Tightening his arms around her, he answered her with silence.
Chapter 28
He wasn’t hiding from his new wife, not precisely. At least that’s what he tried to convince himself of as he used the protective slab of his desk to shield against anyone who entered the library.
Hours before, he had left Lizbeth sleeping in the bedchamber and headed directly to the library without breaking his fast. The full moon had come and gone, marking their third week of matrimony. The first week, oh, that first blissful week, he had slept better than he ever had in his life. He felt safe with her by his side, as though he were embarking on a new life as a new person without his regrets, without blood on his hands.
And then came the second week. The nightmares returned during the second week, leaving him exhausted each morning, embarrassed and guilty for disturbing her slumber and drenching the bed with sweat. As forgiving as she had been thus far, as eternally understanding, she must be growing tired of the constant change of sheets and sleepless nights. No woman was infinitely patient.
The pattern set in that second week. Nightmares haunting his nights, each night fiercer, and Lizbeth questioning him every morning, probing him as to what terrorized him. Every day the same pattern. Sleepless night followed by morning inquisition. For how much longer he could live like this, he was unsure.
Soon she would insist on knowing his dreams, something he couldn’t confess to her, not if he wanted to hold their marriage intact, which he desperately wanted to do. For the first time in three weeks, he wished there were a lady’s chamber.
But what alternative did he have to the present situation? Now that she had soothed him from the night terrors, he didn’t know how he could ever sleep without her by his side, which was unfair to her. But no one had ever caressed him back to sleep, gentle hands stroking him until he dozed dreamlessly, her body a barrier against his warped memories.
The thought of sleeping without her brought a new kind of terror to his waking moments. Such was selfishness. The same selfishness that convinced him to marry her. The same selfishness that destroyed two lives so many years ago. He had to stop being selfish. He had to push Lizbeth away for her own good.
His heart splintered inside its steel trap. Although he knew it wouldn’t be possible to sleep soundly without her, he needed to push her away. She never signed up to play nursemaid. From the moment he first saw her, he had feared this would happen. For so long he had resisted marrying her from that fear. But somewhere along the way, he convinced himself she could take the terror away, shield him against the memories, distract him from his past. Instead, he pulled her into his torment.
Marrying her had been the wrong decision. No, that wasn’t accurate. He wanted her, still wanted her, would always want her. He felt alive with her, but how cruel to drag her into his world and shackle her to him. She deserved better than him.
It wasn’t as if he could talk to her about his demons, and he certainly didn’t want to doom her to sleepless nights forever. No, this was his cross to bear. He knew her eyes would turn to judgment, loathing, even disgust if he gave into her unspoken pleas and told her what kind of man he really was.
He couldn’t even face the worried and compassionate eyes, eyes that implored him to let her in, eyes that plagued his conscience as much as the dreams agonized his nights. Avoiding eye contact was becoming routine.
There was an alternative, of course. He could tell her. Tell her and be done with it. Could she accept him if she knew the truth? Could she accept the worthlessness he represented? And could he live with her knowing she would side with his father in the end? His greatest fear would never be put to rest if he didn’t test her, but that fear being realized by her rejection halted any desire to reveal his past.
Even knowing what he was, he preferred living vicariously in the image she painted of him. Having her see him as the villain and hate him for it would be his undoing. He couldn’t live with that pain. He could barely live knowing himself the villain. As long as she kept the heroic image of him, he had hope.
How had they come to this, and after barely a month of marriage? Couldn’t his subconscious have given them a year? Two even? Only a few weeks before, he had experienced a new confidence because of her. How had they come to this? As deeply as he loved her, he shouldn’t have married her. He should have let her go when he left London.
To distract himself, he pushed himself away from the desk and headed for the stairs to the catwalk. He didn’t care what he read, anything to keep from thinking of Lizbeth, of his past, of his world slipping through his fingers.
A hand on the wooden railing, he halted, eyes focused on the shelf with his father’s books.
An empty place in the shelf glared at him. Two of the journals were missing. Two of his father’s travel journals.
Rage filled him, his hand gripping the handrail. He should set a fire in the hearth and burn them all now, find the two she had taken and throw them on the pyre. How could she disobey his order not to touch the journals? How dare she? She would dig too deeply. She would dig until she discovered the truth.
Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone? Her subtle coaxing for him to open to her as part of healing was one thing, but thievery was a new blow, a personal violation, a slap in his face. His past was his to tell, his to hide. How dare she try to force it by digging into his father’s things?
Although he’d never opened a single journal himself, that didn’t sooth the rage of her taking them after explicitly being told not to read them. His father could have written about what happened. He couldn’t be sure. It was bad enough having to live with his mistakes. He couldn’t bear to verbalize them. If the journals revealed anything, he would have little choice but to confess all.
Damnation.
To hell with this tiptoeing. He strode across the library to the door, fuming.
The only option was to tell her himself before she read about it. He would bare his soul, show her his darkness, show her the monster beneath the flesh. She wouldn’t be so understanding once she learned he had destroyed lives, no better than a murderer, had even destroyed the life of his father in the aftermath of his selfishness.
