“Alive, when I left her this morning.”
Schoville frowned. “You shouldn’t have left her alone. She is weak and vulnerable. Every moment spent looking for me…
It was Patrick’s turn to frown. “I couldn’t leave you behind. Not without at least looking for you first.”
“I would not have looked for you.”
Schoville struggled to his feet. For the first time, Patrick noticed what a sorry state the man was in—his clothes were torn and bloodied, his arms and hands bruised, and his hair caked with river mud. He looked pale. He looked weak.
“You look a fright, man,” Patrick said, standing. “Are you well enough to walk?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because it matters to me that we both make it out of here alive.”
“To please your conscience?”
Patrick shook his head. “No.”
“Why then?”
“Because, despite how you treat me, I still believe you’re different than Archie and the others,” he said. “I believe you are a good man and a good friend to Linley. And when this is all over, Linley will need every friend she has.”
***
“We lost all our food, but we still have the water,” Patrick said, showing Schoville the makeshift camp he’d set up overnight. “I’ll get Linley dressed and you can have the tent,” he said, bending down and picking Linley up, blanket and all.
While Schoville cleaned himself up and tended to his wounds, Patrick sat cross-legged on the ground by the fire, holding Linley upright in his lap, her head resting against his shoulder. He would dress her later. For the time being, he wanted to sit and reflect on the situation.
“I’m sure you’re glad to have Schoville back,” Patrick whispered to Linley. “I must admit, I was a little worried what might happen to us without him. But now we are back to three. And three can manage just fine.”
He smoothed her hair back from her face and kissed her temple. Her eyes were open that day, and even though she never responded, Patrick liked to think she could still see and hear him. For good measure, he hummed a few bars of Steamboat Bill, just for her.
As content as Patrick was to hold her in his arms all day, the fact of the matter was that Linley needed to be washed and dressed. So he maneuvered as best he could with her still on his lap to pour a little of their drinking water into the small enamelware bowl they used for cooking. After placing the bowl of water near the fire to warm, Patrick dug through Linley’s bag for the bar of strong soap and flannel he knew she kept there.
He tested the water with his fingers, and finding it warm enough, dipped the cloth all the way in. Once the flannel was wet and soapy, Patrick gently folded back the rough blanket covering Linley’s body. It was then that he first saw her—really saw her—naked in full daylight.
Patrick studied her, not with the lusty eyes of a lover, but with something more akin to pride. He ran the warm cloth over her body, marveling at the soft taper of her long, slender arms. The webbing of blue veins across each little breast. The ridges and hollows of her ribcage. And, finally, the ten pink toes, each with their own little nail, making up the tips of her feet.
He felt as if, in some small way, he was responsible for the young woman she had become. That he had somehow shaped each individual piece of her.
Those lips were made to meet his. Her ears were made to hear him. Her eyes to see him. Her hands to touch him.
He felt they had once been two halves of a perfect whole, pulled apart and set aside, only to reunite as man and woman on this imperfect Earth.
Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
And once brought together again, they could no longer survive separately.
“I should like you to come stay at Wolford Abbey,” he said to her. “Only for a little while, until you regain your strength.” He dumped out the bowl of dirty water and placed her soap and flannel back in her leather pack. “I know I told you about the library and the chapel, but you still haven’t heard about the gardens or the tennis court…”
Patrick trailed off as Schoville emerged from the tent.
“We’d better get going,” Schoville said, stretching and twisting his battered body. “No sense in wasting the entire day loafing around.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a few hours of sleep?”
He shook his head. “I’m halfway to pneumonia by now, at any rate.”
“All the more reason to rest,” Patrick said. “Regain your strength.”
“I’d rather keep moving, if it’s all the same to you. We aren’t doing Linley any favors sitting in one spot.”