Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
The duke—or Adrian, as she had secretly learned from Kate—was the last person that Valerie had expected to see in her chambers.
At first, she was not even sure he was real or if he was a figment of her sleepless delirium.
His voice, for one thing, was not at all what she had come to anticipate from him; it was soft and concerned, as soothing as a hot bath on a snowy winter’s day.
“You are crushing your lungs, sitting like that,” he chided, though his voice remained gentle.
Before she knew it, he was there in front of her, lifting her up off the floor.
He did not sweep her up into his arms as he had done before, but he held her there for a moment, against the solid heat of his chest. His hand cradled the back of her neck, his other arm curved securely around her to keep her upright.
“Have you a fever?” he asked, and promptly placed his palm against her brow. “Not so warm. Cold, in truth.”
He steered her toward the fireplace and settled her down in the closest armchair, where he slowly sank to his knees before her. A gesture she had never expected to see from him, who clearly thought so little of her.
“Why were you down the side of your bed?” he asked, as he turned to put more logs upon the fire. “Why do you feel you cannot breathe?”
He waited until the wood caught, before turning back to her. Patiently, he kneeled there, saying nothing more.
“The… quiet,” she croaked, her hand on her chest, rubbing circle to try and coax her lungs to do their duty. “This… dreadful quiet.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I cannot sleep,” she confessed, and hoped that, by speaking her difficulty aloud, it might ease her troubles. “I cannot sleep because it is so… quiet. I have slept perhaps… a few hours since I arrived, and I… feel as if I am going quite mad. Tonight, more than before, I… cannot bear it.”
Her breathing shallowed again, having the opposite effect of what she had hoped for.
As if the mere mention of that silence had set her off again, filling her up with that indescribable feeling of utter dread, like there was a monster in the shadows creeping up on her that she could not see.
Or a monster within her that was squeezing her heart and lungs, trying to suffocate her.
“I could hear the creaks of the bedside table,” she continued. “That is why I was down there… for the noise.”
Adrian squinted at her as if she were speaking a different language entirely.
The look upon his face nearly brought a dry chuckle to her lips; how could he hope to understand her struggle, when he clearly adored silence?
There was nothing but silence in this castle, and he had savored it for the past decade.
Of course, he would think she was peculiar.
“I am not used to it,” she explained a little, the vise-like grip upon her chest easing ever so slightly.
“Where I grew up, there was always noise. A manor full of children. Children who, even at night, would sneak into my room and steal half of my bed. I am not used to the quiet or the… loneliness.”
She hesitated, but something compelled her to continue.
“The only time that house was ever silent was when my father was imbibing. It was as if the manor and everything in it was holding its breath, waiting for the explosion to come.” She smiled bitterly.
“Then, of course, there would be plenty of noise, but not of the good kind: things smashing, furniture breaking, roars of drunken fury, the whispered prayers of my siblings in their fright. So, I am not so fond of silence.”
Peering up at Adrian, who was taller than her even on his knees, she regretted saying so much. He stared back at her with one of his usual scowls, no warmth to be found in those icy blue eyes, his mouth set in a grim line. Seemingly unmoved by the story she had told.
What else did I expect? The earlier softness of his voice had lulled her into a false sense of pleasantry. She should not have fallen for it.
I would pour all of the brandy in his cellar down his throat, until he drowned in it. Adrian’s anger prickled down his spine, as if a devilish hand were trailing a spiny holly leaf along each vertebra.
He could envision Valerie’s tale in vivid detail, perhaps better than she would have expected.
Indeed, it was almost as if she had plucked one of his memories out of his head and read it aloud to him.
Yet, his father had never been quiet in his cruelty.
Silence had been a sign of peace within the household or, better yet, of Adrian’s father’s complete absence from the castle.
“Siblings?” he said, clearing his throat.
She seemed surprised by his question. “Two. My sweet Cecil and my dear Nora. He is ten and she is eight.”
“They must be at Gramfield.”
She nodded stiffly. “They are. I… had to leave them behind. Scotland in the winter is barely a place for a grown woman, much less children.” She waved a hand toward the window. “The north is providing a few hurdles, too.”
“The snow does make it even quieter,” Adrian admitted. “Your siblings, are they with your mother?”
He felt a sudden concern for their welfare, though he did not know them.
The thought of children being left alone in a manor with a father like that was too familiar, too resonant a situation for him to bear.
