His Saving Grace

by Sharon Cullen

  “It’s more than not remembering.” He ran a hand through his hair in agitation. “Inside, I’m different. I can’t explain how, but I don’t recognize myself anymore. It’s like I’m living with a stranger.”

  Her brows furrowed in confusion, and he knew he wasn’t explaining himself well enough.

  “Do you remember our first dance?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember our conversation after?”

  She smiled. “Yes. We laughed a lot.”

  “Exactly. The man from back then is not the same man standing before you today. I can’t laugh anymore. There is no laughter inside me.”

  “Perhaps because you’ve had little to laugh about.”

  “You are being obtuse.”

  “I’m being stubborn, because I refuse to give up on you as you have given up on yourself.”

  Was that what he had done? Given up on himself? He’d never thought of it in that way. But no matter what she thought, he knew he wasn’t going to change her mind now. In time she would understand.

  “What else is there?” she asked, tilting her chin up as if preparing to take another blow. This was what his return had done to her, made her a soldier willing to go to battle.

  He wasn’t telling her the rest. About the demons that haunted him in the deep of night, the dark thoughts that plagued him incessantly. That was not something he could tell her.

  When he didn’t answer, her chin lowered a notch and wariness entered her eyes.

  “Are you…” She licked her lips and he tensed, waiting for whatever she didn’t want to say. “Are your faculties diminished?”

  He winced but understood her need to ask. “Do you mean am I simple? No. Whatever intellect I had before seems to be intact, unless I am searching for a word that has escaped me.”

  “So, to sum it up, at times your memory fails you, and you are prone to anger.”

  Putting it that way made it seem not as serious, but it was serious, and she would soon find out how much. “Running the earldom will be difficult. And Parliament…I do not even want to think about that right now, but soon I will have to take my place in Parliament. Then there are the headaches that come and go irregularly. How am I to have a schedule if there are days when I am incapacitated?”

  He could see that she was beginning to understand his predicament. “Grace, I need you to help me hide this from society.”

  Her eyes widened. “Hide this from society? Michael—”

  “People will talk. They’ll question. They’ll think I’m not fit for the duties of an earl. I can’t let that happen.”

  “No they—”

  “Yes. They will.”

  She pressed her lips together and he could see the truth in her eyes. She agreed. People would question him. “What about the doctor in London?”

  “No more doctors.”

  “But what if he can heal you?”

  He looked her in the eye and forced himself to be brutally honest. “No one can heal me. You need to know that I’ll never be the man I was.”

  Chapter Seven

  Grace sat on the bench in her garden, staring at a purple and yellow peony. Last night, sitting in the hallway, she’d been numb. That numbness had been a protection from the emotions that threatened to batter her.

  This morning the numbness had given way to overpowering fear that had turned to anger. She had been furious at Michael for pushing her away and for preferring Tarik over her.

  Now? The numbness had returned. She’d wanted to know what was wrong with Michael, but this…This was far different than anything she had imagined in the cold hours of the morning.

  Far different and, in some ways, far worse.

  She’d read of the horrible conditions of the Crimean War. Disease had taken more lives than the actual fighting, so she’d imagined Michael with a deadly disease. She’d imagined a hundred other things, but not this.

  His brain was injured.

  She had no idea what that meant and, worse, no idea how to help him.

  A large shadow descended over her, and to her surprise, Tarik sat beside her.

  “You were right,” she said. “It’s a story only he could have told me.”

  “I’m glad he did.”

  “Did he suffer much?”

  “Yes.” No pause, no mincing his words. She liked his honesty, even if it pained her. “He still suffers.”

  She ran her fingers over the rough stone of the bench. “I don’t know how to help him, Tarik. I don’t know what to do for him. I’m…lost.”

  “You will find your way.”

  “That’s not the answer I was hoping for.”

  Tarik turned to face her. “You are lost? What do you think he feels like?”

  She looked away, embarrassed at her selfishness. She’d been thinking about herself, about how she was going to honor his request and keep the news from society. She had not stopped to think about Michael.

  “We’re all lost in this,” Tarik said. “Michael most of all.”

  “Forgive me,” she whispered.

  “There is nothing to forgive. You two have to find your way, and only you and Michael will know what that way is.”

  Grace looked at him for a long moment, seeing him in a new light, as an ally rather than an enemy. “Tell me, Tarik. How did you come to be with my husband?”

  He grinned. “You are wise, my lady, asking for my story.”

  “It is your story to tell.”

  “That it is.”

  “Are you going to tell it?”

  “I was at the same battle as his lordship.”

  When Michael was ordered to fight in the Crimean War, Grace had made an effort to learn about the place he would be sent to. She knew that England was siding with France to fight against Russia over land in the Ottoman Empire. She even knew where Crimea was, and she’d followed the reports from the reporters and photographers on the battlefields. With the invention of the electric telegraph, England was receiving updates as little as days after the battles. It was a new world, in which information was more immediate, and Grace had soaked it up.

