evelyn rose and went to his side, easing him back against the wall again and taking up the position Violetta had occupied, tilting the bowl gently against his lips. “You are safe here,” she said, trying to make her tone soft and welcoming. She didn’t know how to do it. The words scraped against her throat.
“Am I?” he asked, after lifting up one hand to nudge the bowl away. She set it back down. “I find I’m blind.”
“Injuries,” she murmured. “Sustained from those thugs who left you in the gutter.”
His jaw clenched. He didn’t believe her. But he didn’t accuse her, either, perhaps overwhelmed by the pain he was in. When he spoke again, it was to the wall across from him. “Will you be turning me in to your Judiciary, then, to stand trial?”
“If I had meant to turn you in, I would have done so already.” He groaned, trying to lower himself back to the mattress. She didn’t reach out to help, instead standing, watching as he
maneuvered awkwardly onto his spine. “You should have,” he said. “Now when the servants begin talking, they will think you chose to hide me.”
“The servants won’t talk.”
“It’s a big house,” he said. “Dry. Well-built. You have money.”
“And yet I only have one person attending to you.”
“I’ve heard other footsteps.” She let the wave of her fan be the only sound for a span of several heartbeats. “You’re very perceptive,” she said at last.
“I suspect I will never leave this room,” he said, grimacing, one hand hovering above the fresh bandages Violetta had wrapped his abused side with. “But I also suspect that you are too soft-hearted to kill me. And where does that leave us? The Judiciary won’t take kindly to you harboring a traitor.”
“The world is not so bleak as that,” she said. “In time, I hope you will come to trust me. To talk to me, before I release you. I have taken steps to ensure only my most trusted girl knows what you are. She won’t talk. But the others will, if they never see the man who was carried into this house walk out.”
“I could die in my recovery.”
“You could. I don’t intend to contribute.” Her fan whispered through the close air. “When you are healed, I will send you on your way, clothed and presented as just a man. What you do from there is none of my business. I took on unnecessary risk by rescuing you.”