Cast in Shadows

by Laura Landon

  He lifted a sheet of paper and held it with a firm grip. She noticed he’d written several notes in bold print.

  “I’ve tried to put myself in my mother’s place. I tried to remember how your father treated me when I first came here, then what you are suggesting I do now, compared to how Dr. Milton treated my mother.”

  “And?” Eve asked. “What have you discovered?”

  “I think he may have believed there was an outside force that affected her seizures. Just as you do.”

  Eve sat forward. Her pulse increased. It was startling to hear her suppositions verified. “What makes you think that?”

  “Dr. Milton instructed Mother to keep a journal of everything she did and ate, and to account for every minute of her day. Just as you have instructed me. He also wanted her to keep a list of anyone with whom she came into contact.”

  Gideon placed the papers in his lap and looked at her. “Dr. Milton also made a note that he had instructed Mother to keep a journal. Do you know where that might be?”

  Eve shook her head. “I’ve looked for it,” she said, “but haven’t found it yet. I have a few places yet to search. Shadowdown is a big place and I haven’t looked in every storage room.”

  Eve locked her gaze with his and saw a look of questioning concern in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “What has you puzzled?”

  Gideon hesitated a moment before he spoke. “Mother’s seizures.”

  “What about them?”

  “Nothing about the seizures themselves. They are almost identical to the seizures from which I suffer. The only difference is in how they started. She had been ill for a long while before she suffered from her first seizure. I was never ill. I was perfectly healthy one day, then suffered my first seizure the next.”

  Eve thought for a few moments. “It’s possible that was because she had a difficult time recovering from your birth. I can’t explain it, but according to her file, she retreated from life shortly after you were born. Even your father and your mother’s best friend, your stepmother, couldn’t bring her out of her melancholy. She was mentally much more fragile than you are. Or at least more fragile than you were at the time of your first seizure.”

  Gideon considered her explanation, then nodded. “That has to be the reason there’s a difference.”

  “Have you finished reading all of your mother’s files?”

  “Not all of them, but a good share.” He sifted through the papers on his lap and pulled out one in particular. “I found something interesting here that I—”

  Gideon froze. He clutched the papers in his fists, then dropped the crumpled wads to the floor. With an agonizing pain-filled moan, he rose to his feet, then doubled over, while pressing the heels of his hands against the sides of his head.

  “Gideon?”

  Eve looked at the papers on the floor, then lifted her gaze. Gideon’s closed his eyes tightly and twisted his body as if desperate to escape the pain. “Thomas! Come quickly!”

  Eve rose to her feet and took a step toward Gideon. She knew she should stay out of his reach, but she couldn’t bear to see him in such agony.

  “Gideon, sit down.”

  “Nooo!” he bellowed.

  His pain-ravaged voice shattered the peaceful quiet in the room and his movements became more frantic as he struggled to escape the pain.

  Eve saw him move, but the danger he presented didn’t register until it was too late. Before she could protect herself, his arm swung out and connected with her shoulder. She flew through the air as if she weighed nothing and slammed against the wall. Her head hit first, then the side of her face.

  Eve slid to the floor as a burst of bright lights flashed behind her closed eyelids.

  She struggled to regain consciousness. When she opened her eyes, Thomas was in the room and had wrestled Gideon to the floor. The blanket Thomas had thrown over him pinned Gideon’s arms to his sides and prevented Gideon from rising.

  “Are you able to go for help, Miss Cornwell?” Thomas rasped as he struggled to confine Gideon enough that he couldn’t rise.

  Without answering, Eve ran from the cottage. She needed help. Thomas needed help. He wouldn’t be able to manage Gideon for long. Thankfully, she met Matthew near the cottage.

  Eve tried to keep up with Matthew as he raced to help Thomas, but her shoulder and hip prevented her from running as fast. By the time she reached the cottage, she could barely see out of her left eye, and it was difficult to raise her arm above her waist. She knew by tomorrow she’d not only be black and blue, but stiff and sore.

