The Soldier's Poisoned Heart

They made good time, he thought. They beat the eleven o'clock train by twenty minutes, which was plenty of time even for the hobbled to John Paul to find an empty bench from which to watch the trains come in.

Lydia was as beautiful, he realized, as he had ever seen her. More. She was perfect, absolutely perfect, and there was nothing he wanted more than to see her a thousand more times. He tried not to wonder if that was an option for him, with the way that his condition was deteriorating.

There was absolutely no excuse for such worrywarting, not when he was seeing his betrothed for the first time in ten weeks. He forced a smile on his lips and forced himself up from the seat.

Mark waved beside him.

"Miss Wakefield," he shouted, loud enough that more than just Lydia looked. She smiled and waved and started toward them, a porter behind carrying her luggage. When she saw John Paul, she stopped short and blinked. He saw the look on her face, a look of mixed surprise and horror, that she covered up a moment later. She swallowed hard and kept on.

"John Paul, dear God! Are you alright?"

"You're here, darling. Nothing could be better." He stretched a weak smile across his face as best he could.

"You look awful. Have you seen a doctor?"

John Paul coughed. "Henry has one coming in, he's been coming up every couple of days with some medicine."

"And?"

"I don't want to talk about that right now, dearest. Tell me about your trip."

"No," Lydia said, stepping back. "You're scaring me, John Paul Foster, now tell me what is going on right now or—"

John Paul sat back onto the bench and leaned on his cane.

"I don't know, Lydia. I don't know what's wrong. I…have my suspicions, but…"

But they were wrong, it seems, he thought. He hadn't known who on earth it could have been, either. The quack doctor, perhaps? Simon could have gotten to him. It wouldn't be especially difficult for him to have elicited the information from Henry about which doctor his uncle was seeing, and to the best of his knowledge the colonel thought that the pair were still spending time together. He frowned.

"Simon won't stand for this, John Paul. You should come and stay with us, there's no way that he's like to refuse. He'll want you to be near a hospital, if he knew how bad your condition was."

"Are you saying he doesn't know, then?"

The words came out before he thought it through, before he considered the ramifications of what he was saying, and he regretted them instantly. But he pushed the regret away. There was nothing he could do about it now.

"What does that mean?"

Lydia sat down beside him. John Paul was tired. He hadn't exerted himself so much for weeks, and he was quite ready to slip back into bed now, but he was in town and that wasn't a choice. He looked at her face. She looked concerned, but her expression was guarded, as well. He shrugged his shoulders up for a moment and looked away.

"I can't imagine that Henry hasn't told him; they're together often enough, aren't they?"

"Is that a bad thing?"

John Paul slumped back against the back of the bench.

"No," he said. He was tired of fighting. It seemed as if she had only been back a moment before he'd upset her, and that was the worst part of all.

"Please," Lydia said, tugging lightly on his sleeve. "Just come and stay with us for a few days, until the wedding."

He didn't answer right away. It might even be smarter. Enemies closer, and all that; and he would be closer to her, in case things turned for the worse he would be able to spend his last few weeks with her.

"No," John Paul answered after a long moment. "I need to stay in the house and make sure things are prepared for the wedding. There's still work left to be done on the house; it should be done soon, but I need to be there to oversee it. They can't go forward without my go-ahead."

Lydia looked at him, and he at her, and for a moment he thought she would ask him again. He would accept if she just said the words again; he didn't have it in him to refuse her a third time. But she didn't say anything, and he didn't volunteer to change his mind.

"I can take you home, if you like, ma'am," Mark volunteered.

"Oh," Lydia said softly. "That would be better than a coach, certainly. What do you say?"