“Please!” he implores.
Something ancient and primal within me stirs. A desire to protect. To be needed. To guard what is mine.
“None of that!” snaps Henderson as he roughly pulls Lucien’s hands away from me.
Lucien’s green eyes turn to the healer, and he cowers.
“Come now. I know you can behave,” Henderson says. “I don’t want to have to restrain you.”
I’m so confused. Henderson is acting as if he has seen Lucien before. And what is with this frigid accusation? That’s quite a leap of a diagnosis to make with one quick glance at a person. Nevermind that it is an antiquated and quite ridiculous term. Is Henderson assuming this because Lucien was scared enough to hide up a chimney?
That’s quite a stretch. Even though it is considered acceptable in some circles, many people would not be happy to be shared. Even perfectly behaving little vessels like Lucien.
Henderson starts stripping off the remains of my vessel’s nightgown. Lucien sucks in a breath and then goes limp. His dazzling eyes go dull, as if all his light has been extinguished. He stares up at the bed canopy. Tears brim and then silently fall.
Uneasiness coils around my gut. Something about Lucien’s complete surrender seems worse than his pleading. There is an utter hopelessness to it that is tearing at my soul.
Lucien is not in his right mind at the moment, but I swear there is still something off about his reaction to the healer.
“Have you seen Lucien before?” I ask Henderson.
Henderson pauses in undressing my vessel. “Yes, my lord. My apologies. It never occurred to me he would be so disrespectful as to not tell you.”
I stare speechlessly at the healer. There are too many thoughts spinning around my head. I can’t catch any and turn them into words.
He sighs. “He came to my office the other day. I examined him and found him to be frigid.”
Gods. I don’t even know where to start with this. I need more information.
“What led you to that conclusion?” I ask, and thank goodness I have regained the power of speech.
Henderson frowns and pushes his glasses back up his nose. He is clearly affronted at being challenged, but I don’t care.
“The physical exam showed that everything functions correctly, and since he reported not enjoying your attentions, the conclusion was obvious.”
The words bounce around in my mind for a moment. I’ve been up all night. I’m hungover. The healer is being coy. But finally I get there and the puzzle pieces all start to snap into place.
My ego wishes to fixate on Lucien not enjoying my attentions, but that issue needs to wait. I have a horrible suspicion there are far more pressing matters of concern here.
I need to concentrate on the other facts and see if I can untangle them.
If I’ve got this right, Lucien went to see the healer. The healer forced him to spill and then accused him of being frigid. What an awful and horrendous thing to do to the poor boy!
Then another thought hits me like a ton of bricks. After Lucien’s ordeal with the healer, he came home. And I accused him of having an affair.
But his magic wasn’t depleted from being in a lover’s arms, but from what the healer did to him.
Oh gods. My lungs have gone so tight I cannot breathe. Poor Lucien. This is devastating. A calamity. I’m horrified at what my vessel has been through and the part I played in it. He will surely never be able to forgive me for this. And deservedly so.
As for right now, I know Lucien is distraught. I understand the sedative smoke is affecting him. But he is clearly genuinely traumatized by what Henderson did to him. And there is one thing I can do to make that better. A small way I can try to make amends.
“I think you should leave,” I say quietly to Henderson.
The healer opens his mouth to object, then he looks at my expression, closes his mouth, and leaves without a word. I hear him collect his bag from the next room and then he is gone.
Lucien remains staring blankly at the canopy. I’m not sure he has even realized that Henderson has left.
I turn helplessly to Katy.
“Always thought he was a creep,” she says with a clear look of disgust in her eyes.
My mind is spinning. My world is tilting. Another memory is bubbling up to add to this disaster. Lucien begging me not to call the healer after his faint. And me taking that as evidence of further deception.
Oh gods. I’m going to be sick.
“Let’s get him cleaned up and check for any injuries,” says Katy as she dips a cloth into a bowl of water. She must have fetched supplies while I was talking to the healer.
I’m glad someone has their wits about them.
My hand takes a hold of a remaining strip of nightgown. Lucien shudders. His eyes suddenly look at me. Wide and fearful.
“I’m not ripe,” he rasps.
“I know,” I say as gently as I can. Gosh. I hate that he thinks my touch means only one thing.
On his other side, Katy dabs a warm, wet cloth on his soot covered bare shoulder. He flinches and turns his attention to her. A strange, anguished noise pours out of him and he rolls over on his side, away from me and towards her. His hands twist desperately into her tee shirt and pull her down
“Nanny!” he sobs.
