The Marriage Bargain by Diane Perkins

door.
    “Enter,” he responded, forcing some volume into his voice.
    He hoped it was that footman Tolley. If it was Blake or Wolfe, they’d give him a scold for getting out of bed.
    She
walked in.
    He almost let go of the bedpost.
    He’d begun to think she would never return to his room.
    She rushed over to him. “What are you doing out of bed!”
    He tried to smile but feared it came out more like a wince. “I meant to test my legs. They do not wish to hold me, it seems.”
    “Foolhardy.” She lent him her shoulder and let him lean his considerable bulk on her as she assisted him back into the bed.
    “You are not so recovered as that,” she scolded.
    He examined her close up as she plumped the pillows and straightened the bedcovers. At seventeen she had been like a rosebud that one could not imagine becoming more beautiful as it flowered. His uncle had not been able to keep his hands off her, and Spence could not bear him to pluck that perfect bud, crushing it with his ardor.
    “Emma?” he whispered.
    She stepped back. “Yes, I am Emma, my lord.”
    His gaze flicked over her again, taking in the elegant tilt of her head, the lushness of her figure, the confident stance. This was not the delicate rosebud he’d left here at Kellworth.
    She stiffened. “Am I so altered? Or have you merely forgotten your wife’s appearance?”
    He wrinkled his brow. He’d offended her, of course. “You are altered, Emma.”
    She wrapped her arms around her chest, and a bit of the vulnerable young girl he married showed in the gesture. “Well, that may be,” she murmured.
    They stared at each other. He did not know what to say to her. “You tended me. I thank you.”
    She shrugged. “I saw you through the fever. A wife’s duty, that is all.”
    Her chill rose like a barrier between them. “I am afraid I have caused you much trouble,” he said uncertainly. “I do not know why Blake and Wolfe brought me here when London would have been closer.”
    Her eyes flashed. “They did not explain?”
    He strained to sit up straighter, but a sharp pain shot through his shoulder. She stepped forward, reluctantly it seemed, and repositioned the pillows behind him.
    “I have a bottle of laudanum from Mr. Price. Shall I pour you a dose?” She took the bottle from a small pocket in her dress.
    “No laudanum,” he managed.
    The wounded who survived best on the Peninsula, Spence had observed, were the ones who forced themselves to keep moving, never giving in to the pain. That was why he’d tried to get on his feet, why he would not cloud his mind with laudanum. He wanted to regain his strength.
    She shrugged and placed the bottle on the table next to his bed. “As you wish.”
    He peered into her eyes. “Do you know why I was brought here?”
    She did not answer right away. Finally her chin set in determination. “You were shot in a duel and pronounced dead. Your friends brought you here for burial.”
    “Dead?” He lurched forward, but the pain accosted him again. “Dead?”
    “Yes.” Her tone was stiff.
    He closed his eyes as the pain hit him again, and brought back the memory of relentless darkness. His breath became more rapid and he broke out into a panicked sweat.
    A cool hand touched his brow. Her scent, like a spring garden, filled his nostrils. He opened his eyes, and she leaned over him, looking distressed. “I have made you ill.” She bit her full pink lip. “I ought not to have told you.”
    She lifted her hand and stared at it as if its action had surprised her. In his fevered state her hands had stroked him like that, comforted him, made him feel safe from the darkness.
    He tried to give her a smile. “Forgive me. It was a momentary weakness.”
    She stepped back again. “It was entirely my doing. I will not plague you with more conversation.”
    She spun around and headed toward the door.
    “Wait!”
    She halted but turned only her head.
    “Stay with me a bit.” He tried not to sound too desperate, but