  “I am a Cossack,” Tarik said. “My people fight for the Russians when they need us, but we are not Russian. We were asked to fight in the Crimea, and I went. I found his lordship after his troops had left the area.” He paused and looked into the distance. “He had been left for dead and was lying among the dead.”

  Grace’s fingers tightened around the stone bench as she thought of Michael on the ground, alive and left behind to die. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For saving him.”

  “I could not let him die, but to bring him to my camp would not have been wise, either. So I made a different camp, and we went into hiding.”

  “You left your people for a stranger?”

  Tarik shrugged. “I did not enjoy fighting for the Russians.”

  “You have no family?”

  He looked down at his boots. “My family is dead, killed by the very Russians I was fighting for.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She was intimately familiar with the pain that swept across his face, and her heart went out to him. At the same time she knew there was more to his story and that he was reluctant to tell it. She understood that as well. Sometimes it was easier to keep pain inside than to express it in inadequate words.

  “When he first awoke, he only remembered his Christian name,” Tarik said. “Later he remembered his last name and his title. But he always remembered you. He would call out for you in the night.”

  Grace covered her trembling lips with her hand. Michael had needed her, called out for her, and she hadn’t been there for him. She hadn’t even known he was alive. How was that possible? Her love for him was so deep that she should have known he was not dead. “If I had known, I would have come to him.” She would have moved heaven and earth for him.

  “He suffered greatly. Besides the injury to the head, he had a high fever for days. When he finally awoke, he could not walk, cou
ld not dress himself or feed himself. His words were jumbled and made no sense. Eventually, he learned to walk again and to take care of himself. The words came easier. He still has problems remembering simple things.”

  Grace blinked back tears and concentrated on the blurred outline of the peony. “He wants to hide his injuries from society. I don’t know if that’s possible.”

  “I know little about your world. Only what he has told me.”

  “How do I do this, Tarik?” The task seemed impossible, helping Michael, keeping this from everyone around them. She was a simple woman who could run a house and its servants and plan a yearly festival. She was no nurse, had taken care of only a small kitten whose mother had abandoned it, and that had been when she was young.

  “There is a strength inside all of us,” Tarik said. “You only have to dig deep to find it. Once you find it, you can do almost anything.”

  “My lady! My lady!” Ida came hurrying down the path. “You must come at once.”

  Grace jumped to her feet. “What is it, Ida? What has happened?”

  “It’s his lordship. Hurry, please!” Ida turned around and ran back to the house.

  Grace looked at Tarik, then took off after Ida, fear propelling her forward. Tarik’s boots pounded behind her. Did “his lordship” refer to Michael or Nigel? If Nigel were here…

  She reached the house and ran through the kitchen after Ida, who hadn’t slowed to explain what was happening. Had Michael suffered another headache? Or something worse?

  What she found stopped her in her tracks and nearly stopped her heart as well.

  Nigel wasn’t in her drawing room. Michael wasn’t lying on the floor in pain or unconscious. He was standing in the middle of the sitting room, facing Sir Clayton Timmons.

  Timmons’s gaze slid from Michael to Grace.

  “Sir Timmons,” Grace said, moving into the room. She had not prepared for this. Had not given Timmons much thought at all, and now that she was faced with her two worlds colliding, she had no idea what to do.

  The silence was thick with tension.

  Grace stepped up beside Michael. “Michael, you remember Sir Clayton Timmons, don’t you?”

  A few beats of silence passed before Michael said, “Of course. Sir Timmons. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  Clayton inclined his head. “My lord. What a surprise.” His accusing gaze flicked to Grace, who flinched.

  She turned to Michael. “I know this is unusual, but could you excuse us for a moment? I need to speak to Sir Timmons.”

  Michael’s shoulders snapped taut. His expression went from polite indifference to heated anger. He walked out of the room, brushing past Tarik, who was standing in the doorway taking in the scene.

  Grace met Tarik’s bland look before hers slid away and Tarik turned on his heel, leaving her alone with Clayton.

  He stared at her for a long moment before he spoke. “So when did his lordship return from the dead?”

  “Two days ago. Or rather, he returned home two days ago. He was never dead.” Her voice trailed away at the thought that it wasn’t necessary to speak the obvious.

  His lips thinned and he nodded. There was no winner in this situation and no easy resolution.

  She folded her hands in front of her. “Michael wanted some time to acclimate. He asked me not to tell anyone.” It was a weak excuse, and they both knew it. If she had asked him to, Clayton would not have said anything to anyone.

  “Nevertheless, don’t you think I deserved to know?”

  “I apologize, Clayton, I truly do. I should have told you right away. It was wrong of me, and I know my apology means little.”

  “I feared you had no feelings for me, and this proves it.”

  “That’s not true. I admire you and I respect you. We would have had a comfortable life.”

  He barked out an incredulous laugh. “Comfortable? That’s what you were looking forward to? Comfortable?”

  “Clayton, I love Michael,” she said softly. “I always have.”

  “And you never would have loved me.” His tone was flat, leaving no room for denials, even though she would never humiliate him more by denying his accusation.

