Seeing as I'd hoped for 1k reads when I started writing this story, I am so amazed with the support I've received thus far. Regardless of whether you vote or comment, I am thankful all the same to every one of you who has spared minutes or hours of your time to read my work. Again, I dedicate this chapter to a random commenter in thanks: @jwgw912.

Chapter 9: Bittersweet

And those were Drake's last comprehensible words of murmur before he fell victim to a blanket of darkness and shards of pain.

The ceiling rocked. The room rocked. His whole body rocked, making his insides squirm.

"Don't you dare throw up again. This carriage stinks enough as it is."

Drake wanted to turn his head to that annoying voice, but his muscles refused to obey his command.

"You trained your men well, I'll give you that. Staving off our Jeds for that long? I'm rather impressed."

He blinked twice in agreement. Did that mean they were alive?

"When I got there, the big one was holding off two with his axe," she continued.

Romund? What about the others?

"The rest were all dead."

He hated her apathetic tone, but it didn't stop him from closing his eyes and mourning for each of his men. Fulke, Rewis, Jurqay and Gery. They were more than just warriors who fought for him; they were his friends.

"The Guild kills, Drake Rohan. We do not save lives... often."

'Twas true they might have saved him. Yet instead of simply giving him an antidote, the she-devil chose to use that painful, half-arsed acupuncture to halt the flow of toxins instead of simply eradicating them from his body. He grunted in disagreement.

"My orders were to keep you alive, but there was certainly nothing along the lines of ensuring your bodily comfort. I could care less if you lost a limb or two," she scoffed.

Bloody bitch-devil.

"I was told to pass on a valuable piece of information, though. Someone from the Court of Lyons offered the D'Arcy scum fifty thousand gold for your head."

D'Arcy? He thought the Guild's former second-in-command had died long ago. He wanted to ask about Isabella too, but...

"Westdawn was a trap. One you fell right into, idiot. Now, since you owe us for your life and that precious information—"

Ugh, he knew they kept him alive for something.

"—you shall be our bait."

Her last words were accompanied by the crank of a lever and a violent kick to the side of his ribs, and he couldn't stop himself from rolling out the open back of the moving carriage.

Just before his head made impact with the ground, he heard a man shout "Dawn! Did you really have to do that?" and her responding cackle...

For a week he'd slipped in and out of a raging fever. Amelia looked on helplessly as Drake twisted and turned restlessly in bed. She laid a hand over his forehead, and immediately drew back from the burning heat that emanated from him.

From her own diagnosis, and that of two other healers that William had called in from nearby towns, there were remnants of curare still in his blood. They could not identify the species of curare he was afflicted with, and though the antidotal elixirs they'd given him had helped, the poison was subsiding slowly.

Careful not to disturb him, she picked up a fresh towel and dabbed over the sheen of sweat on his face. He calmed. But just as she made to move away, he moaned.

Truly, why should she care? She'd already done more than was expected of a dutiful healer, going so far as to have adopted his adjacent antechamber as her temporary bedchamber so she could look after him. Merely doing the duties of a very dutiful healer, she assured herself.

As Drake relaxed, she tried to leave again. This time, she managed three steps before she was halted by a thrash and another moan.

Gods! Amelia crossed her arms and huffed at her unconscious husband. While he was very much alive and conscious, he'd avoided her for months. Now that he was half dead, he was stirring up all the nurturing qualities she hadn't even known she possessed. How did she end up being the one to mother this big baby? Ah, that's right, her husband was the lord of a manor full of slimy characters who beguiled her into being the healer, then happily entrusted him to her care. That, and the other healers were still tending to the other man who was found with Drake and came in an even more maimed state. Just what cursed hell did he get himself into?

"My lady, do you need anything?" Marge poked her head around the doorway.

Amelia glanced over Drake's reddened cheeks and neck. She needed to do something to purge this stubborn fever and poison—something other than leaving it up to time, or worse, the hands of the Gods. "Bring Sven here again, please?" she asked, taking care to keep her voice down.

As Marge nodded and scampered away like she was running away from imaginary monsters, Amelia chuckled under her breath. Her maid was dead frightened of all things bloody. Although there was no longer any blood in sight, the gaping cuts and wounds that once clothed Drake's body had Marge faint on the spot, and possibly scarred for life.

Sitting in wait for the gardener, Amelia asked herself the same question she'd asked herself each day for the past seven days: Why exactly was she doing this? Saving a life, naturally. But why was she tending to him like his health was the single most important thing of her days now? Not even the markets could entice her away from his side.

And what now when he awakes? Her old plan to torment a divorce out of Drake, for reasons unknown, fell into shambles. Frankly, to finally be out of the heavy wigs and dresses, only to get herself into them again... she couldn't do it. But she had to go home—that much remained certain.

