Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The pain woke him, dull yet persistent. Richard blinked. Years of training had earned him a soldier’s capacity to be well and wholly awake in an instant, and his eyes darted quickly around to take in his surroundings.
It was the same room at Granville—the same ceiling, the same window, the same cooling fireplace. Everything was just as it had always been for weeks.
But there was something entirely different today. Curled beside him, her head on his bare shoulder, slept the woman he had married. Her rhythmic breathing whispered over his skin, her ever-present scent of sweet pea brushing his nose.
It had not been a dream, after all—at least, not entirely. Richard kept still, wary of stirring either his injury or the lovely face on his shoulder. But it was difficult to stay unmoved entirely.
“Adelaide,” he whispered, his voice reverent and hushed.
She looked every bit as beautiful in sleep as she did in her waking moments.
How much of his memories were dreams, and how much were reality?
He remembered kisses. He remembered tenderness.
Had she truly murmured those assurances and professed her love?
What had felt like an anchor of hope in the midst of his anguished nightmares suddenly felt very much like futile aspirations in the light of day.
“Richard! You’re awake.” She lifted herself from his shoulder, her every move precisely positioned to avoid moving him.
Richard turned to face her, ready to take in the delicate features framed by the strands of hair that had escaped her braid.
But instead, her eyes roamed over his face, his shoulders, and his bandaged chest. The inspection made Richard feel unexpectedly exposed.
And yet Adelaide’s gaze soon turned back to his face with nothing but relief all over her beautiful, tired features.
He lifted a hand up slowly to cup her face. She closed her fingers around his hand and pulled his palm flush against her cheek before he could reach her. For a moment, they stayed silent, each relishing the simple touch.
“You stayed,” Richard said, his voice raw—from sleep, from fatigue, from the lump in his throat that had suddenly developed.
“You were having nightmares,” she said with emotion. Richard brushed his thumb against the thickest lock of hair framing her face. “I wish I could have eased you to a more comfortable position, but you needed to remain still.”
“You cannot lift me.”
“That would be another challenge too, yes.” She squeezed his hand. “So I tried to soothe you as best I could without hurting you further.”
“A sickroom is no place for a lady.”
“But where else is a wife to be if not by her husband’s side?”
She met his eye with so much frankness of spirit that Richard would have toppled over if he hadn’t already been lying down.
“I must have been a beast.” He frowned. “Those night terrors—many of my fellow soldiers speak of them. Sometimes, they lead to fits of violence.”
“You were calmer last night, mostly muttering. Not thrashing like you were in London.”
The first open acknowledgment of what had transpired in London hung between them. Richard took courage from it, although what exactly he was to do with that courage was not yet entirely clear to him.
“Thank you for staying,” he said, unable to think of anything else.
“Of course I stayed.” She spoke as if her spending the entire night in his room was the most commonplace occurrence.
Her eyes turned towards his injured side once more, this time with her fingers following suit in a gentle, feather-light touch.
“I do not think the damage from your fall extensive, although we must still keep you well-rested as much as possible for the rib to heal. Do you wish for more willow bark tea? I can call for honey for the cuts, but we may need to call for more resin once we require newer bandages.”
The ease with which she played nurse touched his heart—all while rousing another question within him. He chose his words carefully.
“I can understand a soldier’s familiarity with cuts and bruises and broken bones,” he said evenly. “And yet I find myself unable to explain a similar confidence from a genteel young woman from the countryside in Essex.”
She hesitated visibly, her eyes reflecting her indecision. He braced himself for her inevitable withdrawal. Because, once more, Richard had taken advantage of their momentary truce and pressed her more than she was ready to be pressed. Would he ever learn?
But this time, resolution formed over her features, and Adelaide turned her entire body to face him more fully. She clasped the hand he still had on her cheek and pulled it down, securing it between hers on her lap.
She rolled her lips—her ever-distracting lips—as if choosing her words. And then she looked up towards him with a clear, determined gaze.