  She shouldn’t have agreed to marry him. She should have fought Nigel harder. She realized that she had been wrong to let Clayton believe her feelings were more than they were and would never be enough. She’d wronged him and almost subjected him to a lifetime of “comfortable” when he deserved far more.

  She wanted to tell him everything. That she’d been lonely. That she’d simply wanted someone to talk to in the evening. But that would only make things worse.

  “Goodbye, Grace.”

  There was no reason to prolong the agony and nothing else she could say would make it better. She wanted to apologize again, but to what end? She’d still hurt him.

  “Goodbye, Clayton.”

  She stood in the middle of the room, all alone, just like she’d feared she would be, and listened to him walk out of the house. He didn’t slam the door, because Clayton wasn’t that kind of man.

  She’d hurt him, but not because Michael had returned. Because she hadn’t held any strong feelings for him. She felt like the worst sort of person, dishonest and disrespectful.

  “What was that all about?” Michael stood in the doorway and stared at her in such a cold way that it made her shiver.

  Grace ran her hands down her skirts in agitation. “Clayton and I…” She didn’t think it possible, but she felt even worse. As if she had betrayed Michael because she hadn’t waited even the requisite year to mourn his death.

  “I see.”

  “No. You don’t see. Clayton and I were engaged to be married in a few weeks, but it’s not what it seems.”

  “You certainly didn’t waste time, did you, Grace?”

  She winced. “I had no choice.”

  “This isn’t the Middle Ages. Women aren’t bought and sold anymore.”

  “Nigel arranged our marriage.”

  He shot her a skeptical look. “And you weren’t allowed to say no?”

  She remained silent. How did one explain the crushing loneliness? The bitter grief? How could she explain that it had nothing to do with leaving Michael but escaping herself?

  “Damnation, Grace.”

  “I don’t love him.”

  Michael shook his head and walked out of the room. Grace was rooted to the spot, wanting to go after him but afraid to. She’d hurt two good men with her foolish and selfish actions. She could blame Nigel, but Nigel wasn’t completely to blame.

  “He likes to walk.”

  Grace jerked her head up to find Tarik standing in the doorway.

  “A doctor in France told him to exercise his legs, so he walks. I think he likes to because for a long time he couldn’t and because it’s quiet enough for him to think.”

  “I hurt him, Tarik.”

  “There will be plenty of hurt all around before all is over and done with.”

  “Are you saying I should go to him?”

  Tarik turned and walked away. What a strange man, and yet Grace was beginning to appreciate his presence. She took a deep breath and hurried to catch up to Michael, who had made his way surprisingly far down the road.

  He didn’t acknowledge her when she fell into step beside him. He kept walking, the tap of his cane and the crunch of his boots on the gravel the only sounds to break the silence.

  “Not many people travel this road, but there is a chance someone will see you,” she said.

  “I think my secret is soon to be out anyway. Now that Lady Sara and Sir Timmons have seen me.”

  “They won’t say anything.”

  “It’s time. It was selfish of me to think I could hide here for long.”

  “Nigel won’t be happy.”

  “It seems Nigel is not the only one.”

  “You’re referring to Sir Timmons. I was lonely, Michael. I know that isn’t a good excuse to marry someone, and it wasn’t fair to Clayton,
but I don’t love him. I love you.”

  She endured about a dozen more taps of the cane as they meandered down the middle of the lane with the birds chirping around them. Grace hated the stretched silence, the uncomfortable waiting, not knowing this new Michael well enough to predict what he would say next. She was learning him all over again.

  “In all the time I was recovering and planning to return to you, I never once thought that you had found someone else. My mistake. You’re a vibrant woman, Grace. Of course you would move on.”

  She didn’t know if he had intended his words to stab her, but they did. “I didn’t move on. I could never move on. I still love you as much as I ever have, even more so. I didn’t want to live in the dower house anymore. I wanted companionship.” The arguments that she had convinced herself were strong in defense of marrying Clayton seemed foolishly weak now.

  “I shouldn’t expect you to put yourself on a shelf and remain all alone for the rest of your life. Yet the thought of you with him, with anyone, makes me furious inside. It’s a strange sensation.”

  “I should not have agreed to marry him. I only love you, Michael, and I will only ever love you.”

  “Ah, Gracie.” He sighed and slowed down. His shoulders drooped. “You feel guilty when you shouldn’t. It’s my fault for not understanding. And my fault for not returning sooner.”

  “Why didn’t you?” It was the question that kept her awake at night. Why wait so long to return?

  “I wasn’t ready.”

  He wasn’t ready? What about her? What about living almost an entire year, believing he was dead? Grieving for him?

  “The first few days after the battle, I was unconscious. The first few weeks, I was like an infant and the first few months like a small child. My thoughts were jumbled and confused. My anger was quick and nearly violent. I didn’t even know who I was for a long time.” He raised his hand and twirled his fingers by his ear. “Half the time I didn’t know my dreams from reality.”

  “Tarik said you asked for me by name.”

  “I remembered your name. I knew you were important to me, but I couldn’t remember your face, and I didn’t know exactly who you were. If you had walked up to me during that time, I would not have recognized you, though I knew there was someone important in my life.”