Chapter 8
She turned her back on that chilling height and stooped slightly as her breath began to even out.
“I wanted… a carriage,” she replied. “I wanted to leave, to go to Farhampton. Mr. Baxter… refused me. And I came to tell you… that I will not be a prisoner here. I will not… be a prisoner… in my own home. If I have… the freedoms that I seem to here… then I ought to be heeded when… I ask for a carriage to take me… wherever I mean to go.”
With a hand to her chest, exertion and anger vying for control of her lungs, she sucked in breath after deep breath. Twice as furious that she should be so disheveled in front of this man.
Henry nodded slowly, but where there had been impatience and some anger of his own in their prior conversation, there was nothing but infuriating calm now. As if he were talking to an imbecile.
“Your freedoms are not in question, Thalia,” he insisted.
“Your health, however, is. You are in no condition to journey anywhere alone. Why, if I had known you would attempt to climb so many stairs alone, I would have forbidden it. Not out of cruelty or control, but so you do not worsen your affliction.”
She glared up at him. “There is… nothing wrong with my limbs.”
It was a lie and they both knew it, for she was trembling from head to toe, and the world was spinning. If it were not for the banister against her back, she would surely have toppled over again.
“But exhaustion affects the mind,” he said. “You must rest the mind as you would a sore limb.”
She sniffed. “I did not realize you… were a physician as well as a duke.”
“No, but I listened to the physician,” he replied.
“Now, about this carriage: it is too late to venture out now, and I have some business to attend to today, so I cannot accompany you. We can discuss you visiting them when I have concluded my business and I am satisfied that you have rested properly.”
Straightening up somewhat, Thalia swallowed down the rising nausea and met his unreadable gaze. “You found me… here. Why did you not tell me that?”
“For the same reason I cannot let you leave tonight; you are not yet rested enough for more detailed discussions,” he explained. “Moreover, I hoped to see if any of your memories returned before I spoke to you of that night, so that my version of events would not influence yours.”
It was an annoyingly rational and reasonable explanation, and one she had not considered in her fury. After all, anyone could say anything about the night she fell, and she would believe them, for she had no memory of her own to contradict or verify it.
“I was told you do not live here,” she continued, her tone cold.
“That is true, for the most part. I visit occasionally, but never for very long.”
“Is that why I came here that night?” she pressed, her irritation transforming into something more like a plea for information. Any snippet she could get her hands on. “Did I come to see you because you were here for once? Was that common during your… visits?”
He puffed out a breath and moved an inch or two closer. “I do not know why you came up here that night because, no, it was not common for you to want to see me. Not common at all. So rare, in fact, that you have never sought me out.”
“How can that be?” she whispered, mostly to herself, as she frowned at his handsome face. “No… I do not believe that I would ever marry a man like you. Is this… a trick, a ploy between you and my father? Are you pretending all of this so that I will marry you?”
He pulled a face. “That the entirety of my staff has been part of for four years?”
Said like that, she heard how ridiculous she sounded.
“You see, this is what I mean,” he added, moving closer still. “You are not yet ready to be up and about. Your head is full of fog and mistrust.”
His hand slid along the banister toward hers, but stopped just shy of touching her fingertips.
Even so, electricity crackled between his hand and hers, her eyes wide as she stared down at their closeness, while her other hand flew to her chest. There, beneath her ribs, that strange feeling stole her breath again; her heart was beating like a caged bird desperately seeking freedom, her entire being suddenly shaky, though neither dizziness nor exertion were the obvious cause.
Henry’s body edged nearer, until he stood before her, barely a breath away. With his hand and arm to one side of her, it might have felt like he was trying to hem her in, but he had left the other side entirely open: an invitation for her to leave whenever she pleased.
“Tell me,” he said, his head lowering slightly, “what is it that so displeases you about me? Is it my appearance?”
The question disarmed Thalia, drawing her attention to the parts of him that she had urged herself to look away from: the ledge of his collarbone, the cords of his neck, the triangle of bare skin visible between his open collar, the suggestion of hard muscle beneath his shirt, from his broad chest to his powerful arms; and up to that sharp jaw, full lips, intense blue eyes, and the waves of his dark hair.