No, he rationalized, his hand on the door knob. Confessing wouldn’t do either of them any favors. To hell with the journals. His only hope was to shield himself from her. If she knew the kind of man she married, she may not be able to live with herself. He needed to strategize. He couldn’t salvage their marriage, but if he could protect her from the truth, he could save her the heartache of knowing him a villain.
He had to create distance. Nothing mattered except her. His love for her ran so deeply he couldn’t bear for her to turn away from him, for her to reject him, for those loving eyes to harden against him into hate and in doing so hate herself for loving him. Nothing mattered except her.
Chapter 29
Lizbeth watched the castle disappear behind a hill, the carriage swaying to and fro, taking her away from the gloom. She couldn’t stay with him a minute longer.
Today marked their one-month anniversary. She had barely seen Sebastian for two weeks. His blatant avoidance of her couldn’t be more obvious compared to the obsessive togetherness they shared the first two weeks of marriage.
He had been playful, seductive, passionate, sensual. He had been the Sebastian she fell in love with. And then the past two weeks happened. Just as in London, he changed his tune at a flip of a coin, turning from affection to dismissive without cause or explanation. For two weeks, she had slept in their bed alone, and he had spent increasingly more time in the library working on estate business without including her, wishing not to be disturbed.
His side of the bed remained crisp each morning. Not once had she been awakened by his desire for midnight lovemaking. Not once had she been awakened by his nightmares. Not once had he invited her for an evening of star gazing and ocean swimming.
When they shared meals, rarer with each passing day, he acted reserved, his laugh empty, strained, his eyes stormy. His body showed signs of wear, his face drawn, lined across his brow, dark circles shadowing bloodshot eyes.
She felt him slipping away. If she couldn’t find a way to anchor him, she would lose him.
Was this how Guinevere felt when Arthur fought battles? How Penelope suffered when Odysseus left? Did those women feel abandoned while their husband battled demons?
She would never have thought this before, as she loved him above all things in heaven and on earth, but maybe marrying him had been a mistake.
Somewhere along the way, she had failed to tear down his walls, failed to love him enough, failed to earn his trust. This was the kind of marriage she had always feared, the type of marriage she knew she couldn’t live with for long. She would not live in a shadow, ignored while the man went about his business, living a separate life.
Sebastian had always needed time to communicate. She was determined to give him that time. She would grant him space and show him support in other ways until he was ready to talk, but if he didn’t do so soon, she would have no choice but to confront him or leave. She refused to live like this. She refused to live in a house with a man who wouldn’t even look at her, who hid in his library day in and day out.
After the wedding night when he cried in her arms, she thought they had made headway in breaking through his barriers. Now she realized she had merely mounted the curtain wall, still to face the inner wall’s defenses. If she could fight her way through the portcullis, she would find his heart, but how? Her love wasn’t enough. Her love couldn’t conquer all.
Oh, how helpless she felt. Being independent of mind meant never asking for help, never allowing others to control the situation, never being a victim of circumstance. And yet, she felt helpless.
If she couldn’t save him, the least she could do was remove herself from the equation, at least temporarily.
And so, she headed to Lyonn Manor, the coachman happy to oblige his new mistress. Charlotte would be the last person to console her over a failing marriage given Charlotte’s own troubled marriage, not to mention her dislike of Sebastian, but to whom else was Liz to turn?
Lizbeth felt a rush of relief at the sight of Lyonn Manor. Had this been Charlotte’s reaction to see the coach arrive with Liz and Aunt Hazel? Charlotte knew what it was like to be ignored. Although Lizbeth suspected her sister’s method for distraction was different from her own. Her sister favored entertaining and socializing. Liz, quite the opposite, slid further into her books as a means of escape.
The travel journals had served for reading material. Five down, ten to go. They weren’t exceptionally interesting, she admitted. Lord Roddam accounted for his daily activities but said little about scenery or customs. Bored already, she should stop reading them, but she kept hoping for a glimpse of the man, for some mention of his family, a sliver of a word about his son.
When the carriage pulled into the circle drive, Liz spotted right away the ducal coach awaiting her arrival. A boy greeted the coachman to show him to the stables, and her least favorite thin-lipped butler anticipated her at the door.
He showed her to the parlor and promised to ascertain if her sister was receiving. She rolled her eyes when he left the room, as he knew perfectly well Charlotte expected her and that the carriage waited outside for them.
Her immediate relief waned at the interaction with the butler, so different from Gerald. How depressing to feel homesick so soon. She’d only just left. But so different was her life from Charlotte’s.
She tried to imagine Annick and Charlotte sitting at the dining table in undress with bare feet and open collars. Or sharing a joke with the housekeeper who had to order the changing of bedsheets for the third time in the same day from lovemaking. She even imagined the stern butler catching them coupling on the stairs midday.
A laugh caught in her throat, only stopped by the heartbreak. Oh, Sebastian.
Squawk.