  She rushed through the door and found Matthew and Thomas atop Gideon. His moans of anguish tore at her insides. He was in the throes of the most hideous torture imaginable. To see him thrash on the floor while two burly men held him captive pained her more greatly than she thought she could endure.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d seen patients strapped down in order to control them. But when that person was Gideon―her Gideon―the ache in her chest was as intense as any she’d ever experienced.

  Eve watched Gideon struggle against the men holding him down, as well as against the pain that ravaged him. With each cry of anguish that came from his powerful body, she felt herself moving closer to losing control of the tears that wanted to spill from her eyes and run down her cheeks. Although she didn’t think it could be possible, this attack seemed worse than the last.

  She watched as his chest physically rose and fell with each rapid beat of his heart. She watched his pulse beat in frantic rhythm at the base of his throat. She watched his torture-ravaged features turn even more anguished. And she knew that it was possible that he might not survive this seizure.

  She lowered her aching body to the nearest chair and gripped her hands in her lap. When the worst of the seizure was over and Gideon had calmed, the men would carry him to his room and place him on the bed. Then she could care for him. Then she would place cool cloths on his forehead and spoon wine-laced laudanum into him to ease the pain. Then she would work harder to figure out what had caused this latest seizure.

  How was it possible for someone so strong and powerful and in complete control of his body one moment to be rendered so helpless and pain-ravaged the next? There had to be a reason. There had to be something that caused these episodes.

  Eve reached down and picked up the papers he’d wadded in his fists then threw to the floor when his seizure started. She smoothed them out in her lap and read over what he’d been studying. Then she turned her gaze to the desk where he’d been working before she came. Several papers still lay scattered on the desktop, the notes he’d made still there beside them.

  She stiffly rose from her chair and walked across the room. She picked up the paper, then glanced at a plate with one remaining gingerbread cookie on it. She smiled. They were his favorite. He’d told her that when someone from Townsend Manor visited they nearly always brought cookies with them. He rationed them so they lasted several days, eating no more than two or three in one day.

  She brushed the cookie crumbs from his notes and carried the papers back to her chair.

  “He’s calming a bit, Miss Cornwell,” Thomas said. “At least his heart’s slowing down.”

  “Good,” Eve sighed. “Can you carry him to his room yet?”

  Matthew and Thomas both shook their heads in the negative. “Not yet, miss. It’s still too dangerous to release him.”

  Eve nodded, then sat down to read his notes. The last line referred to what he’d read from his mother’s files. It described the seizures she’d suffered, the ones so similar to the one Gideon had just endured.

  Below it was one line, written in Gideon’s familiar bold script:

  Mother described the last seizure she had before her death. It mirrored my last seizure. I pray Eve finds the reason these are happening – soon.

  . . .

  Several hours passed before Thomas and Matthew were able to carry Gideon to his room. When he was settled, she sat at Gideon
’s bedside while he slept, although she could hardly call what he did ‘sleep’. He struggled relentlessly to free his arms and legs from the straps that bound him to the sides of the bed. The sight of him as he fought to find relief from the pain was almost more than she could bear.

  Thomas and Matthew still stood guard inside the room. They wouldn’t leave until Gideon was calm. Until he fell asleep and was no longer a threat to anyone—especially to her. Eve prayed that would happen soon.

  “I think the worst is over,” Thomas said, checking the straps that held Gideon from moving.

  Eve moved to the bed as fast as her aching body would allow and placed her fingers against the rapid pounding of his pulse at the base of his throat. The drumming of his heart had slowed. That was a good sign.

  She rinsed a cloth in cool water and placed it across his forehead. He didn’t fight her this time, but lay still as she moved the cloth from his forehead to his right cheek, then his left. Then, in a move that might be foolishness, she lifted his hand and placed her palm against his.

