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abruptly by Ruth, who emerged shaken and disheveled. She held on tight to the bowl of water that sloshed between the two of them, spilling over to splash onto the floor.
    “What do you think you are doing jumping out at a defenseless woman like that?” She lifted her free hand to her heart and tried to steady her breathing. “You would scare the devil.”
    There was no time for conversation and after three days of nearly breaking down the door another moment could not be contained. Robert tried to guide Ruth out of the way, but she moved her shoulders in place and would not budge.
    “What is it that you wish, my boy?” she inquired with a raised brow.
    Trying to reach around her again, he grunted his reply.
    “To see my wife! Now if you do not mind, I will need you to step aside.” A foggy haze of mystery had been over this household since he had arrived and no one was willing to confess to him.
    Leaning back into the door, she looked up at him with pleading eyes. Ruth was a woman with her own mind and all the guarded sense of a mother hen. No one got to her chicks against her wish.
    “I think it is best if you took the young master out for another nature lesson this day. You have been the stimulation that his young mind has needed.” She flattered.
    “Another time perhaps.” He shouldered his way around her, but was stopped yet again. He gave a cry of frustration, stumbling back two steps in defeat. “For three days I have waited calmly to see my wife all the while you have told me that she is sleeping, napping, bathing and taking all her meals in her room due to the headache and never have you given me a reason behind what I have heard passed from this door.”
    She looked over her nose at him. “And what is that?”
    “Pain. I have been tormented by the insistent pain of my wife’s crying. Now you either let me by or debate this further and I will remove you from my path, Ruth!”
    He had said it and neither of them could believe what had come from his lips. Never had he even raised his voice to the woman, but now he had threatened. Ruth did not argue, but her silence stung more than a slap across his face. He stood there and watched the woman who nearly raised him and who in his absence sacrificed her own well being to tend to his wife step aside. Her fingers hung loose from the doorknob and one by one each finger fell away until his path was clear.
    The room was dark and uninviting. A stale smell hung in the air and was followed by the pungent aroma of the sick. Rumpled linen surrounded a lump that moved slightly with sleeping breaths. Robert watched his wife sleep, and she did not move or say a word, only whimpering hidden in the unmade bed.
    “Fiona?” The bedding shifted, but the lump did not retreat from his voice. “Fiona, please. Tell me what I can do?” There was no change and Robert took a brave step forward. He addressed her from the foot of the bed, but found no response and proceeded to make his way around to the side closest to her.
    It was clear that Ruth had not fibbed when she said his wife had been ill, but what kind of fever would leave anyone cowering under their bedding…unless…unless…
    “Fiona, please. I know I have wronged you in so many ways and I know that you do not welcome me now, but you must let me make amends to you.” He kneeled down on the bed and reached out to try and unveil his wife. “Allow me to help tend to you.”
    Whatever rift he had made between them Robert was discovering that he could not walk away from her this time. Whether it was out of guilt for the life he had lived or this new found idea of a family. Reaching out, his fingers slowly clenched the bed cloths and pulled them free of their host.
    She did not fight him this time and sagged away from him. Her hair veiled her face tangled and her gown was messed, gathered to her waist and pulled down from one shoulder. Her white soft skin was gray and the linen was glued to her with sweat. This was not