“Y-Yes,” she stuttered, immediately glancing away. “I cannot… bear to look at you.”
I shall burn up if I do. I shall lose the ability to speak altogether.
“That did not seem like such a problem to you before,” he said, a note of dry amusement in his voice.
She swallowed. “Yes, well, I cannot remember before, can I?” She hesitated, biting her lip. “I did not find you displeasing?”
“Not my appearance,” he answered. “Indeed, that did not seem to concern you whatsoever when you asked me for a child.”
A gasp slipped from Thalia’s lips, her head whipping back around to stare at him. Was he not the one who had just said he did not wish to influence her? Was he not the one who had just explained that he did not want to affect the return of her memories? Why would he go and say a thing like that?
She blushed furiously, so warm that she wondered if the flickering torches were to blame, radiating more heat than they should. “What are you talking about? You should not toy with me, Your Grace. You could, as you said yourself, worsen my condition.”
She was breathless as she spoke, searching his face for any deceit, still just as mistrusting as he had said she was. Surely, she would not have made such a request of this man, when they led such apparently separate lives?
“I am testing to see if a little encouragement might actually help,” he replied, a smirk upon his lips. “You see, you sent me a letter a while ago, declaring that you wanted to be a mother. You were not requesting that someone else be the father; I am certain of that.”
She continued to stare at him, aghast.
For a fleeting half-second, his fingertips brushed hers. “I wonder if you even know what giving you a child means. Perhaps, you lost that memory.”
Thalia withdrew her hand sharply, as shock rippled through her like the vibrations of a violently swaying carriage, making her feel unsteady.
A moment later, she darted out of the intense closeness of him, taking that open invitation to depart his company.
She hurried to the top of the interminable staircase and, breathing hard, tossed back over her shoulder, “Inform me of when you are available to take me to my family. Until then, I will be… resting.”
Not waiting for his response, not turning to see his expression, she bolted down the stairs as fast as her shaky legs would carry her.
The irony was not lost on her that she might suffer a third accident if she was not careful, but as she rushed downward, she had to wonder if she had done this before.
Was that why she had gone to Henry’s chambers that night? To ask him for a child? She had to stop to fan her feverish face with her hand and catch her breath, pressing her back flat against the curving wall to catch her breath.
No, he would have mentioned it. He spoke only of a letter.
But the rationalization was no comfort as her eyes lifted upward. Henry was not peering down, the landing now far out of sight, but the same could not be said of the lasting feeling inside her chest: that weird, inexplicable symptom, so akin to fear, yet not quite the same.
Clamping her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp, she realized what that feeling was. Maybe, her body had finally named it and passed the message on to her brain, or maybe it was a memory creeping back. Whatever the truth was, she knew the feeling now: it was attraction.
She was attracted to her husband. The lost version of herself, at least.
No… oh, no, no, no… that cannot be. She scrunched her eyes shut in the hope it might chase the feeling away. What did that beast do to me, to make me react this way whenever he is near?
Whoever she was before she fell down those tower steps, she must have been utterly, completely mad.
Well, that was stupid.
Henry had not intended to spook his wife, though the echo of her retreating footsteps reverberated his accidental success.
In truth, he had been testing a new theory, encouraged by the suggestions of his friends… and, perhaps, the snifter or two of brandy that he had imbibed while he was with them.
Her perfume lingered in the air, as did the memory of her wide eyes, the hitch of her breath when his fingertips had grazed hers, the closeness of her. Staring at the staircase, he half wished that he might tumble down them, so he might rid himself of the sensation.
“Shall I take the tea to her?” Baxter asked, appearing in his silent, catfooted way with a silver tray in hand. He must have passed Thalia on the ascent.
Henry nodded. “Yes, take it to her.” He took a breath. “And watch her closely, Baxter. I do not believe this will be the last time she tries to run from me.”