Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Alexander walked through the darkened gardens until the cold settled in his bones. No one, in all the years since Helena’s death, had possessed the audacity to bring her up in front of him. Much less as a taunt.
He had been on the verge of marrying her when consumption had her wasting away before his eyes.
Powerless. All the plans for his future gone, before he had a chance to bring any of them into fruition.
That loss had felt all the more poignant because of that fact: her youth, and the fact that he had lost her before ever experiencing a life with her.
Finally, cold to the bone, he stumbled back inside and went to the old room he had kept as a shrine to her memory. There, he tossed back two glasses of brandy and stared at a third before placing it very carefully down.
Was this what he wanted for himself?
He no longer knew what he wanted. The existence he had carved for himself after Helena’s death had been systematically destroyed by Lydia, and now he found himself wanting things he had never dared to want before.
Light. Love. Happiness. Things that, if he allowed himself, could be his.
If he lied to her.
Things would be easier if she hated him, so he would never have to know what he would lose when he told her the truth.
He reached for the letters Helena had sent him, the words a little faded now, the ink a little smudged. She had always written with such haste and closed the letters before the ink was fully dry. He’d often had to sit and decipher her words, because they had become so unclear.
These, however, he knew by heart.
I love you. Is that not an odd thing to write?
I love you and I am excited for all the things we have yet to do together.
You and I will become the best team I could ever conceive.
Your father will not hold out against us forever.
Once he relents and we can marry, we will be deliriously happy, I just know it!
All we must do is hold out a little longer.
Alexander closed his eyes against the wave of fresh pain in his chest. Not so much grief for the life they could have shared anymore, but grief that such a bright, wonderful girl had never known adulthood.
She had never had the future she looked forward to with such anticipation; she had not felt the happiness she had believed could be hers.
For so long, he had felt as though he ought to punish himself for surviving when she could not. He had promised her happiness with him, and so, without her, he did not feel as though he should be allowed happiness.
And for so long, the pain in his chest had ensured that he wasn’t. There could have been no chance of his happiness while he missed her so badly.
Then had come the laudanum, just so he could sleep, and a new cycle of pain began.
It was finally time to break the cycle once and for all.
Leaving the brandy where he was, he moved through the darkened house until he came to their bedchambers. But instead of entering his, he instead opened the door to Lydia’s. Enough time had passed that she was asleep now, her soft breaths sounding through the room.
He dropped to his knees by the side of her bed, pressing his forehead against the sheets as he listened to her breathe.
The certainty that she was here. How many times had she promised that she was his wife and she would fight his battles with him?
He had only ever repaid her with dismissals and pain.
“I’m so sorry…” he whispered, knowing she wouldn’t hear.
It was better that way, anyway—better she never know just how much she had come to mean to him.
“I have ruined your life in so many different ways. You deserve so much better than this lot you have been handed, and you ought to have had a better husband. One who did not marry you out of guilt. One who was not the cause of the greatest grief of your life.”
He looked down into her sleeping face. So peaceful… she was so peaceful when asleep, and all the troubles of the day had no hold on her. If she ever learned the truth about him, would she sleep as peacefully?
She stirred, eyelids fluttering, but only settled into another more comfortable position. Her breathing evened out again.
“I ought to leave you,” he murmured. “I know that is my duty, if I am to make things as easy on you as possible. My demons are not yours to bear, and my truth will destroy you as utterly as it is destroying me. But is that what’s best?
” He searched her face, wishing he could find the answers there.
“Would you prefer to know everything so you can choose whether to be my wife in name only and continue living here or leave and pursue an annulment? Or would you rather live in ignorance and settle into your life here, never truly knowing why I must always run from you?”
His guilt felt like a physical thing he carried, and he wished he could put it down, if just for a moment. When he rested his head against the bedsheets, she smelled familiar. A scent from his past he couldn’t quite place.
“What am I to do…” he muffled. “The path forward has not been clear since you arrived. For the first time in years, you made me hope. But for what? What good can come of this marriage, Lydia?”
He closed his eyes against the pounding in his head, the restlessness in his limbs. He was so very tired…
“I wish I could find a way of making you happy,” he finished, the very last of his truths as his mind finally gave up its hold on consciousness and the world went dim around him. The last thing he held onto was Lydia’s floral scent and the understanding, deep within him, that he knew her.
Lydia wasn’t sure at first what woke her. The light outside was the downy gray of dawn, and even the birds had not yet decided the sun had risen enough to announce the coming of a new day.
For a moment, she lay against the pillows, closing her eyes against the sudden wakefulness that had brought her from a dream—a pleasant one in which she and Alexander were lying together, their secrets dead and buried between them.
A low, rasping snore then interrupted her thoughts, sending her heart hammering again. With a gasp, she sat up, the dim light revealing a figure at the end of the bed.
Alexander?
