Chapter 5: The Spoiled Invalid
The sickroom smelled of blood and laudanum and something else—something sharp and green that clung to the back of the throat like a half-remembered dream. Jennie had cracked the window an hour ago, hoping to chase away the cloying weight of the air, but the summer breeze had only succeeded in stirring the velvet drapes into a slow, hypnotic dance. The candles had burned down to stubs, their wax pooling like frozen tears on the silver holders.
Leonid had been awake for exactly three hours and seventeen minutes.
In that time, he had demanded tea (rejected it), demanded cigars (denied them), demanded his valet (dismissed him), demanded fresh pillows (fluffed them), and now, most recently, demanded a pianist.
"A what?" The footman, a young man named Thomas whose face had gone the color of curdled milk, stood frozen in the doorway. "My lord, I don't think—"
"Am I speaking a foreign language?" Leonid's voice was hoarse but commanding, carrying the sharp edge of aristocratic privilege that came as naturally to him as breathing. "I require a pianist. Someone who can play. There's a piano in the corner, you see it, yes? The very large instrument with the yellowed keys?"
Thomas's mouth opened and closed like a landed fish. "But—my lord—Lady Manoban has given strict instructions that you're to rest—"
"I'll rest when I'm dead." Leonid shifted against the pillows, wincing as the movement jarred his bandaged shoulder. His leg, splinted and elevated, lay motionless beneath the sheets. "Now fetch me a pianist, or I'll crawl down the stairs and play the damn thing myself."
Thomas fled.
Jessie, who had been sitting in the window seat with her legs tucked beneath her, watched the door swing shut and then turned to face the invalid with an expression caught somewhere between exasperation and genuine concern. "You're insufferable."
"I'm bored." He emphasized the word as if it were a curse. "There's a difference."
"You're also injured. Weeks of recovery, the physician said. You should be resting, not terrorizing the staff."
Leonid let his head fall back against the pillows, his dark curls fanning out against the white linen in a way that should have been ridiculous but was instead unfairly beautiful. "The physician is a quack. I've had worse falls hunting. I'll be fine."
"Your leg is splinted."
"A formality."
"You were bleeding through your shirt."
"Fashionable."
Jennie shook her head, but a laugh escaped her despite herself. She crossed the room to the bed, her lavender gown rustling softly, and settled into the chair she'd pulled up beside the mattress. The fabric was still stained with dirt and grass from the racecourse, a permanent reminder of the chaos of the afternoon.
"You know," she said, "most people, after nearly dying, would be grateful for the silence. For the peace."
"I'm not most people."
"No," she agreed, her voice softening. "You're certainly not."
Leonid's eyes found hers, and the humor in them faded into something rawer, more vulnerable. "You stayed."
"Of course I stayed."
"Kai came by earlier. Mother too." His gaze was steady, unblinking. "They both asked me if I was all right. Told me to rest. And then they left." A pause. "You've been here for hours."
"I wasn't counting."
"I was."
The silence stretched between them, taut and electric. Jennie felt her heart stumble in her chest, felt the familiar heat rising in her cheeks. She looked away, focusing on the piano in the corner, its dark wood gleaming in the candlelight.
"You really shouldn't be ordering pianists around," she said, her voice carefully light. "Poor Thomas will have a seizure."
"Thomas is young. He'll recover."
"You're impossible."
"So you've said. Multiple times, in fact. I'm beginning to think you enjoy repeating yourself."
She opened her mouth to retort, but the sound of tentative footsteps in the hallway made her pause. A moment later, the door creaked open, and a young woman peered inside with the wide-eyed expression of a rabbit caught in a snare.
She was small, barely older than a girl, with mousy brown hair scraped back from her face and fingers that twisted nervously in the folds of her plain grey gown. Her eyes darted from Jennie to Leonid and back again, as if uncertain which of them posed the greater threat.
"My—my lord?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "The footman said you required a pianist?"
Leonid's face transformed, the brooding intensity melting into something almost boyish. "Yes. Come in, come in. Don't hover in the doorway like a frightened ghost."
The girl scurried forward, her movements jerky with nerves. She crossed to the piano and sat down on the bench with the careful precision of someone who expected to be scolded at any moment. Her hands hovered over the keys, trembling slightly.
"What would you like me to play, my lord?"
"Something soft," he said, closing his eyes. "A nocturne, perhaps. Do you know Chopin?"
"Yes, my lord. I know several."
"Then play them."
The first notes filled the room like drops of rain on still water. The girl's playing was hesitant at first, the melody emerging in fits and starts, but as she settled into the piece, her confidence grew. The music began to flow, gentle and melancholic, weaving through the candlelit shadows like a whispered secret.
