“No,” he said, and she could hear a smile in his voice, “I’ll crush you.” He slid off of her, but he didn’t relinquish their closeness, and she found herself curled next to him like a nested spoon, her back warmed by his skin, her body held snugly in place by his arm under her breasts.

He murmured something against her neck, and she couldn’t really understand the words, but that didn’t matter; she knew what he’d said.

He nodded off soon after, his breath a slow and steady lullaby at her ear. But Francesca did not sleep. She was tired, she was drowsy, and she was sated, but she did not sleep.

It had been different tonight.

And she was left wondering why.

Chapter 23

… I am sure that Michael will be penning a letter as well, but as I count you as a dear, dear friend, I wanted to write to you myself to inform you that we have married. Are you surprised? I must confess that I was.

– -from the Countess of Kilmartin to Helen Stirling, three days after her marriage to the Earl of Kilmartin

“You look terrible.”

Michael turned to Francesca with a somewhat dry expression. “And good morning to you, too,” he remarked, turning his attention back to his eggs and toast.

Francesca slid into place across the breakfast table from him. It was two weeks into their marriage; Michael had risen early that morning, and when she’d awakened, his side of the bed had been cold.

“I’m not joking,” she said, feeling her concern knit her brows into a wrinkled line. “You look quite pasty, and you’re not even sitting up straight. You should go back to bed and get some rest.”

He coughed, then coughed again, the second spasm wracking his body. “I’m fine,” he said, although the words came out rather like a gasp.

“You’re not fine.”

He rolled his eyes. “Married a fortnight, and already-”

“If you didn’t wish for a nagging wife, you shouldn’t have married me,” Francesca said, judging the distance across the table and deciding that she couldn’t reach far enough to touch his forehead to check for fever.

“I’m fine,” he said firmly, and this time he picked up his copy of The London Times-several days old but as current as they could expect in the Scottish border counties- and proceeded to ignore her.

Two could play at that game, Francesca decided, and she devoted her attention to the always challenging task of spreading jam on her muffin.

Except he coughed.

She shifted in her seat, trying not to say anything.

He coughed again, this time turning away from the table so that he could bend over a bit.

“M-”

He gave her a look of such ferocity that she shut her mouth.

She narrowed her eyes.

He inclined his head in an annoyingly condescending manner, then had the effect ruined when his body convulsed with another spasm.

“That’s it,” Francesca announced, rising to her feet. “You are going back to bed. Now.”

“I’m fine,” he grunted.

“You’re not fine.”

“I’m-”

“Sick,” she interrupted. “You’re sick, Michael. Diseased, ill, plague-ridden, you’re sick. As a dog. I don’t see how I could possibly make it any more clear.”

“I haven’t got the plague,” he muttered.

“No,” she said, coming around the table to grasp his arm, “but you do have malaria, and-”

“It’s not malaria,” he said, whacking his chest as he coughed again.

She pulled him to his feet, a task she couldn’t have completed without at least a bit of assistance on his part. “How do you know that?” she asked.

“I just do.”

She pursed her lips. “And you speak with the medical expertise that comes from-”

“Having had the disease for the better part of a year,” he cut in. “It’s not malaria.”

She nudged him toward the door.

“Besides,” he protested, “it’s too soon.”

‘Too soon for what?“

“For another attack,” he explained wearily. “I just had one in London, what was it-two months ago? It’s too soon.”

“Why is it too soon?” she asked, her voice strangely quiet.

“It just is,” he muttered, but inside, he knew a different truth. It wasn’t too soon; he’d known plenty of people who’d had their malarial attacks two months apart.

They’d all been sick. Really sick.

Quite a few of them had died.

If his attacks were coming closer together, did that mean the disease was winning?

Now there was irony for you. He’d finally married Francesca, and now he might be dying.

“It isn’t malaria,” he said again, this time with enough force to make her stop walking and look up at him.

“It isn’t,” he said.

She just nodded.

“It’s probably a cold,” he said.

She nodded again, but he got the distinct impression that she was placating him.

“I’ll take you to bed,” she said softly. And he let her.

Ten hours later, Francesca was terrified. Michael’s fever was rising, and although he was not delirious or incoherent, it was clear that he was very, very ill. He kept saying that it wasn’t malaria, that it didn’t feel like malaria, but every time she pressed him for details, he couldn’t explain why-at least not to her satisfaction.

She didn’t know much about the disease; the fashionable ladies’ bookshops in London declined to carry medical texts. She’d wanted to ask her own doctor, or even seek an expert at the Royal College of Physicians, but she had made a promise to Michael that she would keep his illness a secret. If she ran around town making queries about malaria, eventually someone would want to know why. Thus, most of what she knew she had learned from Michael during the few short months he’d been back from India.