Chapter 54：CHAPTER 54: AND TO HAVE HIS FEET BURNT?

And they would have to sustain him through the empty years that stretched ahead, however few or many that might be. 

"How long have you been here?" he asked. 

That she should have been the one left to watch over him as he slept was as unbelievable as it was undesirable. 

He wondered that his brother hadn't understood his feelings. After all, he had already been forced to demonstrate his physical inadequacies before Annie far too frequently during their short acquaintance. 

"Since your brother left."

"Val's gone?"

That thought was frightening for some reason, although it was again difficult for his fogged brain to grasp why it should be. He remembered that he had sent for Dare. He wasn't perfectly sure, however, whether or not he had managed to convey to his brother his reasons. If Val were no longer in London—

"Only to eat and sleep. He travelled most of last night, I believe. He indicated that your note seemed quite urgent."

Ian tried to remember what logic had created that urgency. All he knew was that he had believed Annie to be in danger, and until he was again able to protect her... 

Able to protect her. The words jeered at him through the cloud of opium that obscured his thinking. He could no more protect Annie than he could convince himself he wasn't in love with her. The fact that he was flat on his back again made a mockery of both. 

"But he didn't explain why you had sent for him," she added. 

Because... The reasons, even those he managed to dredge from his disordered brain, seemed as insubstantial as smoke. Was it because, as McKinley had noted, Annie Darlington seemed a lightning rod for trouble? Or because his own inadequacies had made him exaggerate out of proportion to their significance the two incidents in which she had been endangered? The questions seemed beyond his mental powers tonight. As fighting off those dangers had proven to be humiliating beyond his physical ones. 

"He is my brother," he said truthfully, "and I am accustomed to depending on him." He lifted his hand and touched the plaster the doctor had put over the gash on his forehead. 

"Does your head ache?" Annie asked. 

"Not appreciably worse than the rest of me."

He smiled at her and became aware only then of the painful dryness of his lips. Of course, laudanum always affected him that way. That was only one of the lesser of its many side effects, which for him usually included nightmares and tremors. 

Keeping his wits about him and his emotions in check when he was with Annie had become harder and harder as days of his guardianship had passed. And after yesterday... 

The memory of his body pressed into hers was suddenly too vivid in his brain. It seemed he could still feel the delicate curve of her breasts lifting against his chest as she breathed. And incredibly, given the debilitated state of his body, he was reacting in the same way to that remembrance as he had to the sweet reality. At least this time—

"Why did you ask about the boy?" Annie questioned, bringing his wandering attention back to the present. 

He took a breath, trying to gather what little control he had left. It was almost ironic to remember how much he had once valued his self discipline. His growing feelings for his ward had made a mockery of that, as well as of his determination never to allow himself to fall in love with a woman, considering that he no longer had anything to offer. Not even his life. 

"He seemed... Too knowing to react the way he did."

"Too knowing?"

Ian tried to remember what had bothered him about the child. Thankfully, the longer he was awake, the clearer his mind became. 

"He had too know what would happen if he ran away. And he surely knew that by appealing you he would not lessen his ultimate punishment. The sweep had every legal right to do what he was doing. And any child who has worked in that capacity very long has experienced the strop often enough to be relatively used to it."

"And to having his feet burned?" Annie asked. "Used to that as well?"

"But they wouldn't," Ian said, remembering only now that was part of what had bothered him about yesterday's incident. "Because of his claim, I looked at them carefully."

"You couldn't see the soles."

"The practice causes scarring along the outside of the foot as well as on the bottom. It would probably be an impossibility to control the torch so that they would not be burned there as well. The boy's feet didn't bear any evidence of that particular mistreatment. Not even old or faded scars. 

Annie shook her head, her eyes no longer focused on his face.