My Once Handsome Husband - Chapter 281

Delaney curled up next to her husband in their bed.  She couldn’t lay against his chest as she normally would have because his skin was just too hot.  So instead, Vincent rolled onto his side so they could face one another.  It reminded Delaney of when her friends had spent the night with her when she was little and they had stayed up telling stories all night.

Now, it was her husband she was telling stories to and he listened with a loving little smile on his lips.  She told him about Honeywell and the bickering between Ms. Bird and the other servants.  He chuckled at that, amused as he imagined it.  She told him about her nights at the club with his younger brother but didn’t mention her sadness.  She was so happy here with him she didn’t want anything to bring it down.

Her sweet, handsome husband kept one warm hand resting on her belly, occasionally getting distracted as he gazed down at it with a look of wonder in his eyes.  It was as if he still couldn’t quite believe it was true.

For the first time in a long time, they were both simply happy.

As badly as Delaney wanted to stay up and continue talking to him and just looking at him there in front of her, she was exhausted from her long trip and he was exhausted from being sick.  After one too many of her yawns, Vincent chuckled and suggested they try to sleep.

“You can spend… all day tomorrow… telling me anything you want,” he assured her with a small smile.

Delaney looked at him there beside her, so tired and weak, and she felt a stab of panic in her heart.  Would he be there tomorrow?

Sensing her thoughts as he watched her face change, his smile slipped away and he reached out to gently brush a hand across her cheek.

“We still have time.”

She stared into his lovely green eyes, feeling tears gathering in her own.  He moved his hand to hold her cheek and she reached up to hold it in place.

“I want to kiss you,” he whispered, “I’ve wanted to kiss you… since the moment I saw you here.”

Delaney giggled and his smile returned with hers.  He used his thumb to brush her tears away, his gaze drifting over her face, taking in every detail.

“You’re so beautiful… Will you kiss me?”

“I will always kiss you,” she whispered with a happy smile before moving to him.

Vincent rolled onto his back and looked up at her.  At that moment, as he looked at her like that, she could see how truly and deeply he loved her.  And she felt beautiful because of it, inside and out.

She closed her eyes and when her lips touched his the feeling made her heart throb and her insides twist into knots yet somehow fill with butterflies too.  Their kiss was gentle at first.  She was afraid to do anything that could cause him more pain than the poison already was.

After a moment though he reached up and took her face in his hands, using all the strength he could manage, to pull her in closer and kiss her deeper.  The kiss became hungry and demanding, both moving to be closer to one another as if they could breathe each other in.

But then it changed.

Delaney felt something different in him and knew it was mirrored in her.  Their kissing was desperate now.  Sweet but sad.  She heard a noise escape him and when she moved away for just a moment to look down at him she saw there were tears on his long black lashes.

Vincent turned away from her, not opening his eyes.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Shh,” she shook her head, “No love, please.  Please don’t say that.”

“But I am… I’m sorry for… all the pain I put you through… sending you away… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you…”

“It’s alright,” she spoke with her voice hoarse, “It’s alright I promise.  I know why you did it.  You were just trying to protect me.”

“I should have told you,” his voice was higher and his breaths were shorter, “You were right… Maybe we could have… found… found something to help.”

“Oh, my love you don’t know that,” was all she could say.  She felt her heart breaking as she watched him.  She took his warm face in her hands as gently as she could and turned it back to her, resting her forehead lightly against his.

“I’m not ready to… to lose you yet,” he whispered, “I’m not… ready to leave you or… or the baby.  I want to see my baby, Delaney.”

“I know,” she whispered, crying with him and aching to hug him but knowing it would only cause him more pain.

“I want to… be with you when he’s born… I want to… see you with him…  I want to hold him in my arms…”

Delaney kissed his lips as he spoke, wishing he would stop because these horrible truths were breaking her.

“It’s not fair,” he said quietly at last as he began to slow his tears.

“I know, my love.”

–

A while later they were both quiet and calm again.  Vincent was dozing off, his wife’s hand in his.  Delaney could see by the way he moved and the sweat returning, that his medicine was starting to wear off.  She hoped he would be comfortably asleep before it got much worse.

Time ticked away and it wasn’t long until he was sleeping, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.  This was the hardest thing she had ever done or would do.  Watching the man she loved slowly and painfully die.  It felt like a hot dagger in her heart.

They didn’t know how much longer he had with her.  She didn’t want to waste a moment of it away from him.  They could talk about everything.  He could pick a name for the baby, both a boy’s name and a girl’s.  He could tell her all the important words of advice he wanted his children to have.

She pushed these thoughts from her mind.  She couldn’t think like that.  She couldn’t even imagine doing something like that.  She would never be able to sit happily while they made up plans for after he was dead.

It hurt her heart to do so but she couldn’t help but wonder, if Vincent had told her about this earlier would things have been different?  If he had told her the dragon’s poison was killing him would they have been able to find a cure?  Or at least something to give him more time?  They had met with witches, pirates, fairies, and all kinds of people.  If they hadn’t given up looking, would they have been able to save him?

She bit her lip and closed her eyes, fighting to keep herself from crying again.  She couldn’t cry again.

Nell and the fairies.  She knew they couldn’t help him or she was sure they would have done so already.  The princess loved her husband and had since he was a boy.  She wouldn’t let him die if there was any way she could stop it.

Thinking back over things the fairy had said, she had no doubt now that Nell had known all along that Vincent would die from the poison.  She had just left it up to him to tell his wife and he hadn’t.  That was what she had been annoyed about when Delaney had seen her last.

There were stories of unicorns having magic but from what was known, it seemed to only come from their horns and only if they had been removed.  She would never hurt Mabon and Vincent wouldn’t ever want anything to happen to the ancient unicorn.  So he couldn’t help them.

The pirates had their doctors and also their treasures from across the oceans.  She wondered if anything that could be found on the Estate of Captain Black could be used to cure her husband.  If there was something she wondered if he would even give it to her.

Something dawned on her then.  She remembered a bit of a conversation that had never been important before but now suddenly was.

The day by the lake when they had first met Opal she brought up the witches Daniel kept in the castle.  At the time, Delaney had been too shocked to learn they existed to pay much attention to how her husband said he had come to know of them.

The King had offered to send the witches to the hospital to try to help her husband but he had said no.  She knew Vincent didn’t like getting involved with witches at all at that time so she wasn’t surprised he had turned them down.

Then when they were in the castle and the witches used their magic to save Ian he still didn’t warm to them because he had learned a witch had been poisoning his wife and nearly killed him.

He trusted Opal though and he trusted the medicines she made for him.  He wouldn’t have ever dreamed to ask her though if her magic could help him where her medicines could not.

Delaney realized then that he never would have asked a witch for help at all.

She decided then that the next night when Harris went to meet with the witch, she would go with him.  Her husband may be uncomfortable asking witches for help but she was not.

Medicine had failed him.  Now it was time to try magic.