  He clasped her fingers. Not hard in a crushing grip, but firmly, as if he needed the feel of another person’s touch. As if she was a lifeline that he needed to connect him to a world that wasn’t filled with pain and agony and the hell he’d just endured.

  Eve rubbed her thumb in gentle circles against the top of his hand, hoping he found her movement comforting. He must have because little by little his breathing slowed and his agitation calmed.

  “You can leave now,” she said, lifting her gaze, then giving Thomas and Matthew a nod.

  “Are you sure, Miss Cornwell?” Thomas asked. “Perhaps we should go for your father. He might want to check to make sure you aren’t hurt.”

  “I’m fine. Just some bruises.”

  “Dr. Cornwell won’t be pleased that you didn’t send for him.”

  Eve smiled. “He may not be pleased, but at least he’ll get a good night’s sleep. I’ll talk to him in the morning. Besides, we all know there’s nothing to be done for bruises.”

  “That’s true enough,” Matthew said, “but I think your father would want one of us to stay.”

  She lowered her gaze to where Gideon lay. “Lord Sheffield has gone to sleep, and will likely stay asleep until late in the day tomorrow. I’ll be fine. If we wake Dr. Cornwell now, he’ll just worry, as he’s prone to do.”

  Both men smiled. “That he is,” Thomas said. “Especially where you’re concerned.”

  “Go,” she ordered again. “Get some sleep before you have to return.”

  “If you say so, miss,” Matthew said, then the two men turned and left.

  Eve waited until she heard the front door close, then sat on the bed beside Gideon. She brushed a lock of dark hair from his forehead, but did not remove her hand when the lock was back in place.

  She knew she shouldn’t touch him so, but she couldn’t help it. He was the epitome of physical strength and power―when he wasn’t brought low by one of his seizures. He had the carriage and the stature of a future duke―when he wasn’t debilitated by the pain that consumed him. He had the bearing of competence and command―when he wasn’t incapacitated by one of his attacks. She’d never met anyone she admired and respected more than him. Had never been drawn to anyone like she was drawn to him.

  She moved her hand to his cheek. His dark stubble pricked her tender flesh, but instead of repelling her, the feel of it was a reminder of his strength, his resilience. Of the courage he found every day to continue with his life. Of his determination to discover why he was plagued with such an affliction.

  Without intending to allow her emotions to come to the surface, her eyes filled with tears she couldn’t stop from flowing.

  She cared for him, and more than anything, wanted to find a way to heal him. But what if she was wrong? What if there wasn’t an outside cause of his seizures and her assumption had only given him false hope? What if there was nothing that could be done for him and he was condemned to suffer one attack after another…until one was severe enough to take his life?

  She didn’t want to consider that possibility. There had to be something. She couldn’t allow him to die.

  The empty void he would leave in her heart would be unbearable.

  CHAPTER 9

  Gideon woke to a pounding ache in his head as well as a stiffness in his arms, legs, and torso. He knew he must have put up quite a struggle yesterday, and that Thomas and Matthew had had to use more force than usual to confine him.

  He lowered his gaze to the straps that bound his arms and legs. The unrelenting pain in his head was evidence that this seizure had been the worst so far. The fact that he was still strapped to the bed was more evidence. Someone would have released the straps before now if they thought it was safe to free him.

  He closed his eyes and tried to remember where he’d been when the seizure started, and what he’d been doing. He remembered he’d been reading his mother’s files. He’d discovered that Dr. Milton had thought her seizures might have been caused by something she’d eaten, or something with which she’d come into contact. He remembered discussing that possibility with Eve when she’d come and—

  His eyes snapped open and he looked around the room. She’d been here when the attack started. She’d been alone with him. What if he’d hurt her? What if she couldn’t escape his violence? What if—

  An intense rush of panic engulfed him. It stole his breath and turned his blood to ice. He pulled on the cords that confined him to the bed as if there was a chance he could free himself. There wasn’t.

