Jane stopped him as he pulled back. “How long was I unconscious?”
“Nearly fourteen hours. You opened your eyes twice tonight, but did not seem aware—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “You did not seem to be aware of your surroundings. Thank God you insisted that Dr. Jones come, or—well, she has been good enough to stay. I have been … worried.”
Without the cravat, and with his shirt open, the frantic beat of Vincent’s pulse was obvious. The layers of gentlemen’s clothing usually served to hide all but the deepest of emotion, but without that disguise of fashion, his struggle lay clear with each uneven breath. Worried. He worried when the baby kicked. She could not imagine the blow to his sensibilities that the past days must have dealt him, and she knew that he would try to shoulder the burden alone.
“This was not your fault.”
He closed his eyes, stopped breathing, not even the protest of air escaping. Only that vein in his throat beat on. Vincent turned from her, squeezing her hand as he stood. He wiped a hand down his face and rolled his shoulders. “You asked for glamour. Have you any requests?”
“Vincent…”
“I should probably mention that Dover in the coldbox can hear us. His son is waiting as an errand boy in case either of us needs to call for anything.” He walked to the foot of the bed. When he turned to face her, his composure was once again restored. “We are not in view, though.”
“Thank you for explaining. I hope that, later, such a measure will prove unnecessary.”
“As do I.” He reached into the ether and pulled out a fold of glamour that he fanned into a rainbow. “Until then, what shall I perform for you?”
“Artist’s choice. I am too tired to make a decision.”
He nodded, rolling the folds between his hands. The furrow reappeared between his brows as he stared deep into the ether. She had expected him to work the rainbow into the foundation of one of his abstracted clouds, but he let it dissolve and turned to the nearest bedpost. Dipping his fingers into the ether, he pulled out strands of brown and wrapped them around the wood so it began to appear to sprout branches. He worked steadily, with a delicate precision that was at odds with his person. One expected a man with his height and build to be rough or coarse in movement. The grace of his hands as they twisted and shaped skeins of glamour into the first blush of a glamural made Jane’s breath catch in her throat with a sudden yearning.
He twisted the vine up the bedpost till his head was tilted up, revealing the strong column of his neck. In spite of the coldmonger chilling the room, the effort of governing the folds soon raised sweat upon Vincent’s brow. The familiar wonder of watching her husband work warmed Jane into a sense of security.
As she drifted, her vision fogged till the lines and threads that made up his work stood out in a web that glowed in her second sight. Some part of Jane noted that she was watching the ether, but she was too tired to remember why she should not, and then she was asleep.
*
When Jane woke next, Vincent lay curled beside her with one hand resting on her shoulder. The warm weight comforted her. His face had slackened, making it more apparent how strained his waking hours had been. Midmorning light filtered through the mosquito curtains and softened his face further. He snored, though to describe the small wheeze as a snore was perhaps unfair. In spite of his broad chest, Vincent’s snore bore more resemblance to that of a kitten. He wore the same shirt he had last night, and Jane rather suspected that he had worked until he was dizzy.
Her guess was further supported by the glamural that shrouded their bed. Passionflower vines wrapped the bedposts, bobbing in an imaginary breeze. He had added a faint trace of their honeyed scent, but not so much as to be cloying. Knowing his work, this was far from finished. The vines on the headboard had only been roughed in, with simple brown threads to indicate where they would be. At the foot of the bed, he had gone farther with the detail so that delicate purple blossoms fluttered on their stems.
Shortly after they had first met, Vincent had given her his drawing book, which was filled with his thoughts on the nature of art and glamour in particular. In it, he had described the idea of putting one’s passions into art. Tension might become the tight cling of a vine to a post. The tremble of a hand might make its way into the movement of flowers on their stems. The desire to hide could translate into a bower woven of sweet, aromatic vines whose flowers faced the sun.
Vincent had put himself into the glamural, and that familiar act comforted Jane more than the art itself.