An Impetuous Abduction. Patricia Rowell Frances

you stop crying, little one? Can you take some soup?” Hades let her rest against the pillow again. Only now, several pillows held her in a sitting position.

      Phona relaxed into their embrace and struggled to make sense of things. The Skeleton was holding a bowl and spoon out to Lord Hades. If she were not in hell, where had the Skeleton come from? If the Pirate was not Lord Hades, who was he?

      She tried to take in a deep breath and stop crying, but coughing choked her. A large handkerchief wiped her eyes and nose. She tried again, and finally hiccuped into silence.

      Hades extended a spoonful of broth. Phona drew back. “If I eat anything, I can never go home.”

      “What is she on about now?” the Skeleton inquired.

      “It is an old story.” Hades sighed. “I’ll tell you later.” He put the spoon back in the bowl. “Come, Miss Hathersage. You must have sustenance. You are not in the Underworld. You have my word.”

      “On your honor?” In a fleeting moment of clarity Phona glimpsed the irony of charging either Lord Hades or a pirate with his honor.

      “Word of a…” He hesitated for a heartbeat. “Upon my family’s honor.”

      He refilled the spoon, and after a moment Phona accepted a sip. If she was doomed, then she was doomed. She could do nothing to change it. The soup slid warmly down her throat, stinging for a moment. The second mouthful went easier, and after a third a welcome sort of warmth spread through her body, easing some of the fiery ache.

      Her eyes began to close, but the two voices exhorted her to wait, to finish her broth. But Phona could not keep the darkness at bay. The bowl disappeared and a cup of bitter tea took its place. She managed to get down several swallows before trying to push it away.

      “No, Miss Hathersage. You must drink all of this. It will help you.” She heard the firm voice through a fog, but opened her mouth again, thankful when he took away the nasty draught.

      The Skeleton’s voice asked, “The laudanum, do ye think?”

      “Aye. It will help her pain.”

      Another pungent smell assaulted her nostrils, but this time Phona obediently opened her lips. Now perhaps they would leave her alone. Even as the extra pillows were removed, she was drifting away. And she did not care if she never returned.

      Tired as he was, Leo could not bring himself to leave her. He had done this to her. Certainly it had been a better choice than allowing the others to kill her. Unfathomably better than killing her himself.

      Better even than allowing to be destroyed all he had spent months setting in motion. Yet, the decision was his, and he bore the responsibility for it. He could only pray that her illness would not finish her after all.

      Leo built up the fire, but the room seemed too cool for him to sit bare-chested, and he was loathe to leave the girl long enough to fetch a shirt. He lay beside her, atop the bedclothes, and tugged a corner of the quilt over himself, rolling until he was well wrapped in it.

      It seemed unlikely that she would even know that he lay near her, but still Leo moved as close to the far edge of the bed as the arrangement allowed, fearing that he might frighten her further should she unexpectedly wake.

      She appeared to be lost in unconsciousness, tossing about and moaning now and again. Several times she started up, wild-eyed, her cry breaking the silence. Each time Leo placed a soothing hand on her shoulder and settled her back onto the pillows.

      Each time he was uncomfortably aware of the heat radiating from her. Of the smoothness of her skin, the softness of her hair, the sparks of light from the fire caught in its waves.

      What a surprising contradiction she was. So courageous and desirable in her womanhood. So vulnerable and childlike in her fever-induced pain and terror of Hell. Leo smiled into the dark. Little had he known how far his Persephone would take that jest.

      He pitied both her pain and her fear. Leo knew what it was to lie in helpless agony, prey to delirious images, terrified, not only of the enemies in one’s dreams, but of the helplessness. The fear that gangrene and the surgeon would take the rest of his arm. Too weak to resist.

      A hand plagued him with phantom tortures, yet was no longer his to command. Was no longer there at all. The image of it as it disappeared in a spray of blood and grapeshot. Hell.

      She had the right of that.

      Just as the light of sunrise began to creep through the shutters, his patient flung the bedclothes off. Leo reached for them to protect her once more, but realized that she was sweating. A hand to her forehead confirmed that, while she still felt too warm, her excessive fever had broken.

      It would no doubt increase again later in the day, but Leo gave thanks for any sign of improvement. If they could prevent the lady developing an inflammation of the lungs, they might pull her through.

      Leo had been almost two days without real sleep. Now that she slept more deeply, he would have gone to his own bed, save that he feared she would be frightened if she awoke alone.

      And he feared even more that the sight of his bare stump would cause her further distress. Last night, when he had heard her scream at the sight of Aelfred, he had just removed his shirt and the straps which secured the hook to his body. He had raced up the stairs without a thought for his repulsive deformity.

      Now, in the light of day…

      Aelfred solved this dilemma by slipping stealthily into the room and handing Leo a shirt. “How fares the lass?”

      “A little better, I think. She is sweating.”

      “Aye, a good sign. Ye’ll find coffee and porridge in the kitchen and a bath drawn by your fire. I’ll sit with her until she wakes. Mayhap in the light I won’t scare the bejabbers out of her.” His thin lips quirked. “Or mayhap the light’ll be worse.”

      Leo clappedAelfred on the shoulder. “Come now, man. Her fever caused that alarm, as well you know. I must sleep now. Thank you.” He paused by the bed a moment, gently touching the girl’s cheek. “She feels cooler now.”

      She looked so vulnerable lying there that he could not leave her uncovered. He tucked the quilt around her and finally brought himself to take his leave.

      Phona drifted to the surface of consciousness from an unfathomable depth. She wanted to open her eyes, but the growing light hurt, even if she squeezed her lids tightly. Eventually, they adjusted a bit, and she risked a peek.

      The light came from a window. A window in a strange room. Rain beat upon the glass of the casement in an uneven tattoo. She closed her eyes again and tried to think.

      Rain. She remembered rain. And riding. And riding and riding. A man—a pirate? And a skeleton? Surely she had been dreaming. But where was she? Phona squinted again through aching eyelids. She still lay in the strange bed in the strange room.

      Between her and the window someone sat in a chair. She could not make out his features against the glare, but he was working on something in his hands. She tried to raise herself on her elbow. The person in the chair glanced up and rose.

      A tall, lean man walked to the bed and looked down at her. “Morning, miss.” He held up a restraining hand. “Now don’t ye go raising another screech. I ain’t much to look at, but I ain’t no skelyton nor no boggart, neither.”

      No, he could not be called a skeleton, but the skin stretched so tightly over the bones of his face that he appeared cadaverous at best. Above his deep-set eyes rose a shining, bald dome of a head, and his lips seemed but a slit in his narrow face. Phona gazed up at him. Was this the bony apparition of her dream?

      The alleged apparition announced, “I’m called Aelfred. I keep things in order here.” Before she could ask where here was, he continued. “I reckon ye be needing some porridge and tea. Won’t be a minute.” The man disappeared through the door. Phona heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the