Leonid's expression relaxed. The tension in his jaw eased, and his fingers, the ones not bound in bandages, tapped a soft rhythm against the sheets.
"Slower," he said, his eyes still closed. "The tempo is too quick. Chopin should breathe."
The pianist adjusted, the notes stretching longer, more languid.
"Better." A pause. "Now softer. You're playing for a sickroom, not a concert hall."
The music faded to a hush, the melody barely audible, haunting in its delicacy.
Jennie watched him, watched the way the candlelight played across his features, softening the sharp angles of his face. He looked younger in sleep, closer to the boy she'd first seen in the garden, reading beneath the oak tree. But his eyes were open now, watching her through the shadows with an intensity that made her breath catch.
"Now a waltz," he said, and the pianist's fingers stumbled for a moment before finding the new rhythm.
The music shifted, lighter, more playful. The sickroom transformed, the heavy velvet drapes seeming to sway in time with the melody. Leonid's lips curved into a smile, self-satisfied and infuriatingly charming.
Jennie stood abruptly. "That's enough."
The pianist's hands froze, hovering over the keys. Leonid's eyes flew open, his smile turning into a look of genuine confusion.
"What? I was enjoying that."
"You're being impossible." She crossed to the piano, laying a gentle hand on the girl's trembling shoulder. "Thank you. You play beautifully. You're dismissed."
The girl scurried out like a released bird, and the door clicked shut behind her. The silence that followed was heavy, weighted with something unspoken.
Leonid's gaze followed Jennie as she returned to the bed. "That was cruel. I was finally relaxing."
"You were being a tyrant."
"I was being a patient. There's a difference."
"There's a difference between asking for something and demanding it like a spoiled prince." She settled back into her chair, folding her hands in her lap. "That poor girl was terrified of you."
"She was hired to play, and she played. Where's the harm?"
"The harm is in the fact that you could have simply asked me to play for you." The words slipped out before she could stop them, and she felt her cheeks flush as Leonid's expression shifted into something sharp and interested.
"You play piano?"
"I play. Not beautifully, but adequately. Lady Kim insisted on lessons."
"And you've been keeping this from me?" He grinned, the expression lazy and wolfish. "I'm hurt, sunshine. Deeply wounded."
"Your only wound is the one you earned by being reckless."
"Touché." He patted the bed beside him, an invitation clear in the gesture. "Come here."
"No."
"I'm injured. I need entertainment."
"You need rest."
"I need you." The words landed like a stone in still water, ripples spreading outward. His gaze was steady, unflinching. "I thought I was dying, Jennie. I thought I was going to bleed out on that racecourse, and all I could think about was you over me, your face, your voice."
"Leonid—"
"Don't." His voice was soft, but it cut through her like a blade. "Don't pretend you don't feel it. I've seen the way you look at me. I've felt the way your hand lingers when you think no one is watching."
The air was thick between them, charged with a tension that had been building for months. Jennie's heart hammered in her chest, her thoughts spiraling into chaos.
"Kai is your brother," she managed, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I know who Kai is."
"He trusts you."
"Then he's a fool." Leonid's jaw tightened. "Or perhaps he's simply blind. Perhaps he doesn't see what's right in front of him every single day."
"Leonid—"
"Tell me you feel nothing." He pushed himself up on one elbow, his bicep flexing as he ignored the wince that crossed his face. "Tell me that the moments we've shared, the words we've spoken, meant nothing to you. Tell me that, and I'll stop. I'll be the perfect gentleman. I'll watch you marry my brother and smile through the ceremony."
The words caught in her throat. She wanted to deny it, wanted to protect herself from the inevitable fallout, but the truth was written across her face like ink on parchment.
"I can't," she whispered.
"Then come here."
She hesitated. Every rational instinct screamed at her to stay in her chair, to maintain the fragile boundaries she'd constructed around herself. But the look in his eyes, raw and desperate and unbearably vulnerable, shattered her resolve.
She moved.
The mattress dipped as she settled beside him, her hip brushing against his through the thin layer of sheets. His hand found hers, their fingers intertwining with a familiarity that spoke of unspoken promises.
"I thought I lost you," she said, her voice breaking. "When I saw you fall, when I heard the sound of your body hitting the ground, I thought I lost you."
"But you didn't."
"But I didn't." She squeezed his hand, grounding herself in the solid warmth of his skin. "And now I don't know what to do with all of these feelings. I'm engaged to your brother. I've been raised to be a perfect wife, to do what's expected of me. And yet—"
"And yet you're here."
"And yet I'm here."
He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles that sent shivers racing up her spine. His eyes never left hers, dark and deep and full of a hunger that mirrored her own.