Free Finagled by Rachel Kelso Page A

dress?" Ramona asked, lifting her loose hair from her neck.
     
    "I will call for Melanie," her mother said, looking at the sweat stained collar with disdain.
     
    "There is not time. I just want out of it so I can bathe." she exclaimed in exasperation.
     
    "Oh fine!" her mother said, picking at the buttons somewhat ineffectively. It probably would have been quicker to call for Melanie, her mother made sure of it.
     
    This new room was not as fine or intimately laid out as their bridal suite. Just a bed, a chair by the fireplace, a small table with one chair and, instead of a separate dressing room, a small cramped room with a bathtub and water closet. Blessed hot water came from the pipes and that was all that Ramona could ask for. She pulled off the rest of her clothes and ignored everything her mother tried to say to her. Scrubbed and pink she found a lighter dress from her traveling trunk, lamenting the fact that most of her things had been sent on to Loathewood. With grudging assistance from Lady Havishamble, she found herself dressed snugly just as a small dinner of cold meats and warm breads was arriving.
     
    She ate it almost without tasting. It was a stark contrast to the sumptuous meal she had the night before, and she was in a rush to get back to George. It was almost time to change his bandages again, and she took the doctor’s order for promptness in the matter of staving off infection very seriously. If she could just see George's brown eyes again, hear his deep voice. She sighed wistfully.
     
    After she had finally convinced her parents that she would not be changing her mind about caring for George herself, they left, her mother loudly protesting the whole time.
     
    Ramona changed George's bandages and curled up on the small, uncomfortable cot once more, hoping to snag a bit of sleep, she asked that she be woken in 2 and a half hours. This is how she spent the night, snatching sleep in between fresh bandages, trips to the water closet, washing her hands, boiling more bandages, dreaming strange snippets that seemed to meld with the actual night and add to the surrealness of the situation.

Chapter Eight
     
    George opened his eyes. The sun had not risen but the sky was beginning to lighten through an unfamiliar window. He felt absolutely terrible. He tried to sit up but the pain was overwhelming and he felt incredibly weak, far too weak to risk standing. He looked around the room, almost missing the cot so near him, with the softly sleeping young woman curled up on it.
     
    "Ramona," he tried to say, but his voice was weak, his throat unbelievable parched.
     
    She fidgeted in her sleep, a furrow to her brow before she awoke, she was sleeping too lightly to miss even this quiet sound of his voice.
     
    It took her a moment to find herself, and when she did she was already standing beside George holding  a cool wet cloth to his forehead, saying, "Rest darling, rest."
     
    "Water," he said, lifting his fingers weakly to his lips.
     
    "Yes, of course, of course." she turned quickly and poured a glass from the pitcher near her cot. She helped him sit up enough to drink it. He gulped down the glass and asked for more, she gave it to him.
     
    The second glass accomplished, she lay him back down on his pillow. He wanted to talk, to ask what had happened, but she did not want him to exert himself.
     
    "You’ll be okay. Let me take care of you, there is nothing to worry about, if we are very careful you are in no danger. I promise that knowing what happened would only excite you to no purpose."
     
    "I was outside, I was... stabbed?" he asked, trying to feel the wound, tightly wrapped, on his lower back.
     
    "Yes, leave it alone. You lost a lot of blood." she said. "If you can't rest on your own, I will have to call the doctor in to sedate you again." she said, "and I would rather not. You slept so unnaturally deep... it frightened me."
     
    "Of course I don’t want a damned sedative," he chuckled and it