Using the arm of the sofa for support, he struggled to his feet. Walking had become hazardous. He’d stumbled and bruised his shoulder the other day—the perils of being a sot. A sot, a lush, a man who drowned his troubles in his cup—or tried damn hard, at least.
He usually had ten or fifteen bottles stocked in the cupboard next to his room. The cupboard was empty. He swore. Now he had to take himself all the way outside.
He lurched and staggered to the shed behind the cabin. He wouldn’t have kept the whisky so far away, but one night, as he smashed things in his room, he’d damaged several unopened bottles. The next day he’d moved the whisky for its own protection.
The crates were neatly stacked in the shed, the bottles dully glistening. His heart trilled with relief. He grabbed one bottle by the neck and yanked it toward his parched lips. Something was wrong—it was too light. The bottle was empty. He threw it aside and pulled up another bottle. Again, empty.
Empty. Empty. Empty.
I disposed of the whisky.
She’d been thorough.
He kicked the stack of crates and almost lost his balance completely, banging heavily into the wall of the shed.
“Are you all right?” said her bloodless voice somewhere behind him.
Was he all right? Could she not see with her own eyes that he’d never be all right again?
He tottered out of the shed. “I’m going to the village.”
He was going to have his drink if it killed him.
“It’s going to be completely dark in half an hour. And you have no idea where the village is.”
He hated her reasonableness, her do-good ways, and her stupid assumption that she was helping him.
“I can’t stop you from leaving tomorrow. And I most certainly can’t stop you from falling on the next delivery of liquor. But for tonight I strongly advise that you stay put.”
He swore. Turning—his heart thumping unpleasantly—he went back into the shed and pulled out an empty bottle, hoping that there might be a drop or two at the bottom. But the only thing left was the sweet, alcoholic fume.
Her voice came again, flat, inexorable. “I know the sky has fallen for you, my lord. But life goes on and so must you.”
He threw the bottle against the back of the shed. It didn’t break, but only thudded against the wall and fell with a plop onto a mound of burlap sacks. He stormed out to face her.
“What the hell do you know about the sky falling? This is the life for which you’ve been preparing for years.”
She raised her eyes to him. It was stunning, the intensity of her gaze set against her practically nondescript face.
“Do you think you are the only one who has lost someone you love because of this marriage?”
She did not bother to explain her cryptic statement, but pivoted on her heels and returned to the cabin.
It seemed all right at first, no worse than the bad heads he’d become accustomed to when he woke up. But as the evening ground on, his headache turned ugly, doubling, then doubling again in viciousness. His hands trembled. Perspiration soaked his nightshirt. Waves after waves of nausea twisted his innards.
He’d never ailed so badly. For the first time in his life, pure physical misery drove everything else from his thoughts—except the lovely amber-hued nectar for which he yearned so desperately. He prayed to be given a glass of it, an inch, a sip. It didn’t need to be top quality whisky: brandy would do, as would rum, vodka, absinthe, or even a dram of common gin, the kind adulterated with turpentine for flavor.
Not a drop of distilled spirit sallied forth to his aid. But from time to time he’d vaguely realize that he was not alone. Someone gave him water to drink, wiped away the beads of sweat from his face, and might have even spread open clean sheets beneath him.
At some point he fell into a trouble sleep, his dreams full of thrashing monsters and forced good-byes. Several times he jerked awake, his heart pounding, convinced he’d just fallen from a great height. Each time there would come soothing murmurs at his ear, lulling him back to sleep.
He opened his eyes again to a dim room, feeling as if he’d just recovered from a raging fever: His tongue was bitter, his muscles feeble, and his head annihilated. Sheets had been tacked to the window, making it difficult to judge the time of day. A kerosene lamp cast a dark orange glow on the walls. And was that—he blinked his sore, crusted eyes—a large bouquet of daisies in an earthenware pitcher? Yes, it was, small daisies, with crisp white petals and yellow centers as vivid as the sun.
Behind the daisies dozed his wife on a footstool, her sandy hair in a simple braid that hung over her shoulder.
Pushing himself up to a sitting position, he saw that next to his pallet on the floor was a tray with a fat-bellied teapot, slices of buttered toast, a bowl of grapes, and two boiled eggs, already peeled, covered under a pristine, white handkerchief.
“I’m afraid the tea is quite cold,” came her voice as he reached for the teapot.
The tea was quite cold. But he was so thirsty it barely mattered. And he was hungry enough that his queasiness didn’t prevent him from eating everything in sight.
“How did you manage to make tea?” A lady might pour tea in her drawing room for her callers, but she never boiled the water herself. And certainly she would not know how to build a fire for her kettle.
“There is a spirit lamp and I’ve learned to use it.” She came forward, lifted the empty tray from his lap, and looked at him a moment, as if he were a shipwrecked stranger who’d washed up before her. “I’ll let you rest.”
She was on her way out when he remembered to ask, “What are the daisies doing here?”
“The chamomiles?” She glanced back at the riotous bunch. “I’ve heard chamomile tea helps one fall asleep. I’ve no idea how to make chamomile tea, so I hope you like looking at them.”
The chamomiles were so bright they hurt his eyes. “I can’t say I do, but thank you.”
She nodded and left him alone.
Night was falling—without quite knowing it, Fitz had slept most of the day away. It was too late to set out, find the village, and secure himself a new supply of whisky. But even if he had plenty of daylight left, he was still far too depleted to make the trip on foot.
Although, had he known that his second night would be as wretched as the night before, he might have made an attempt. The headaches roared back; tremors, palpitations, and roiling nausea, too, returned en masse. An eternity passed before exhaustion overtook him. He slept, holding on to someone’s hand.
His third night was far better, his slumber deep and dreamless. And when he awakened, more or less clearheaded, it was morning, not afternoon or evening as it had been lately.
The sheet still blocked the window. With one hand shielding his eyes, he yanked it off and let light stream into the room. What the sun illuminated was not pretty. All the walls were splattered with gouge marks, some large, some larger, as if a rabid beast with spikes and yard-long tusks had been penned in, desperate to get out. He rubbed his fingers against some of the rougher gouge marks, vaguely surprised that he’d been capable of such violence.
The chamomiles, droopy but no less cheerful, were still there; his wife was not. She had, however, left behind another pot of tea that had gone cold. Since he was well enough to move about on his own, he went out of his self-made prison cell to look for the spirit lamp that she’d mentioned.
He found it, but it had run out of the methylated spirits used as fuel. So he started a fire in the grate, pumped water into the kettle from the pump outside, and put it to boil—the first thing a junior boy learned at Eton was how to make tea, scramble eggs, and fry sausages for his seniors. While the water heated, he set chunks of bread on a toasting fork.