“Oh, hello, Captain Henry!” She looked up to spy the cockatoo standing expectantly on a branch of his tree. Walking over to him, she scratched his outstretched neck. “I apologize for woolgathering. My husband is a nincompoop, you see.”
Captain Henry laughed and bobbed his head.
The parlor door opened with a high-pitched squeal. “Lizbeth!”
Before Liz turned to the door, a flash of muslin and silk rushed her, embracing her in a vice-like hug.
“Lizbeth! You’re here!” More hugging. More squeezing. More squealing. “You live nigh fifteen miles, yet I haven’t seen you in a month!”
“I’ve been honeymooning, you might recall.”
“Oh. That. Well, yes, I suppose. But today is our day! I’m beyond excited. I haven’t been to the village we’ll visit today, but the shopping is said to be the best in Northumberland.” Charlotte bubbled with glee.
It took over an hour to reach the village in question, but Lizbeth enjoyed her sister’s company for the duration, a refreshing change of pace from Sebastian’s silence. She never thought she’d find her Charlotte’s conversation enjoyable, but at this point, any interaction was better than no interaction.
The village bustled with activity and, as Charlotte promised, an abundance of shops. After two shops, at which Charlotte bought items indiscriminately, they came upon a tearoom with a sizable garden and courtyard.
“I’m parched, Charlotte. Shall we take tea? It’ll provide a perfect opportunity to talk,” Liz said, one foot already inside the threshold.
Charlotte wrinkled her nose and raised her chin. “It is not fashionable to take tea so early. They’d think us common.”
“No one could think you common, and I don’t see why we can’t take tea any time we want.” Lizbeth stepped her other foot across the threshold, staring down her sister.
“You have much to learn of your new station, Lizbeth. You’re a countess now. Follow my lead. Tea this early is not done. Now, in one of these shops, there is a reputable modiste with whom I’m eager to talk. Come.” Charlotte snapped her fingers.
Liz crossed her arms, readying for battle. “Charlotte, if you don’t walk into this tearoom and have a cuppa with me right now, I’m going to steal a horse and ride all the way to Dunstanburgh. And I won’t ride side-saddle.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Liz nodded.
“Very well.” Charlotte huffed in defeat.
The small crowd inside turned in curious awe as they entered. While her own dress was plain, Charlotte’s emulation of haughty nobility was startling. If Charlotte weren’t careful, Liz suspected, she would become her mother-in-law.
They took a table in the garden away from the other guests. A young miss full of smiles and curtsies inquired if they’d like high tea or low tea. Charlotte scoffed at both options, saying no establishment should serve either before four in the afternoon. Cream tea, please.
Lizbeth wanted to hide under the table for the scolding the poor girl suffered. When had her sister become such a snot?
Brow-beaten but still curtseying, the young miss returned with a plate of cakes and tea.
Liz nibbled at the delicious cakes. “What are these, Charlotte?”
“Madeleines. They’re all the rage in Paris.”
She doubted anything was all the rage in Paris other than people and politics, but if Charlotte wanted to pretend to be in-the-know with fashionable foods on the continent, so be it. The cakes were delicious, wherever they were from.
“How is Annick? Are the two of you faring better?” Liz asked cautiously.
“Never better. We’ve come to an understanding, as it were,” Charlotte answered, adding a dab of milk to her cup. “This tea isn’t bad, although a touch over steeped.”
Come to an understanding? Never better? Either Charlotte p
urposely evaded the question or the two had resolved their differences. Charlotte’s affect was indiscernible.
Charlotte returned the question. “And you? Have you enjoyed your honeymoon with that brute? You know, when you come to your senses, you can move in with me. Wouldn’t that be delightful?”
Ignoring her rudeness and her offer, Liz replied, “My honeymoon has been a dream come true, thank you very much.” A half-truth, not exactly a lie. It had been a dream come true.
“What’s it like living there? I don’t know how you can stand it with all those dreadful seagulls and wind. And can you stomach seeing that vulgar art every day? I’d have it all taken down if I were you. Utterly distasteful. He needs to understand he’s no longer a bachelor and cannot display that in his home if he expects to entertain.”
Leaning in conspiratorially, Charlotte said sotto voce, “Drake tells me his cousin spent an unbelievable fortune on that pile of rocks. Because he doesn’t have perfectly livable estates elsewhere? I don’t know how you tolerate it.” Charlotte took another sip of her tea. “Still, there is a kind of rustic beauty, I suppose. A well-manicured garden could improve it by leaps and bounds.”
Always a tad prissy, Charlotte had rarely been prone to open criticism. Liz didn’t care for her sister’s transformation into this frosty beast. She really was turning into her mother-in-law.
Liz countered, “I love the castle, especially the landscape, seagulls, and art. I wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else, and certainly not a stuffy estate.”
“You always were eccentric.” The corner of Charlotte’s mouth twitched as if to smile. “I almost envy you, you know. I always have.” She tucked the almost-smile behind pursued lips and hardened her eyes, a steely duchess.
The Earl and The Enchantress (An Enchantress Novel Book 1) Page 27
