by Allegra Gray
She didn’t dare join him there. She should be exhausted after all they’d done, but anxiety had her twisting the sheets between her fingers. She shifted, nudged him. “I’m feeling a bit restless tonight. Shall I return to my suite now?” Say “yes,” she prayed.
But his arm tightened, holding her close. “You’re staying right here. If you think I’m going to let you go, you’re mad.”
Therein lay the problem. Graeme had nailed it, though he didn’t realize it. She was mad. Those seemingly endless hours last summer, locked in the bowels of the earth, had knocked something loose inside her head. How was she to keep her secret if he insisted on sharing a bed?
Charity pressed her lips together, worried. Plenty of married couples slept separately. Perhaps later in the marriage, when the newness wore off…but if they were ever to get that far, she would have to make it through tonight, first.
She took a deep breath to steady her fears, forcing her body to relax. She laid her head back on his chest, where it fit so well. It would be all right. She would simply have to stay awake. Sleepless nights were nothing new. She could do this.
She brushed a hand along the side of his jaw. His strong features looked peaceful in repose. “I love you,” she whispered.
He didn’t hear her. She hadn’t expected him to. She bit down on her tongue, needing the pain to keep her awake. It was going to be a long night.
If only she weren’t so comfortable, tucked securely against Graeme’s strong, warm body, his heavy arm holding her close.
A horrible shriek rent the night air.
Graeme came awake with a start, throwing a protective arm over his new wife. Only she wasn’t beside him.
Fists pounded at the door. “Who’s there?” No answer. He thrashed out of the covers, trying to keep calm in spite of the acceleration of his heart. He stumbled to the window and threw back the curtain. Faster than lighting a candle in the dark. Moonlight streamed in, illuminating a woman on her knees at the door, sobbing. Charity. What the hell?
The door wasn’t locked. Why didn’t she just open it?
“Charity?” he asked uncertainly.
Her head whipped toward the sound of his voice. “No! No, don’t leave me here. I’ll do anything, anything.” She reached for the door again, clawing at it, her hands sliding slowly down the wood panel as though all her energy, all her soul, was draining away.
“Sweetest, no one’s left you. Did you have a nightmare?” It was the only explanation he could think of—though she appeared very much awake.
“They left me! I don’t want to die down here.”
“Down where?” Their room was on the second floor.
She didn’t answer him. She crumpled forward until she was nothing but a heap on the ground, her shoulders shaking.
He took a step forward, then another. “Charity?”
She buried her head under her arms, but he thought he heard a muffled, “Yes.”
Frowning, he held out a hand. She took it without looking at him, and he helped her up from the floor. She walked unsteadily toward the bed, sitting down carefully, as though her body were made of fragile glass.
A sinking heaviness settled in his gut as snippets of conversation, oddities of her behavior that he’d labeled as mere quirks, came rushing together to form an altogether different picture. Damn.
“So. This is what you’ve been hiding.”
Charity opened her mouth to deny it, but the words caught in her throat. She’d failed. Again.
She’d known better than to fall asleep. Now there was no avoiding the truth.
Her husband of less than a fortnight laughed bitterly. “I wondered, on our journey here, why no one tried harder to stop us. It seemed too easy. Now I understand. They were all back in London, laughing at me.”
Fear choked her, cutting off her breath until she felt dizzy.
“Foolish Lord Maxwell,” he mocked himself, “too enamored with a young woman’s beauty to bother finding out much about her before hauling her off to Gretna Green. Stupid Scot.”
“No,” she whispered. Please, please God, don’t let this be happening. “That’s not it.”
He slapped a hand to his forehead. “They even warned me—or tried, at any rate. Ewan MacPherson told me the gossips believed you a bit fast, perhaps troubled. I took little heed, thinking it no more than the usual gossip started by females jealous of another’s beauty. And then the duke, he tried too. Any man would have insisted I marry you without delay after that piece in the Tattler. Instead he took pity on me. Gave me an out, a chance to save myself. Idiot that I am, I thought his behavior was odd. And so I find myself here.”
His shoulders dropped as the initial rush of anger passed. He gazed at her face, looking into her eyes as though searching for something lost. “Indeed, your beauty is beyond question. I have married a beautiful madwoman, have I not?”
“No,” she said again, this time with enough conviction to be heard. “I am not mad, not truly. Only…the nightmares?”
He reached out, stroked the side of her face sadly. Pityingly. “Charity. That was no mere bad dream. I have even heard of sleepwalking, but this…” His gaze found the door she’d been clawing moments ago. “This is different. As though you were under a spell.”
“I can explain,” she offered. It was past time. The embarrassment couldn’t possibly hurt more than the pain that stabbed her now, as she felt Graeme’s withdrawal like a physical loss. She was losing him.
He shook his head. “It does not matter the cause. I had hoped to find a wife who could also fill the role of mother to Nathan. But I cannot risk his safety, should you fall under such a spell when I am away.”
He stared out the window, where the gray light of dawn crept slowly over the land. “Even more, I had hoped to one day welcome children of our own…but I have seen what madness can do to a person. My family has suffered already. To pass that curse down to a child would be too cruel.”