“My father was a cruel man, constantly mistreating my mother,” she said.
Richard listened.
“But his cruelty was cleverly concealed. He treated her with courtesy in public—all while saving his most vicious ways for the privacy of the home.”
Richard squeezed his wife’s hands. She flashed him a brief, acknowledging nod. And then, phrase by phrase, the sentences came—bits and pieces of a larger mosaic of the life she had led as Adelaide Pershing.
“There was a time when I didn’t understand, when I didn’t realize that the bruises and cuts and aches and pains that were constants in my mother’s life were created by my father’s hand.
I didn’t realize that the screams I heard every night were not from the ghost my nursemaid said haunted the hallways at night.
“I only knew my mother wept every morning, and that there were always bandages and ointments aplenty in the house. I knew that she froze, stone still, whenever my father said that it was time to retire, and that I was to steer clear of their room once he’d made that declaration.
I remembered the way she trembled underneath the table or behind her fan whenever he sent her a warning look.
“And then when she began to increase with Macy—” She drew a deep breath.
Richard tightened the grip on their entwined fingers, relieved when she reciprocated, as if drawing strength from him.
“For a few months, the bruises and screams lessened. Perhaps the prospect of a son stayed my father’s cruelty.
And my mother began to show a small hint of a spirit again.
But Macy was not a son, and my father’s disappointment devolved into greater violence once more.
“My mother avoided aggravating him, for the most part.
But the injuries still persisted. I was old enough to tend to her by then, and her maid and I grew to be well-versed in caring for all sorts of damage.
They were everywhere—from broken clavicles to bruised wrists to—to blood and tears in the most intimate places.
“Then came the day when my mother decided not to indulge him in his anger—and flung the truth of Macy’s parentage to his face, within earshot of the entire household.
My father was furious. He cast out the footman, beat my mother to a pulp that night, and rode out with her on one solitary horse the following morning.
In hindsight, we suspect that he intended to shove her off the mountain.
But all we know is that neither ever returned alive, and the bodies were only found an entire month later. ”
Her words lingered, the invisible wounds raw between them.
Then Richard said, “I suppose I can now understand your aversion to the marriage bed.”
“I am sorry.” Adelaide wept. Richard lifted the arm that lay closest to her.
She drew gently against his side, assuming the position she likely had kept all night.
“I know you are unlike my father—after you saved me, after you have treated me with so much respect. And yet—yet a small part of me wondered and feared—was my father not just as gentlemanly in public? Life had taught me that things that appeared too wonderful to be true were most likely untrue after all.”
Richard brushed a kiss against her brow. His heart ached for all the pain she carried. “You have carried a heavy burden.”
“I am sorry for having become yours.”
“No.” He pushed himself upward, flinching abruptly. Adelaide rushed to ease him up more gently. He accepted her assistance until he was settled in a reclining yet not fully supine position. His eyes looked on hers. “Please never think yourself a burden.”
Her eyes glistened, yet she did not cry. “I was so worried when you fell—that I might have lost my chance at happiness.”
Richard smiled wryly. “What does an old soldier know about happiness?”
“What do I know?” She tucked his arm between hers, drawing close. “But I hope to learn—to learn with you. I want to learn to love, to be happy. I want to build a life that is free of fear and free of secrets, and I want to build that life with you.”
His heart brimmed, emotion flooding against the walls of his chest. “Adelaide, I—”
“Please teach me to love, Richard. I so sorely want to love you.”
He pulled her in for a kiss, for it was utterly impossible to hold back for a second longer. Kiss by kiss, he poured out his concern, his devotion, and his love. Adelaide’s hands shifted around his shoulders as she returned his kisses. He tugged her closer, and she folded sweetly against his side.
They still had plenty of days of recovery and discovery to come. But, for now, there could be nothing more perfect.
The days following proved to be sweet, delectable torture. A broken rib was by no means a permanent disablement, but it was a sufficient medical concern to drive a couple to abstain from physical activities that would risk further harm.