In the past, she'd wanted to go home because home was home. Now, it was more than that. For days she'd felt a constant niggling in the back of her mind, a sense of foreboding that beckoned her home. That meant she needed a new plan.

Drake shifted again in his sleep and the bedcover fell to his chest, revealing whitish old scars aplenty and a heavily bandaged wound. The memory of all the blood that gushed from there only days ago made Amelia wince. She leant over to pull the covers back up, then sat back against a bedpost with a yawn. Bloody husband—figuratively and literally. Whatever her next ingenious plan, it would have to wait.

-

He was drifting amongst the clouds, letting their abundant fluff cushion comfortably around his stiff body.

A gentle laughter rang around his ears, like the loveliest bells he'd ever heard. He willed it to continue, but it stopped too soon and never came back, to be replaced by intermittent little sighs.

Eventually, curiosity prevailed over comfort. He forced his eyelids open a narrow slit. Through the sliver of vision, he spotted a woman's figure, her mane of auburn curls covering the side of a face he so desperately wanted to see. As clouds parted in the sky, soft rays of light filtered through the windows and struck her form, enveloping her in a warm aura and setting her hair alight.

Drake was mesmerised for a long moment until she lifted a sleeve and wiped it across her sweat-stained face. From the way she held her tired posture, he knew he had this woman to thank that he was alive. But who in his life had glowing tresses like so? No one. This he knew for sure because it was a sight he could not easily have forgotten.

Too soon, fatigue crushed his intrigue. As darkness welcomed him again, he did not complain, for two sets of whispering voices sounded and hers was one of them.

"... cup of mung beans."

"But I don't have any mung beans, m'lady."

After a pause, "Why are you still here?"

"Uh..."

"Start planting then!" she hissed.

Her tone was so reminiscent of his few conversations with Amelia that he wanted to laugh. 'Twas simply amusing when one was not on the receiving end.

As his body relaxed into the clouds, he felt her cool hand over his forehead again, and the corners of his mouth curled involuntarily into the tiniest, contented smile.

* * *

It was another week before Drake roused fully—in the most un-lordly way, might she add.

He had developed a minor infection in the arrow wound in his thigh. For this, Amelia had concocted an elixir of eight anti-infection herbs. She was confident of the quality of her concoction, except perhaps not the taste. To be fair, she hadn't even thought about the taste because... Well, unconscious people didn't taste, did they?

And so it happened that the first spoonful of the bitter mixture she tipped down his throat made him choke violently awake, which startled Amelia, so much so she dropped the bowl of elixir over his head. This of course, only sent her into a greater state of franticness and she knocked the water basin off the bedside table... into his face.

That would explain why Drake was now lying sodden in bed, glaring up at her with an empty bowl and basin next to his pillow.

Oops. "Sorry!" she squealed in embarrassment as she fumbled around for a dry towel, only to knock over more items in the process.

Luckily, the guards posted outside Drake's quarters heard the ruckus and in the next few minutes, news of Emir Rohan's awakening spread like wildfire across the manor. Servants came quick to his rescue and he was helped into a couch while the maids dried him up and changed the bedding.

Soon, he was moved back into the bed. All the while, he held the culprit in a transfixing stare. Amelia, at least, had the decency to hide in a corner with her head down in shame as her fingers fidgeted and twisted in the tan cotton fabric of her dress. She hadn't even noticed he had dismissed everyone until his deep, raspy voice echoed in the empty chamber.

"You are... Amelia?"

When she raised her gaze to meet his, she was surprised to find his expression of pure interest and speculation, devoid of a trace of contempt. Another evidence of his inhuman tolerance, which only served to put her in deeper shame.

"I-I'm sorry—"

He shook his head to stop her, but it turned into a cough. She immediately rushed forward and brought a goblet of water to his dry cracked lips.

A few hungry gulps later, he returned his pensive gaze to her, as if he wanted to peel her layer and layer and uncover all her deepest secrets. Seemingly satisfied with his assessment for the moment, he patted a spot beside him at the edge of the bed. Amelia sat down obediently, facing him, and only then did she begin to wonder why she was heeding his command like a lap puppy.

His dark eyes followed the long strands of hair that fell over one side of her shoulder to the modest dress she wore with nothing but a thin border of gold embroidery along the hems, and finally they lingered on each feature of her face, as if he was trying to discern each and every difference between this wife before him and the wife he thought he knew.

Feeling like an object under intense scrutiny, Amelia squirmed uneasily and her head fell forward to her chest again, only to be lifted a second later by two fingers under her chin.

He was about to speak again when Duran knocked at the open door before stepping into the chamber, William following close behind.

"Sir, m'lady," they addressed with a bow.

"Are you well, sir?" William asked as he rounded to the other side of Drake's bed.

"Tired, but well. Thank you," Drake said with a pale smile.

William leant in to whisper a few words beside Drake's ear and Duran stepped forward with a handful of parchments.

