Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The storm was getting worse. Not that Rose cared.
Let it rain. Let it storm. Let the world drown and me in it. At this rate, it might be an improvement.
She was alone, as was typical of this last week.
Alone right now, alone for the rest of her life…
alone, just as she deserved. Rose could not ignore the irony that, not so long ago, the idea of being alone had not worried her.
She had never wanted to marry. She had never wanted to fall in love.
And she had certainly never wanted to live a life where she relied on a man to make her happy.
Now, having spent a week in a state of utter sadness, Rose was forced to admit that not only did she want these things, but she’d had them. For a short time there, she had been married, in love, and had a man in her life who made her happy.
Oh sure, he might have made things difficult. He was cold and distant. He was mercurial and hard to read. He was not warm. He was not full of life. And he certainly wasn’t the type to bring cheer everywhere he went.
Yet, he was her husband, and somehow, they had found a way to make it work. It had not lasted long; they still had so much to learn about one another and themselves, but they were heading in the right direction. Happiness was there for the taking, and they had both been so close…
And now, I wonder if I will ever be happy again. Worse than that, I wonder if I will ever want to be.
Rose wanted to forget about the Duke, as it would have been easier.
To scrub him from her mind and carry on with her life the way it had been before he came into it.
Alas, such things were not so easy, and as the days stretched on, as the loneliness devoured her, Rose found herself unable to stop thinking about her husband and what they might have had.
She did not even realize that she had wandered into his private orangery.
Rose had been doing that often this past week. In a state of utter distress, she found herself wandering aimlessly through the empty manor, peering into rooms as if expecting Christopher to be there. Inevitably, this led her to his orangery… where things had all started. Or where they had ended.
It was near pitch black in the glass orangery. Rain lashed at the glass walls and ceiling. The odd burst of lightning lit up the sky. She could smell the plants and the flowers. She could feel Christopher’s presence in here, even if he was nowhere to be seen.
A flash of lightning made her jump, at which point her eyes fell on one of the shelves in the room. There, sitting alone, was the journal that she had found. She looked at it through the darkness, her hand started to reach for it… and then she snatched her hand back
No. I don’t care what it says. I don’t care what truths it reveals. I wish I had never found it in the first place.
She exhaled and allowed her shoulders to slump as she cast a final look about the small garden. Her heart cracked, and her stomach sank, and she wondered why she kept coming back here. A shake of the head and she turned to leave…
A flash of lightning lit the room bright so that before her, Rose saw none other than Christopher appear as if by magic.
“Argh!” she cried out in shock and stumbled back.
“Rose!” Christopher exclaimed as he went for her.
His hand slid around her back, it pulled her to her feet, and then it pulled her into his soaking wet body and held her close.
Rose’s eyes were wide. Her breathing was heavy. She felt her husband holding her. She looked up slowly and found his eyes looking down at her with an expression she could not quite fathom. And she heard his heart thumping in his chest so that it drowned out the thunder.
For a moment, nothing was said. It was as if this were a dream, and Rose waited for herself to wake up so that she would be alone once more…
“I did not mean to scare you,” Christopher said, still holding her to him.
“Christopher…” She touched his chest and then reached up and rested a hand on his cheek. “You… what are you doing here?”
“I should never have left.”
“I don’t… I don’t understand…” She thought to push herself away but could not bear to do so, as if that might shatter the dream and rip him away from her a second time. “How are you… How are you here?”
“Rose…” His body was trembling. “There is something I need to tell you. Something that I should have told you when we first met.”
She licked her lips as she looked at him. “The truth?”
“All of it,” he said. “I –”
“Wait.” She held up a hand to silence him. “Before you do, I… I want to apologize. I should have never –”
“No,” he cut her off. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I should not have pried. I should not have stuck my nose in where it did not –”
“It belonged exactly where you stuck it,” he said with a smile that reached his eyes. “And I am the fool for not realizing it sooner.”
It was then that Rose realized what was different about her husband, and it was then that she understood the look on his face.
And no, it wasn’t his beard, as strange as that was to see.
It was his smile, the way it made his eyes glimmer even in the darkness.
Oh sure, she had seen him smile before, she had even heard him laugh.
But it was always done with reservation, as if he was careful not to overindulge in something as natural as showing how happy he was.
This time, he wasn’t holding back. The usual distance in his stare was gone. The coldness he always wore had faded. There was life behind his eyes, the sense that he was looking at her for the first time. The real Christopher.
“What happened to you?” she asked in a whisper.
“I came to realize how wrong I have been. About everything.”
“I don’t understand.”