  He scanned the room again, hoping she was somewhere in the room and he’d just missed her, but he hadn’t. She wasn’t there.

  “Eve!”

  His heart pounded in his chest and he struggled to free himself with more desperation. “Eve!”

  He hadn’t heard her, but she suddenly appeared in the doorway. The relief that surged through him was indescribable. The delight he experienced couldn’t be explained. He was afraid he’d hurt her. Somewhere in the back of his mind he imagined he might have hit her, or pushed her. Or struck her so hard she’d slammed against the wall. But she was here. She seemed unharmed. Except…

  He looked at the unnatural turn of her head, as if she was trying to hide something from him. She didn’t look directly at him. Nor did she lift her head so he could get a clear look at her face.

  She rushed into the room. “I’m here, Gideon.” She reached into the pocket of the peach striped dress she wore and retrieved the key to the lock that held the straps.

  She still hadn’t looked at him. She hadn’t lifted her head so he could get a clear look at her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as she worked the locks that bound his legs. “I wanted to have tea ready. I didn’t realize you were awake.” She rushed to the other side of the bed and inserted the key into the lock at his wrist. The angle in which she stood was awkward and unnatural. “Just lie still,” she said, keeping her head lowered. “I’ll get you something to ease the pain as soon as I have you free.”

  Instead of walking around the bed to free the lock on his other arm―which would have exposed the left side of her face―she reached across the bed and inserted the key.

  “Eve, look at me.”

  She didn’t exactly ignore him as she tilted her head ever so slightly. But she didn’t turn her head enough that he could see the left side of her face. Only the right.

  “Thomas is outside,” she said. “Would you like me to get him for you?”

  When she spoke, he noticed a slight tremor in her voice. Something was wrong. She wasn’t afraid of him. That was clear. But she was avoiding him. As if she wanted to hide something from him.

  “What I’d like,” he said in a louder voice than he’d intended, “is for you to look at me.”

  She released the last lock and took a step away from him. “I am looking at you.”

  Gideon swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “No, you’re not!” He p
ressed the heels of his hands against his temples. The pain was intense. Yelling didn’t help. “You’re not looking at me, Eve. You’re avoiding letting me see you. Turn your head. I want to see the other side of your face.”

  “There’s no need for you to see it, Gideon. It’s nothing, really. It looks worse than it is.”

  “Then let me see it!”

  She lifted her shoulders in stoic submission and slowly turned to face him.

  The left side of her face beneath her cheekbone was swollen and already an ugly black and purple, and her eye was nearly swollen shut. She held her arm to her side as if it hurt to move it.

  A painful knot formed in his gut that refused to ease. “Where else are you injured, other than your face?”

  “No place. I’m not—”

  “Don’t! Where else?”

  She lowered her gaze. “My left shoulder and hip.”

  “Bloody hell!” he bellowed as loudly as he could. He was thankful those were the strongest words that came from his mouth. He wanted to use the most vile words he knew, except he wanted those words directed at himself. Not at her.

  He was lucky she hadn’t been hurt worse. He could have broken every bone in her body.

  He could have shattered her skull.

  He could have killed her.

  That possibility was more than he could bear to consider. “I want you to leave here and not come back.”

  “No! I—”

  “You heard me. You’re not safe here with me. No one is safe with me. I deserve to be locked up where I can’t hurt anyone.” Gideon rose from the bed and staggered across the room. He collapsed onto the chair behind the desk and propped his forearms on his thighs. “Leave, Eve! Now!”

  He dropped his head to his hands and didn’t move for several long minutes. He prayed that if he ignored her she’d give up and leave, but he should have known she wouldn’t. He listened, but didn’t hear her move. Finally, she spoke.

  “Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?” she asked in a soft, commanding voice.

  He slowly raised his head, ashamed that she would see the tears that filled his eyes and streamed down his cheeks. “I could have killed you,” he said, swallowing past the lump in his throat.