Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
BENNET HALL, SURREY - JUNE 24, 1816
LEE
I awoke to the stale, musty scent of long unused bed linens and every single one of my muscles protesting even the slightest movement.
“How are you feeling?” It was Brigsby, somewhere off to the side in that smoothed-out tone he always used after an attack. It was the way one spoke to a child and I hated it a little.
It took a moment to unlock my jaw. “Like death,” I croaked, my throat still scratched raw. “How bad?”
“I don’t know. I found you after.”
Carefully, I blinked my eyes open and found Brigs perched on a stool beside my bed—the old one. Daylight poured in from the window at his back—damn. I had a vague recollection of supper with Charlotte, then… nothing.
“Why’m I here?”
“Because you’re too big to carry down the hall, down a flight of stairs, up another, and down a second corridor.”
“Fair. Charlotte—did she see?”
“I neither know nor care. I found her stomping around the bonfire in a huff.” There was something odd in his tone, but the throbbing in my head was too strong to concentrate on anything else.
“Would you like something to eat, my lord? You missed luncheon.”
“Don’t think I can manage more than toast.”
“I’ll return shortly. Try to rest,” he rose and made for the door.
“Brigs,” I started and he froze, not spinning to face me. “Thank you.”
He turned, his gaze meeting mine. “Do not thank me.” With that, he stepped from the room, shutting the door behind him.
After much consideration and with a great deal of effort, I flopped to my back. I laid there for some time, contemplating a crack forming in the ceiling. Fortunately, it didn’t appear structural from my vantage or I would have been compelled to investigate.
The rattle of the door against the frame drew my attention. Rather than Brigsby with the toast, the door opened of its own volition—only a crack. I let my head flop back to the pillow and waited for my intruder to hop on the bed. She obliged with a quiet mrow , before curling up between my knees. Not a single attempted bite or scratch. It could only mean that I looked so wretched even the cat felt sympathy for me.
On occasion, Cass was willing to lay with me without her usual displays of irritation—after the accident, after and on occasion during an attack, whenever I came down with a cold. Those moments, though rare, were the primary reason I never tried particularly hard to keep her out of wherever she wished to be.
“—is he?” Charlotte’s sharp whisper floated in through the door.
“Fine.” Brigs’s familiar tenor, hushed as well, followed.
“Is he awake?” Me—she was speaking of me. Any hope I had of keeping my attacks from her vanished. The thought had me biting back a groan that wasn’t the result of physical pain.
“Yes.”
“He told me to leave, Brigsby. What would you have had me do?” Charlotte’s quiet voice was thick with sentiment.
“Stay with him, as you said you would.”
“I did not know—you did not tell me.”
“I told you that he struggles with fire. You insisted you could manage it. Instead, I find you wandering through the village watching the celebration without a care in the world. Leaving him to suffer alone,” he hissed.
“ That was not about the fires. Not entirely.” Was it possible to die of shame? I rather thought I could manage it in that moment. What had she seen?
“It is not my place to share your husband’s confidences if you are unable to earn them yourself.”
“He asked—ordered—me to leave. Should I have stayed against his express wishes? Begged? I do not—will not—beg.”
“Beg, do not beg, I care not, my lady. You left a good man to suffer alone.”
“Will you please just tell me if he’s all right? That is all I wish to know.”
“He will be fine,” Brigsby snapped, abandoning the whisper entirely. I caught the distinctive pattern of Charlotte’s slippered feet on the hall rug, less jaunty than I had grown used to in the short days of our marriage.
It was followed by Brigsby’s oafish stomping and a singular curse when he found the door cracked. His head peered in first, a hopeful expression across his face that immediately fell upon meeting my gaze.
“Damn cat. How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough. Brigsby, I appreciate your efforts to champion me,” I began, struggling to press myself up on the pillows stacked behind my head. “But you cannot speak to my wife in that manner.”
“Even if she deserves it?” he asked, handing over a tray with peppermint tea and buttered toast before resting a hip against the edge of the bed.
“She does not deserve it. But no, even if she did, you cannot reproach her. You may be as impertinent with me as you wish—you often are. But not Lady Champaign.”
“My lord?—”
“No, enough now.” I didn’t recall the night before. If past experience was any predictor, I never would. But I didn’t doubt I had sent Charlotte away as she said.
She was saddled with me, surely that was punishment enough for any misdeeds, real or imagined.
Brigsby wore his irritation in the tension of his brow and downturned lips, but he huffed, leaving the tray and abandoning me to the anxious, melancholy exhaustion that often marked the day after an attack.
I hadn’t seen or heard from Charlotte by the time night fell. Whether that was Brigsby’s doing or hers was even odds.
The proper thing to do would be to seek her out, apologize for whatever I said or did. But every time I considered it, my heart began to race and beads of sweat welled up on the back of my neck.
So I hid. I was confident enough in my masculinity to admit that I hid in my old bedroom until well after supper when I snuck out to my observatory like a thief in the night.
Fortunately, the sky was clear, a promising night to lose myself in the stars. Steadfast and dependable as always, they kept me company for some time until I heard the creak of the door slipping open.
Expecting Cass, I didn’t bother to turn until a flood of light spilled into the room.
Charlotte, pale and ethereal hovered tentatively in the doorway, lamp in hand. My heart tripped a moment but then righted itself.
“Charlotte, I…”
She shook her head, curls flashing gold in the flickering candle. “May I come in?”
Words were certain to fail me. All I could offer was a small nod. She set the lamp on the desk. Freed of their occupation, her fingers fidgeted at her sides.
“Are you well?” Soft, with a hint of vibrato, her voice carried in the quiet distance between us.
“Well enough. I must ap?—”
The shake of her head, barely more than a tremble, broke my speech. “If you are well, that is all I need to know. I shall leave you to it.” She turned, reaching for the lamp.
Stay .
“You could stay,” I blurted before my head could order my mouth silent. “If you want.”
“Do you want?” Something about the note of the last word spoke of vulnerability, even though she didn’t turn to face me and her hand still hovered an inch or so off the handle.
“He asked—ordered—me to leave.” My chest tightened, aching, but this time not because of my earlier attack—at least not directly.
“I do.”
Charlotte turned once more, her eyes meeting mine. “Then I will stay.”
I nodded, trying desperately to keep the elation from my face. I reached into my pocket. “Peppermint?” I croaked.
“Yes, please.” She stepped to me and plucked it from my palm, then popped it between full rose lips, upturned in a gentle smile that spoke of relief. A relief we could share.