He nodded and took a deep breath. “We have much to discuss, Rose. So much that I need to tell you. But before I do, there is something you must know.”
She furrowed her brow but said nothing.
“What I am about to tell you changes nothing,” he said, and somehow, he pulled her in even closer when he did.
“I am still the same man you married. I am still the same man you know. And most importantly, I am still the same man who… who…” His chin trembled, but he stayed it.
“I am still the same man who loves you.”
The single word lit a fire inside of Rose like she did not know that she needed.
She leaned back, her eyes widened, a smile reached her face, and her heart began to thump loudly as if trying to escape. “You… you love me?”
“I know I might not show it,” he said. “I know that you have no reason to believe me. But it is the truth, Rose. The first of many.”
“Christopher…”
“Please, before you say anything, there is so much I need to tell you. All I ask is that you listen and then, once I have told you everything, you can decide how you feel.”
“I know how I feel.”
He winced. “That may change…”
Christopher led Rose from the orangery into his bedroom. There, he had a fire lit for them, tea was made, and it was only once he had a blanket around his shoulders and a hot cup of tea in his hands that he started to speak.
And Rose listened throughout.
She listened as he told her about his mother and his upbringing.
She listened as he told her about his dedication to the lie that had since become his personality and temperament.
She listened as he told her how desperate he was to keep the lie, why he felt he had to, and the fear of what he suspected would happen if the lie should ever be revealed.
And most of all, she listened as he told her what a fool he was.
“I’m sorry,” Christopher said. “I’m sorry for lying to you.
I’m sorry for not trusting you. And most of all, I’m sorry for hurting you, because that is what I did.
You can hate me. You can want nothing to do with me, and I will accept that.
But please know, I never, ever meant to hurt you as I have done.
And that I did hurt you…” He shook his head to himself, his chin wobbling.
“That is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life.”
They were sitting on the same couch in front of the fire. Christopher was huddled toward the end, seemingly done on purpose to give Rose space. Almost as if he was afraid to get too close.
Rose considered her husband for a second. She thought about what he had said and what it all meant. A revelation to be sure, and not something that she could simply ignore. There would be time for more questions, more answers, and time for them to decide what, if anything, they meant to do.
Most of all, what Rose thought about, what she took notice of, was how different her husband looked from what she remembered. He was sad and broken. He was a shell of the calm and confident man whom she knew. And importantly, he was real.
He was no longer hiding who he was. He was no longer scared to reveal his true self to her. He was no longer running, no longer lying, and no longer a stranger.
This is the man whom I wanted to marry. This is the man with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. And this is the man whom I fell in love with…
“Christopher…” Rose shuffled down the couch and took his hand. He flinched when she reached for it, but then relaxed as she pulled it into her chest. “I don’t care.”
He leaned back. “You… Rose, do you understand what I told you?”
“Oh, so you think I am stupid now?”
“What?” His eyes widened. “That is not –”
“I am joking, Christopher,” she said with light laughter. “I know you don’t think that. Just as I know you don’t really think that what you have told me is going to make any difference to how I feel about you.”
“It…. it doesn’t?” A flash of hope passed behind his eyes.
“Of course not, silly,” she laughed as she moved closer so that they were sitting right beside one another. “When I first married you, Christopher, do you know what my main issue was with you?”
“I am sure there were many things…”
She laughed. “First and foremost, I did not think you were real. From the day I met you, I knew there was more to you than what you were showing me. I knew that there had to be another side of you, one that I could fall in love with. And to learn that I was right, and that now I will have a chance to see that side…” She allowed her smile to grow.
“The only thing that I am upset about is that it didn’t happen sooner. ”
“Rose…” He squeezed her hand as he looked into her eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I find often that when you don’t know what to say, saying nothing is what works best.”
Indeed, there was nothing left to say. Christopher had confessed, Rose had accepted his apology, and there was now just the one thing left to do. Better yet, both of them seemed to know it.
Rose made sure to find her husband’s eyes, and her heart swelled when she saw life behind them.
This was the real him. This was the man she had wanted to marry.
And this was the man with whom she would be spending the rest of her life.
She smiled for him, he smiled back, and then she leaned forward to kiss him.
Christopher did not hesitate to accept the kiss, and when their lips met, all the hurt and pain and suffering felt across the last week faded as if it had never been.
That single kiss spoke truer words than anything Christopher had said, and Rose felt in that kiss the love he claimed to hold her in.
They kissed deeply and passionately. They kissed without care. They kissed not as if the world was about to end, but as if it was just now starting. They had their whole lives to live together, and those lives started with a kiss.
And as for the rest of their lives? I cannot wait to see where we go from here…