Chapter 9
Stuart yanked the curtains shut, cutting off his view. The woman was crafty enough to trick Norbert and now her weeping? Just a performance.
Unaware of the observer above. Morwenna wept quietly before drying her eyes and steeling herself. The damage was done, and crying wouldn’t fix anything. She had to do her best to mend the situation.
The flowers she had uprooted in the aftermoon lay beside her, waiting for their replantation, Under the moonlight, Morwenna moved with a resilience that belied her delicate frame, bustling about the garden.
It was 3 AM.
Stuart suddenly awoke, his eyes filled with a restless imitation vastly different from his daytime indolence, feeling like he was still trapped in a nightmare.
It was too quiet.
The silence was oppressive, like being in a pitch–black sewer, a monster lurking in the shadows.
Then, he heard a faint, delicate sound.
The sound shattered the oppressive darkness binding him.
He shook off the mood, got up, and walked to the window pulling aside the curtain. Below, he saw the source of the noise. Morwenna was carefully replanting the uprooted orchids.
She was meticulously tending to the orchids. Money was tight, and she could only save what she could and compensate for the losses later. Her head spun, probably from the cold shower she had the previous day, which might have brought on a fever, but she couldn’t
stop.
Time was of the essence with the orchids. The longer they were out of the earth, the less likely they would survive.
These orchids represented more than money. They were textbooks and school supplies for the children. Compared to that, her illness was a minor inconvenience, which she could remedy with medicine.
Upstairs, Stuart watched silently, his internal turbulence unexpectedly calming.
Morwenna persevered until the first light of dawn began to streak across the sky, finishing replanting all the flowers. After watering them one last time, she prayed for their survival
Then, suddenly, the watering can fell from her hands, and she collapsed beside the flowerbed.
Since arriving at Windcharm Villas, she had been nonstop, hardly resting, catching a cold from the cold bath, laboring in the afternoon sun, and staying up all night distressed. Even the strongest body couldn’t withstand that.
Stuart frowned from the second floor and went downstairs to Morwenna.
Seeing her dirty, fever–flushed face, Stuart reluctantly picked her up and carried her back into the house.
He didn’t consider himself a good man but didn’t want to face Norbert’s questions if something happened to her under his roof.
He fetched some fever reducer and commanded coldly, “Get up and take this.
But Morwenna was unresponsive in her faint.
Impatient, Stuart propped her up and forced the medicine into her mouth.
Perhaps the bitterness of the medicine stirred her as Morwenna groggily opened her eyes, which were misty and vulnerable, like at newborn kitten.
In her delirium, she mistook Stuart for the neighbor friend who often looked after her and accidentally bit his finger, whimpering, “It’s bitter.”
Stuart stiffened, withdrew his finger, and handed her a glass of water with a stern command, “Don’t spit it out. Swallow it.”
Wanting to spit but too obedient to defy, Morwenna swallowed the medicine and leaned against Stuart, her head nuzzling against him before she drifted back into a heavy sleep,
Stuart lifted her from his chest and laid her back on the bed, lingering for reasons unknown to himself.
gaze, so reminiscent of a kitten in a sewer, that thawed a tiny fraction of warmth into his icy veins.
Perhaps it was