He had slumped half across the bed, half across the floor, and he looked wickedly uncomfortable. Even so, he was asleep, and he was in her bedchamber…
For an instant, she considered ringing for someone. Evidently, he had entered after she was asleep, and she didn’t know for what purpose.
Almost as soon as she entertained the idea, she dismissed it.
It would be a shame to disturb him when he was sleeping so soundly.
Besides, the fact that he had come in just to be with her negated any chance of him having done so out of malice.
This was, in fact, the sign she’d been searching for.
A reason to keep fighting, even after all the terrible things he’d said.
Although she would still be seeking an apology for that at minimum.
Careful not to disturb him, she slid out of bed and padded softly across to her writing desk by the window.
There, tucked under some papers, was the list she had made.
There were a few items still left uncrossed, but instead of crossing another off, she took her pen and dipped it in the ink, writing one final item at the bottom.
Visit the place we first met.
Before they gave up on each other for good, she would tell him the truth about everything—because it had by now become obvious he didn’t remember. Then, all of her cards would be on the table. No more lies between them.
None, save for his.
And she would learn those today.
Marching to the door, she locked it from the inside, hiding the key in her dressing table.
Now he would be unable to escape without first confiding in her.
And if he didn’t, she would keep him here.
What else did they have to do with the day?
If he had an engagement, he would merely have to speak to her first.
As she stared at his languid body, she felt her heart rate increase, thumping against her ribs. Part of her hoped he wouldn’t give in and tell her everything immediately, so she would have a reason to keep him here. In her bedchamber. Where anything might happen…
She returned to the bed and propped the pillows up, sitting against them and waiting for him to naturally wake.
He took some time to do so, clearly exhausted, but when he did, he started as though shocked he was still here. When he glanced up and found her watching him, he winced.
“Lydia…” he mumbled, scrubbing a hand down his face. “This isn’t what you think.”
She arched a brow. “And what, pray, do I think?”
“That I came here… that I came here with intent.”
“Intent to what?”
He returned his gaze to her. “I think you know.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I did not come here in order to seduce you into forgiving me,” he rasped, his voice unnecessarily harsh.
“A bold assumption that it would take nothing else to forgive me.” She folded her arms. Despite her intentions of giving him one last chance, she was not about to let him off the hook lightly. He had hurt her, and he had done so deliberately, knowing the things he said would cause her pain.
“You declared everything would be easier if I hated you, then proceeded to do everything in your power to make that happen. So, in that case, why did you come here?”
He rose awkwardly to his feet, evidently stiff after sleeping the way he had. “Regret,” he said at last, looking down at her. “And with good reason, I’m sure you’ll agree. But I should take my leave—”
“No.”
He reached the door and turned the handle—and nothing happened. When he turned back to her, his face was dark with irritation. “What are you doing?”
“We have some things to discuss, Alexander, and seeing as you are so reluctant to confide in me, I decided to force the matter.”
“I could rip this room apart looking for the key.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “What do you want from me?”
She wanted a lot of things. A return of the man she had seen so infrequently; for him to trust her with the things in his heart; for him to hold her and touch her and make her his in that indefinable, intangible, visceral way that only he could.
She wanted her husband!
But all she said was, “I want you to talk.”
“I thought you hated me,” he muttered from across the room.
“Things would be simpler if I did, certainly. And I have not decided to forgive you. All this time, I have been more than understanding—I know there are things in your past you don’t want to tell me. But after Mr. Umbridge humiliated me in front of everyone, I deserve to know the truth.”
His shoulders tensed still further. “You wish to know about Helena.”
Helena.
She hadn’t heard the name in so, so long, and even the sound of it on his tongue—so familiar, so affectionate—made her stomach squirm with ill-timed jealousy.
“Yes,” she nodded once. “If that is indeed the reason why you are the way you are now.” She leaned forward, holding his gaze as though if she lost it, she would lose everything.
“I want to know why you only agreed to marry me for a single year. Why you did not spend that year with me. Why your hands tremble, and you sometimes look as though you are so ill, you will keel over. Are you fighting an illness I know nothing about?” Her voice broke as she finished, “Are you hiding from me because you are dying and I will lose you?”
Alexander exhaled a harsh laugh, then strode to her. She almost flinched back, but all he did was sit on the bed beside her. “Is that what you think? That I might be dying and never told you?”
“You have told me nothing! Is that so unreasonable? Why else would you be so cold to me? Why else would you insist on not marrying me?” It was a fear she had never articulated to herself until that moment, but now that she had, it took over her body entirely, and she began to shake. “Am I going to lose you?” she repeated.
“No. No, Lydia. I am not dying… though sometimes it feels like it.” He grimaced, but whatever usually troubled him didn’t seem to be making an appearance. “That, at least, is not my cross to bear.”
“Then what is it? Why?”
“Can I get you anything before I start? Some hot cocoa? Or—”
“There is nothing I want save for your story,” she told him, and he nodded.
He glanced at the door and sighed. “Then… I suppose I have no choice but to tell you.”