Angelica heard his boot heels rake the carpet, and the sofa creak and groan as his body contorted. She clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. His pain was an almost physical thing, heavy and sour in the air. She wanted to run from it.
He would probably die from whatever ailed him. If he died here, she would never get him out of the house. His corpse would pollute her home. The flies would come, just like when the food had first spoiled in the kitchens. He would rot and reek, and the smell would draw animals from the wood. It might even make her ill, too. His death would surely drive her from the only place she called home.
This wasn’t like the urgent, moaning couples who’d entered her house before. They’d wanted nothing more than to please themselves. She could afford to ignore them as they copulated in her mother’s drawing room, or mussed the sheets of her own bed upstairs. Those couples would leave once they were sated. This man, however, needed refuge. He needed what little help she could give. If he died here, he would never, ever leave this place.
Angelica knew she should let him suffer in peace. It was the only way to save herself. But she’d been alone for so long. She knew how it felt to be afraid, with no one to turn to for comfort. At the very least, she should offer him food and water. It would be the Christian thing to do.
CHAPTER FOUR
Brody’s gut cramped, and his body convulsed, spewing vomit down his coat front. It dripped off him and splattered onto the carpet at his feet. He’d been sick so much that it had started to puddle.
He was dying, surely. If he wasn’t, he wished he were. Death would be easy compared to this. Hellfire and eternal damnation would be a kindness. He did not want to suffer anymore. He’d left his service revolver in the car, or else he would’ve ended it all in this forgotten place.
Anything to keep the morphine sickness at bay.
Countless times, Brody had begged for death, only to reach for the syringe when survival loomed eminent. He didn’t like living, but, if truth be told, he was too much of a coward to pull the trigger. Keeping himself doped was the blessed in-between—not quite life, but not death, either. A way to pass the time until nature took its course.
Groaning, he angled himself onto his side, so he could be sick directly onto the floor. He was sorry to ruin such a costly carpet, but the vomit was starting to seep through his tweeds. From the state of the house, Brody doubted anyone would miss the thing, and if they could afford to abandon it, then they could surely afford to replace it. Tonight, he needed his clothes more than anybody needed a dust-caked Turkey carpet.
Though the storm raged outside, the house was surprisingly sound. It was a solid, sturdy place, despite the neglect. Once or twice, he thought he heard mice scraping in the walls, but most of these old country manors were home to far more than human inhabitants. The mice probably shared their space with bats, spiders, and all sorts of creepy-crawlies.
Ever since the trenches, he feared rats gnawing at his fingers and toes. He knew how quickly those insidious rodents could render a corpse unrecognizable. If he died here tonight, he’d really rather not be found half-eaten and peppered with their feces.
A creak of wood paneling just over his shoulder brought his mind back into focus. Another creak. For a moment, he swore the panel shifted. Surely, his senses were playing tricks on him. Rats could not move walls.
More creaking. This time, however, he knew the panel had shifted. He watched it move.
Brody slung the vomit-filled vase at that portion of the room. It shattered on impact, coating the wall with his sick. There was a squeak—a wounded rat, no doubt—but then, silence.
“Get out of here, damn you!” he shouted at the offending rodent. “Stay away from me!”
When the rat answered back, Brody knew the morphine sickness had finally taken hold.
“I’m sorry. I’ve only come to bring you water. And…and some fruit.”
A girl rat. The voice was scratchy and unsteady, but, then again, he doubted very much that rats spoke human English regularly. It would be as foreign to them as it now sounded to his ears.
“Vile rodent! You’ll not chew my fingertips!” He reached for something else to throw, but there was only the bundle of dead flowers, which had already begun to crumble.
The shadows stirred just over his shoulder. “I’m not here to chew your fingertips.”
“Then what the devil do you want from me?”
A pale hand reached out from the darkness, clutching a red apple. “Here, take this.”
Brody took it. The thing was poisoned, no doubt. He’d heard the tales as a child. Creatures from the shadows did not typically offer apples to strangers that were not deadly. But, he reckoned, at least he’d be dead by morning.
He bit into it, letting the juices quench his sandpaper throat. It was good and ripe. Death would be sweet, indeed.