Lady in Rags

Chapter Forty-Six: The Sleeper Wakes

A/N: I went through and edited the entire story a few days ago, fixing some plot inconsistencies. Two important ones:

Lord Armiger, Neil's father, is now given a more realistic title, XXX Armiger, Lord Albroke, and referred to as Lord Albroke.

Richard now has the title Richard Armiger, Lord Landon, but he'll be called Richard from now on anyway.

Neil was a youngest son and youngest sons, thankfully, don't get titles, so his name is unchanged.

~~~~~

"Wake up – Wake up, Neil. He's bleeding so much."

"Head wounds always bleed. He's waking. Here."

Neil opened his eyes. Mrs Roper was kneeling over him. Richard was standing behind her, cheek red and swollen, hair on end.

"Can you hear us?"

"Mmph." It took him a moment to remember how to speak. "Yes." Words returned to him, in chaotic, unutterable fragments. "Giulia died – I remember how she died. If you'd met her..." He struggled to sit up, his head swimming. "How long have I been down?"

"Not even half a minute." Mrs Roper pressed the bloody towel to his head. "We're going to send you to bed."

"That would be nice." His head ached, but the world felt clearer, emptier somehow. "Did he hurt you, Richard?"

"Not much." Richard passed a hand gingerly over his cheek. "He only hit me once."

From down the hallway, there came the faint sound of a baby crying.

"She's a loud one," Mrs Roper said. "You can see her later. I'll bring her in to you. Can you stand? Come on."

Somehow, she got him to his feet. She helped him to his room, where he fell thankfully upon the bed. The old nurse appeared. His head was washed and dressed, and he leaned hazily against the piled pillows and let it ache. Richard restored order to his collar and hair in the mirror, and sat down in the chair next to the bed.

"You have a daughter." He smiled a little. "I have a niece."

"I know." Neil fell back on the pillows and shut his eyes. "You had a nephew. He died. Did you know?"

For a moment, nothing. Then, softly, "Yes. I didn't want to shock you. It seemed that you had forgotten he ever existed."

"I did. And just now, I remembered," Neil said wonderingly. "I knew he was going. We all had the fever. I could not bear it, to watch him suffer, day after day. She would sing this lullaby. Italian. I loved that little boy, and when he was dying, I loved him just a little less, every day. I'm a coward, like that. But I didn't even think to fear that she would die, until she was, and by then it was too late. I felt it completely. It broke me."

"You remembered all that?"

"Unless I dreamed it." He shook his head, and winced. "I didn't. It is true."

"I'm sorry."

Neil lay on the bed, staring into space and thinking. He was relieved by one thing: Verity had never been his mistress, but his wife, and that was when he had got her with child. He had no reason to doubt Richard and Jane's tale there. But the memory – that awful memory that had returned to him, of how he had tried to buy her, and how she had accepted - followed swiftly on the heels of his relief.

She could have told me about it, he thought savagely. She should have. I thought I had loved her. And he decided to demand the truth from her – all of it, from the beginning. Including, he thought with revulsion, if he really had ever kissed Jane, if there had been any nascent affair between them.