Patrick sat by Linley’s bedside. He watched her, even though she had not stirred in over an hour. She had not awakened since she lost consciousness earlier that afternoon. He counted her slow, rhythmic breathing. Linley’s chest rose beneath the covers, and then fell. Rose and fell. Rose and fell.
He told himself breathing was a good sign. The best sign. Thank God Linley was breathing because the rest of her looked dead. She was chalk white and her skin slick with sweat. Sometimes a droplet of blood bubbled in one of her nostrils, and he dabbed it with a wet cloth.
Patrick rested his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands. Seeing her like this tortured him. It reminded him of the way Johnnie had looked when they fished him from the river. He did not want to remember his brother that way, and he did not want to remember Linley that way, either.
Dead.
Her father assured all of them that it was just a fever. A nervous fever, but one Linley could recover from. Patrick prayed it was, and that he was just having another one of those overly cautious spells she liked to tease him about.
Please God, let her wake up and tease him.
But she did not awaken. Linley lay stretched out on her cot just as Reginald and Archie had left her. She still breathed, slow and steady. Patrick watched her chest rise and fall to be certain. He hoped she was not having any nightmares about people taking her brain. To see her in such a panic over something so absurd frightened him.
The whole ordeal frightened him, and Patrick could not help but play the scenario back in his mind, starting with the night they made love. He prayed Reginald was not right, and somehow this was not all his fault. If something happened to her because of him, Patrick would never forgive himself.
***
Sir Bedford Talbot-Martin still refused to believe his daughter was in danger. Patrick begged him to ask the monks for help, but each day the old man told him to wait.
“If she does not get better,” he would say, dismissing Patrick altogether.
Although his money was welcome, clearly he was not. Patrick gave up trying. He spent his mornings in meditation, afternoons with the lama, and his evenings in Linley’s room.
One afternoon, he sat with the lama, as usual. They talked of many things, but Patrick really wanted to bring up the issue of Linley. Of course, the lama knew she was ill. Even though the monks could have nothing to do with her, they all noticed her absence. A white woman was, after all, a very rare sight.
“You are troubled,” the lama said. “Your mind not clear.”
“No...” He hesitated to go any further. But he wanted to talk about Linley, and now this was his chance. “My friend is very ill. I worry for her.”
The lama nodded. He said nothing for a long time. He simply nodded at Patrick.
This forced him to elaborate. “She has a high fever. I wondered if there was anything you could do to help her.”
“Sometimes illness necessary,” the lama explained. “Without suffering, how will we know what truly important in life?
“But she could die.”
“Yes. I understand.”
Patrick bristled. “What happened to having compassion? What about not harming any living thing? How am I supposed to believe anything you say when you sit there and show no concern for someone who may be dying?”
The lama grinned at Patrick. “It is good that you question. Question everything. Question yourself.” He wagged a skinny brown finger at his pupil. “Even question Buddha.”
“In my religion, we do not question God. We are taught to have faith and to trust in his will.”
“If your God willed your friend die, would you still believe?”
Patrick thought back to his mother, his brother, and his father. Were their deaths God’s will? Was it in his plan for Patrick to suffer loss after loss? One tragedy after another? To have the only people who mattered snatched away just when he needed them the most?
No. He could not lose Linley.
He would not.
***
Later that evening, Patrick took over watch duty from Linley’s father. He pushed the curtain aside to step into the room, but realized it was already rather crowded. Sir Bedford, Archie, Reginald, and Schoville stood at Linley’s bedside whispering among themselves.
Patrick cleared his throat. “Have I missed something?”
The four men stepped away from each other like naughty schoolchildren, pretending they had not been talking about Lord Kyre behind his back.
Immediately, Patrick knew something was amiss. “How is our Linley today?” he asked them, trying to seem as oblivious as possible to their plotting.
But he did not have to ask. He could see for himself that she was worse. Her body barely made a dent in the mattress she was so thin. Her eyes and cheeks lay sunken into her face, making her look more like a corpse than a girl. Linley was naturally such a thin person—how much more weight could she lose?