A Defiant Liaison

XXVIII

"I am a person who is unhappy with things as they stand. We cannot accept the world as it is. Each day we should wake up foaming at the mouth because of the injustice of things." Hugo Claus

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XXVIII.

Belle was ill. She was desperately ill. Peter cupped her face in his hands and felt the beads of sweat beneath his palms. Belle's eyes were closed as she shivered. He could hear the chattering of her teeth.

"You didn't know she was ill?" accused Adam. "How could she be left in such a state?"

"She needs a doctor!" Peter cried. "Immediately!"

"She was fine this morning when breakfast was delivered," replied Mr Ennis, anguish in his voice at the clear panic and anger of the men in the cell.

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter spied a rather filthy looking tray with a bowl of grey broth and a piece of bread left virtually untouched. He rather doubted that Belle had been properly checked on that morning.

Peter could not believe that after all their searching, he finally had Belle back within his grasp, only for fate to be so cruel to her once more.

"The only doctor for twenty miles won't see her!" Mr Ennis stressed. "He doesn't treat people like her." His eyes almost fearfully flicked to Alex. "Like them."

Peter looked back down at Belle, shivering and small as she was, and his heart tore in two. She was innocent but broken, cruelly mistreated and undeservedly so. Her only crime, in the eyes of the sinful, being that her skin was a beautiful, cool brown. How could people not see it as beautiful? How could a doctor refuse to treat an innocent woman because of her skin?

"I am certain I could persuade him," Alex seethed through clenched teeth.

Adam placed a hand on Alex's forearm to calm him. "I will double his fee," he told Mr Ennis. "I will triple it. I am a member of the bloody House of Lords. I will command him to treat her if I have to."

Mr Ennis finally relented, passing on the address of the doctor to Adam, before he and Alex departed directly. Peter refused to leave Belle's side, and so Mr Ennis locked him in the cell with her. Did he really believe that Belle was in a state to get up and run away? Though Peter couldn't deny that the temptation to carry her out of there would have been great had the cell been left unlocked.

"You have to be alright," Peter whispered to her. He rested the back of his hand against her forehead, still feeling the searing heat of her fever. "You have so much left to do." Peter removed his hand and rested it against her voluminous dark curls. "We have so much left to do together if you'll let me."

Belle whimpered, though her eyes were still closed.

"Hear my voice," he whispered. "Stay close to me."

Belle was perhaps the smallest woman he had ever encountered. Peter wondered if her life before coming to England had contributed to her small stature. His mother had always scolded him as a child if he did not finish all of his vegetables, warning him that leaving them on the plate would stunt his growth. He had always thought her joking, but was there some truth to it? Belle had no doubt known the pain of hunger, in and amongst the pain of her enslaved existence. And yet despite this, despite her tiny stature, she had found it in her to fight off the evil, black-hearted swine once and for all.

Lord, he was so proud of her. Peter bowed his head, gently resting his forehead on her belly. He was so, so proud of her. Such strength, such spirit and fight deserved reward. She deserved the life that she wanted. She did not deserve to die in a gaol cell.