“It—it doesn’t work that way. Only when I sleep. When I dream,” she insisted.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, shook his head. “That went beyond dreaming, my sweet. You were clawing at the door.” He lifted her hand. The ragged edges of her fingernails bore testimony to his words.
Burning shame heated her cheeks.
“That night at the inn,” he realized. “It happened then, too, didn’t it?”
She nodded miserably. “I wasn’t always this way.”
“But can you stop it—whatever it is—from happening?”
“No.” Defeat infiltrated her tone.
He squeezed his eyes closed as though to shut out the pain of her words. “Then I’m not sure the reason matters.”
She had no response to that.
He opened his eyes. “Look. I wish this wasn’t happening—to either of us. I don’t know what else to say right now. But I definitely can’t go back to sleep.” He shoved up from the bed, tugged on trousers and boots, pulled a loose linen shirt over his head, and left the room.
Charity remained sitting on the bed. She hugged her knees to her chest, wondering how she could feel so cold with her heart still racing the way it was. Teardrops fell with tiny splashes on her knees. She hadn’t known she was crying.
She couldn’t say how long she stayed that way. Every indrawn breath seemed an effort that lasted a century.
Occasionally she would hear a sound below. A door opening, a boot step on the stairs. What was he doing? What was he thinking?
She didn’t dare go to him. Not when he’d made it so obviously clear he wanted to get away from her.
Embarrassment and shame washed over her, a relentless tide that threatened to drag her under. How would she ever explain? She’d waited too long. If only she’d told him earlier…he’d given her the perfect opportunity that night at Vauxhall, when he’d spotted her guards. She’d been too cowardly to confide their true purpose.
Charity rested her forehead on her knees as the bitterness of defeat sank into her bones.
She spent the rest of the night sitting like that. Awake, and shivering.
Chapter 12:
In which Charity seriously debates the wisdom of the expression “’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”
Only when the pale light of dawn penetrated the gloom of the bedroom suite did Charity force her wooden legs to the floor and down the stairs. She cinched the tie of her wrapper tight against the morning chill as she entered the breakfast room.
Her husband had already eaten, from the look of it. Was he avoiding her? Would it help if she just gave him some space? She reached for a bread roll out of habit, but discovered she had no appetite for it.
Maybe she should find him. Maybe the words would come to her more easily then. She could salvage this yet. Her fears were only making it worse. But she didn’t hear his voice, or his movements, anywhere.
She found Mrs. Saxonberry in the long-unused ballroom, directing two footmen who were moving out the miscellaneous items stored there. “Is Lord Maxwell about?” she asked tentatively.
The housekeeper turned to her and froze, but not before Charity caught the tiny flicker of alarm in her expression. Belatedly she realized how she must look. “My lady, I believe he went to meet with the weavers this morn.”
“Thank you.” She beat a hasty retreat up the stairs and into her dressing room, where the looking glass confirmed her fears. Pale face, wild hair, puffy eyes with dark circles beneath them. That was no way to convince her husband that what he’d seen last night was a mistake.
She beckoned to one of the upstairs maids, having no lady’s maid of her own as yet. “I should very much like a bath, and some assistance with my hair. Can you help?”
“Aye, my lady. I’ll ask the footmen to carry up the water. You’d best let me fetch Maisie for your hair, if you don’t mind my sayin’, my lady. She’s only a downstairs maid, but she’s a true wonder with hair.”
“Lovely.” If Graeme had gone to the weavers, she had some time. She would make herself presentable, and come up with an explanation for the unexplainable.
He loved her. She knew he did. After the initial shock, he’d been more sad than angry. If he didn’t love her, he wouldn’t have been so hurt. Right? She prayed it was true. If he loved her, he would forgive her for deceiving him. He would let her explain. Help her to heal.
If he didn’t…she didn’t want to think about that. Even that brief flash of anger last night, directed toward her, had felt like the very earth beneath her was crumbling.
When the bath was ready, Charity sank gratefully into the lavender-scented water. Steam suffused her face. She breathed it in, each inhale deliberate, as though somehow the tendrils of steam carried answers that could be absorbed by mere breath.
Graeme cared about her, she repeated to herself. She just had to tell him the truth and hope he didn’t turn from her in disgust. There’d been no room in their whirlwind courtship for telling tales of past woes. Last night, he’d been too upset to hear her out.
If he knew, he might not look at her the same way anymore. She didn’t want his pity. Or worse, his scorn. She wanted him to look at her the way he had the night they met—with desire.
She pushed herself up and clambered out of the tub just as Maisie, the downstairs maid, arrived to help with her hair. Maisie was a natural chatterbox and overcome with excitement at the opportunity to play at lady’s maid to “a real true lady.” Her enthusiasm required very little input on Charity’s side, for which Charity was grateful.
The only spare gown she had was a pink frock they’d purchased from a garment shop in Gretna Green. It hugged too tightly at her breasts, and hung too loose at her waist, but it would have to do. She’d feel more confident in one of her own gowns, which had been sewn for her body specifically and chosen for their ability to lure a man into proposing marriage. The proposal was over and done with, but her need to be alluring was greater than ever. Unfortunately, those gowns were all still back in London.