And so it was that Richard found himself having to be content, at least for the following weeks, with kisses and touches and endless conversations with his sweet, darling Adelaide.
Despite his valet’s repeated protests, Adelaide insisted that she participate in Richard’s cleansing and changing and, upon occasion, perhaps when the bowl of broth had been filled a little too full, his feeding as well.
It did occur to Richard that his brothers might have a very good laugh at his expense if they saw him being coddled by his pretty little wife, but far be it for him to complain after months of having been compelled to keep Adelaide at a polite arm’s length.
Even without the physical aspects of a proper honeymoon, Richard reveled in the joy of a marriage of true minds.
They spent a few hours apart each day, during which Adelaide saw to the running of the household with Mrs. Mindel, and Richard discussed various concerns with his steward.
He might not feel entirely dignified as the master of the house when forced to conduct business from his bedroom, but it was a minor thing to quibble about considering how much worse his fall could have been.
He might not be wholly confined to his bed, but proper clothing and a traverse down creaking stairs did not quite appeal just yet.
And then Adelaide would return with the trays for dinner, wearing a fresh dress and even fresher smile.
And, after many a kiss and caress, they would discuss and reread letters from his brothers and from Macy to each other and enjoy the rest of the hours of the day and night devoted to each other’s company.
So blissful was the simple existence of his convalescence that Richard very nearly forgot the existence of anyone else in the world, if not for the various pieces of news that their letters brought them.
“Harold said that the Rodworth children have returned to London and that their little house party has disbanded.” Adelaide passed a letter to him one morning. “It sounds almost as if he is very relieved to be returning to Everhope with his own wife and child.”
Richard chuckled carefully. He refused to have to spend more days recovering than he needed due to his own carelessness. “Clara never has been the sort to prefer company, I believe.”
“Not everyone is a societal hostess.”
“No, nor does everyone have to be.” He sent a soft smile at Adelaide before lifting her fingers for a kiss. “Some men need quiet and peace—and I am blessed to have a wife who provides those very things for me.”
“I did not know you preferred quiet so much.” Her voice was soft, young yet aged all at the same time. “Perhaps I ought to return to sleeping in my own room.”
“No.” He clasped her hand quickly, lest she dare think for a moment that he would ever want her to leave again. “That sort of quiet is not at all the kind I like.”
“And what kind do you like?”
He watched her flush as his lips twisted into a teasing smile. “Why don’t you sit closer and let me show you?”
There was a pleasant simplicity to their days, even as Richard waited for the ache in his side to completely go away.
It was irony worthy of Shakespeare that his heart had ached back while his body had been strong; and now, his heart fairly burst with happiness while his body mended itself one slow day after another.
Nearly a month must have passed since his accident when Adelaide sifted through their correspondence one morning only to abruptly drop her smile at the last letter.
Richard watched her unseal and read the foolscap, her frown intensifying with every line. He shifted himself to a seat. “Is everything well?”
She looked up at him, face pale. She lowered the correspondence with a slight tremble to her fingers. The unease in her eyes was a look that he had not seen on her for weeks—and very much disliked seeing at all.
“Who is it from?”
Adelaide swallowed. “I am fairly sure it is nothing to worry about.”
“That letter, that writer distresses you, so it is clearly something to worry about.”
Adelaide blinked as she looked askance. “You do not need to—”
“Adelaide,” he said firmly. She met his gaze slowly. “There is nothing you ever need to hide from me. In fact, I must insist that you do not.”
“I do not wish to distress you.”
“The very thought of there being anything threatening our happiness unbeknownst to me is the greatest distress possible.”
Understanding passed over her face, and she visibly braced herself before nodding. “It is Aunt Dinah. She expresses a desire to speak to us.”
“I see.”
The sounds of a loud carriage rolling up their drive reached them through the open window.
Adelaide sighed. “And I believe she is already here.”