My Once Handsome Husband - Chapter 303

Delaney tossed and turned in her sleep, her body burning up with fever.  She had been moved to the bed with her husband and now they were both unconscious.

Violet Adair went nervously from one side of the bed to the other, removing a cool wet cloth from each of their foreheads and replacing it with another.  She had had Harris get more pain medicine from the witch and now she gave a small dose to each of them every hour or so.  She had no proof they were in pain but she imagined they must be.

Miles still hadn’t returned.  She had written to him of what had happened and had a messenger take it to him.  She knew she had a new grandchild.  Her first.  But she couldn’t think about that now.  Not with the lives of her son and daughter-in-law in such an unstable state.

And not just their lives she reminded herself.  Moving back to Delaney’s side, she pulled the sheets back to expose the woman’s gently curved belly.  Violet rested her hand over her daughter-in-law’s belly and even through the fabric of her nightgown she could feel the much too hot skin beneath.

What she couldn’t feel though was the movement of the baby.

She knew it was too early.  The baby wasn’t big enough to make any movement that would be noticeable.  But as scared as Violet was, she kept coming back and checking anyway, even after the doctor had told her the baby was fine.

Delaney and Vincent had wanted this baby for so long it would kill them if something happened to it.  That was if these horrible fevers didn’t kill them first.

They would be fine, she reminded herself.  The doctor said the three of them would be fine.

Dashing her tears from her eyes, Violet took a seat beside Delaney and gently brushed her hair back from her face.

“You have to get better and wake up now my dear,” she whispered, “Your baby needs you.”

The last thing she checked was the younger woman’s hand.  Lifting it up, she turned it to look at the palm and saw there was still the faintest glow coming from the scar.  It was growing dimmer but it was still there, for now, helping build Delaney’s strength.  Ian was somewhere helping build Delaney’s strength.  First, he had saved her son and now he was helping save her daughter.

Violet had never dreamed she would thank god for a pirate but she was now.

–

Delaney was trapped in her dreams and what horrible dreams they were.  Vincent was with her in this fiery hell.  She was happy to be with him but she would have rather been alone if it would have saved him from the torture they were enduring.

Fire would burn across their skin and they would scream.  They would try to outrun it but there was no escape.  No amount of water they poured on themselves could stop it.  They were at the ocean house and they ran and jumped from the cliff, diving into the ocean, but still, the flames burned.

There was no stopping it.  And she was hot.  So terribly hot.  Her hand burned worst of all.  In her dreams, she would lift her hand to look at it and there would be a fire burning in her palm.

But their skin never actually burned.  Even as the flames flew over it, their skin would stay in perfect shape.  Except for Vincent’s of course.  Even in this nightmare land, his scars were an angry red, causing him just as much pain as the flames.

She couldn’t help him and there was no escape.  There was no relief from the flames for them.  Sometimes Harris, Violet, or Ms. Bird would appear in her nightmares and try to tell her things but she could never quite understand them even though she could hear their voices.  Then they would be gone again as quickly as they had appeared.

After a few days, Delaney was simply so exhausted from tossing and turning in her sleep that her dreams didn’t come back.  At last, she was given a chance at peace.

–

After so long with no change, Violet gave in and decided she needed to go see her new grandchild.  She would be thrilled to see them but she knew she would be worrying for Delaney and Vincent.  She did feel a bit better about their state recently though so she agreed to go after making Harris and Ms. Bird promise they would take turns in with the couple looking after them.  Bernard and Duncan had both left for home as well after being away from their families for so long.

So Delaney and Vincent were left alone.

Harris and Ms. Bird did stay with them as much as they could but they still found there were bits of time where they were both needed elsewhere to do their other work.  They were careful to keep a lookout though for when Violet showed back up, they wanted to be sure one of them was in the room.

Delaney’s bad dreams had slowly eased away.  The feeling of fire burning against her skin had also grown less and less as the days passed until it was nothing more than a feeling of warmth in a few places now.  Her body was slowly recovering with the help of the warm glowing of the scar on her hand.

A little over a week after Delaney had returned to Edgewood, the morning dawned with clear blue skies.  The sun shining in through the windows swept slowly over her face and she frowned in her sleep.

She could hear birds happily singing to one another outside and somewhere in the manor people were laughing.  She breathed in deep the scent of clean linens and woodsmoke.

As the sun grew brighter against her eyes, her frown grew deeper until at last, she rolled onto her side and away from it.  With a little smile, she slid her hand out across the bed, as was her habit, reaching for her husband.  She felt fairly warm in the spring sunlight but there was always something soothing about his extra warm skin.

Reaching farther and farther and still not touching him, her smile dropped away and she slowly opened her eyes, blinking against the light for a moment before she could focus.

He wasn’t there.  He wasn’t in their bed beside her.  He should be there.  Shouldn’t he be there?

Delaney couldn’t quite string together what had happened from the time she’d arrived at Edgewood in the storm until now but she knew it wasn’t good.  Vincent should be here.

Her heart pounded in her chest and she quickly rolled over and sat up.  She looked around the room wildly for a moment until her eyes caught sight of a person standing in front of the tall windows, staring outside.

The man had lovely black hair that brushed his shoulders.  His neck, arms, and back were so well-muscled she involuntarily bit her lip as butterflies fluttered inside her.

She said his name quietly.

And when he turned around to face her, she gasped.