Nonetheless, by the time Maisie helped her with her hair and tied a cream-colored ribbon beneath her bust, the result was quite fetching. Charity looked in her glass and nodded in satisfaction. There was no sign of the madwoman Graeme was convinced he’d married.
Her heart hammered like it was trying to escape the confines of her chest when she heard his voice downstairs. She smoothed her skirts one last time, and tried not to trip as she flew down the stairs to meet him.
Graeme looked up to see his wife standing at the bottom of the stairs. It hurt to look at her. God, she was beautiful. If there was any other way…
Graeme closed his eyes. Steeled himself. He knew what he’d seen. And it explained so very much. From the first night they’d met, the signs of trouble had been there. He’d just been too enchanted to see them.
After last night’s debacle, he’d spent the remainder of the dark hours trying to think of a solution. He’d come up empty.
He tipped his head towards the door to his study. “I was just going to review the ledgers. You may join me, if you wish.” Even though it would be torture, to look but not touch. To want and never possess.
One would think that last night’s episode would be enough to make him want to steer clear of her. After all, he’d seen what madness could do to a person.
His mother had suffered for years. True, her afflication had not manifested until the death of his father, and some days were better than others, but it was painful to watch. Probably even more painful to bear. Unlike the tales he’d heard of his Great Uncle, who’d been mad as a hatter and happy that way, his mother—or some small piece of her—seemed to know when she wasn’t making sense. Only she couldn’t figure out why. Which made it doubly hard.
Graeme believed himself entirely sane, but how could he be sure the propensity toward madness did not lurk somewhere within his blood? Such things were said to run in families, and his family had already seen its share. Everyone knew red hair often skipped a generation. What about insanity?
If he fathered a child with a woman he knew to be mad, no matter how normal she seemed most of the time…the risk was simply too great. He couldn’t bear the guilt of knowingly causing the pain that child would experience.
And yet, seeing Charity standing there, he could not turn her away.
She followed him into the study and settled herself in a large chair opposite his desk. She curled her feet under her, looking for all the world like an innocent child.
Graeme opened the ledger book to the most recent accounts. Mentally, he added numbers, but they meant nothing to him. Instead he counted every breath she took, every slight shift of position.
His home, his kingdom, even the vast space of the highlands seemed to close in on him, crushing his very lungs. The happiest day of his life had been the day he married Charity. From the moment he’d met her, he’d been so certain that she was the one. That they belonged together. That their partnership was right. His conviction rooted deeper when he’d seen how Nathan took to her, as well as the staff at Leventhal House. He’d had everything he could possibly want. Except maybe a child of his own, and he’d planned to waste no time in that endeavor. Until now.
What was he doing? How had all his best plans, his good intentions, come to this?
How had he damned himself to be more alone than ever before?
He knew only too well, he could not stay here and not touch Charity. He hadn’t been able to keep from touching her from the moment they’d met. And knowing how touching lead to tasting, and tasting to lovemaking…
Graeme growled in frustration as his body grew hard with the direction of his thoughts. Yes, he had to leave. Soon.
Hell, it could already be too late.
As if summoned by the direction of his thoughts, a discreet knock at the door signaled the arrival of his driver, Tom Brevis.
“The coach is ready, me lord.”
He gave a nod. “Thank you.”
Graeme watched the door close again, then turned his g
aze to meet Charity’s injured one.
“You’re leaving.” She didn’t sound surprised. She didn’t sound hurt. She didn’t sound…anything.
Was he the one feeling it all? He cleared his throat. “For a time.”
She bit her bottom lip. “Because of—” She swallowed audibly. “Because of last night?”
He sighed.
“I can explain,” she offered. “Please. Let me tell you why that happened.”
He was tempted. Sorely. Instead he stood. The ledgers could wait. “I cannot do this. I need some space. Some time to think. I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you are,” she whispered. The sound barely escaped.
He heard it. He just couldn’t listen anymore. The crushing disappointment threatened to drown him, suck him down into delusions of his own…delusions where everything was fine, where he could make love to the beautiful creature before him without fear he was damning the futures of his unborn children.
His emotions were too raw, his brain too sleep-deprived, to discuss anything further. He raised one hand, palm up, in a helpless gesture, then shook his head and stepped from the room. He just needed time. And distance.
Charity watched as her husband’s shiny black coach pulled away from the drive and down the long lane to the main road. It would have been easier not to watch, perhaps, but she couldn’t help it.
Vise-like pain gripped her heart, squeezing until she couldn’t breathe through the ache.
Surely he would stop. He’d realize that this, too, was a kind of madness. Running from your problems didn’t make them go away. She should know. She was an expert at running.
He would turn back. Allow her to explain. Forgive her. Love her.
Help her.
Because the terrifying truth of it was, Charity feared her husband was right. She’d kept her secret out of fear that suitors, and then Graeme, would look at her and see a defiled creature, rather than a lady of unstained virtue. It was a good reason—especially when one’s husband was built of such noble character that a normal person could never hope to measure up. But that fear was not the one that gripped her now.