"These are the letters we've received... about... um, your business... sir." The last words of Duran's sentence wavered as they were met with a warning glare from Amelia.

Do these twits not realise that their lord needs rest?

Seeing Amelia's murderous expression, Drake chuckled, only to descend into another fit of coughs. If her eyes could spit fire, Duran would have turned into a pile of ashes then and there.

Drake seemed to have found the death threat wholly amusing, for his lips quivered with what looked to be a great effort to restrain a burst of laughter. When he had to disguise it by clearing his throat however, it became all too obvious. "It's—ahem—quite alright. It is customary that I attend, uh, to my—ahem—duties, rain or shine, broken ribs or no, as long as my head—ha—functions." Amelia responded with a 'hmph' and a look that said his head was clearly not functioning. Ignoring the insult, Drake turned to address his men, "Duran, please, do summarise."

Duran stood still and silent, his eyes shifting left and right between the lady and lord, as if waiting for...

His hint was clear. Unlike a certain other lady, she was not welcomed in their 'business' matters. Not wanting to embarrass herself further, Amelia stood to leave, but not without a scant sense of embitterment. Before she could take a step away from the bed, a firm grasp on her wrist held her in place.

"She is my wife. She stays," Drake demanded, his voice authoritative despite having lain comatose for the past fortnight.

Amelia's head whipped around and she stared at him in shock. Of all the words he'd ever said to her (not that there had been many), none other had struck such resonance within her heart. For the second time that day, she sat back down on the bed, being every part the obedient little wife she had never been.

For the next half hour, the contents of their conversation entered her one ear and passed out the other. Their talks of gold, stock and shipments were dry, and she failed to understand what made them so pressing that Drake had to attend to them right after he had just awoken. Nonetheless, she endured quietly, not only because she was also tired, but the trust he bestowed by requesting her stay had caused a slow warmth to seep inch by inch beneath her skin.

That warmth however, stewed steadily into a rage directed at all three men, two of whom blissfully ignored their lord's increasingly constant coughing, whilst the lordship himself practised sadism upon his own body for seemingly non-urgent matters.

"Enough!" her harsh command broke through the stern air of their discussions. The old steward, mid-speech and very much stunned, opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish. "Would the two of you like to keep your dignity and walk through that door right now, or would you like me to toss you both out the window?" 'Twas more a menacing hiss than a question, but at least she provided them with two equally viable options.

Perhaps wisdom did come with age, for William was the first to recover from his state of awe. "Sir, if you'll excuse me, I would like to keep my old bones intact for a couple more decades."

Drake coughed again. Or was it another of his poor attempts at suppressing laughter? "You too, Duran. 'Twould be a shame if I let one of my best men die by my wife's hands, and I'm afraid I cannot stop her." He exchanged a wink with Duran, but added just as they left, "Bring me our latest accounts from Lyons on the morrow, will you?"

As William and Duran exited quickly to escape her wrath, Amelia realised she was missing a shovel. She needed to dig herself a hole. What was she thinking? What should she care if Drake overtired himself? It was his body, his health, his own bloody business. Not even a very dutiful healer would have cut in the way she did; that was almost the dominion of a very close friend or a caring... wife. Donkey's balls. No wonder her father had always reprimanded her for acting before thinking.

She mentally prepared herself for Drake's scorn and inquisition. But when their gazes locked again, she came into an unexpected encounter with his look of one part bemusement, three parts amusement, and a tinge of anticipation—for what, she didn't know, and wasn't sure she wanted to know. Before she even began to contemplate his peculiar mien, it had already faded into one of guilt and regret. From strange to stranger.

"Are you alright, Amelia?" His voice was filled with sincere concern.

Did he injure his head, too? When ever did the patient ask that of the healer? "What?" she asked, baffled.

"I heard you were hurt. I tried to get back as soon as I could, but..." His hands bunched into fists in his lap and his gaze fell.

Was he talking about...? Her heart lurched.

Deep inside, she knew, in that moment that he lifted his remorseful eyes back to hers, some things had changed forever between them. "I'm sorry I failed you," he apologised gravely.

She didn't like this, even though she didn't know what exactly 'this' was. He wasn't allowed to do 'this'. She plastered a smile on her face and said quickly, "I'm fine, look, I'm—"

Drake reached a hand up to cup her cheek and gazed straight into her eyes. "I'm sorry."

The solemn conviction in his voice and the surprising gentleness of his calloused fingers created an emotion she'd never felt before. She didn't know what was happening, why her heart was racing or why she'd suddenly lost all function of speech. In the end, the only thing her mind thought was apt to do was to hold her hand over his and press a kiss to the centre of his palm—and that was exactly what she did.

---

Author's note: Mung beans are a very popular remedy in Chinese medicine for clearing heat and toxins from the body. :)