Moreover, he wanted to keep her talking.
He enjoyed the sound and the feeling of being permitted a glimpse into who she was beyond these walls.
Valerie’s throat bobbed, a slight shake of her head confirming his worst suspicions. “The housekeeper is like a mother to them. They will come to no harm.”
Is that what you have been telling yourself? Is that the real reason you cannot sleep or breathe properly?
It was not his place to pry. Yet, he did not judge her for leaving them behind at her father’s manor; evidently, she had a good reason, or she would not have done so. He could see it on her face that it was tearing her up, to have had to make that choice.
“Enough about me,” she said with a strained sigh. “I should like to know why you hate Christmas so much.”
Adrian’s eyebrow rose up, his mood dipping once more. “Who said that I did?”
“No one,” she replied: an obvious lie, considering she had undoubtedly won the confidence of the staff.
“You stay here alone in your castle each Christmas, you have no decorations though we are well into the festive season, and you do not seem to be hosting any events or parties that I am aware of. Clearly, you do not favor it; anyone could decipher that.”
Any relaxation that Adrian might have gained in listening to her speak evaporated, replaced with a fresh thrum of annoyance. She might have been willing to tell stories of her past, but he would not speak a word, in case it somehow summoned a ghost he never wished to encounter again.
“It does not interest me,” he replied simply.
“But I heard that there used to be such festive celebrations here,” she insisted.
“And I am told that they truly embrace the season at Blackwall—the town, not here. Mrs. Mullens was telling me how beautiful the entire town is at Christmas, and how merry it is, with all the decorations and gatherings and singing and delicious feasts. I am just curious to know why you do not indulge in that merriment, when it is so close? And, I assume, the town is part of your dukedom. You should—”
He did not get to hear what preposterous suggestion she was about to make, though he could guess, for the discussion was soundly interrupted by a shout from the hallway.
“Miss Wightman!” the housekeeper’s voice crowed. “Miss Wightman, come quickly!”
Mrs. Mullens appeared in the doorway, coming to an abrupt halt as she saw Adrian kneeling there in front of the armchair. Evidently, she had assumed that Valerie would be alone.
“Your Grace,” the housekeeper gasped. “I… apologize. I didn’t expect you to be here.”
Adrian narrowed his eyes at the older woman, suspicion flickering in his chest. “For what, pray tell, do you require Miss Wightman at such an hour?”
The housekeeper paled.
“I would urge you to be honest,” Adrian said.
Dropping her chin to her chest and fidgeting furiously, Mrs. Mullens cleared her throat. “There are… people throwing stones at the windows. I hoped that Miss Wightman would be able to tend to them, for it appears that one is—”
Adrian was up on his feet and out of the door before she could finish, with Valerie in quick pursuit. Any of the breathlessness that had plagued her before seemed to have vanished as she ran after him, calling for him to stop.
I knew this would happen, he raged in silence. I knew it was a mistake to let just one person through the doors. It always leads to more.
Spurred on by his outrage, he made it down the stairs to the entrance hall in double quick time, and marched across to the front doors.
Wrenching it open, braced for the sight of beggars and ne’er-do-wells who had come to demand something of him, he was a little surprised to find two young boys in the snow.
“How dare you,” Adrian seethed, striding right out to where they stood.
Rather, where one of them stood, for the other was sat on the ground, holding his leg. Meanwhile, the one standing had the offending stones still in his hand, a hole in the snow beside him where he had dug them out.
“If there is a single crack in any of those windows, you will pay dearly for it,” Adrian snarled, reaching to grab the first boy by the back of his woolen jacket.
The boy ducked out of the way and held up one of the stones. “Don’t touch me, or I’ll throw one of these at you! And don’t touch Isaac, neither!”
“Do you think it wise to threaten me?” Adrian asked, and watched as a tremor of fear passed across the boy’s face. The child was merely acting brave.
“We wasn’t doing anything bad!” the boy insisted, his hand shaking around the stone. “We was throwing stones to scare the ghosts away! We was doing you a favor!”
The boy on the ground nodded. “We were, sir. We thought that… if we could get rid of the curse here, then… the storm would stop. That’s what Hetty said at the orphanage.
She says that’s why the storm came. She said it’d stay cold because of the ghosts here, and the storm would only end if the ghosts were gone, and we…
didn’t want to be cold no more. But I went and slipped and hurt my leg. ”
Adrian moved to grab the other boy again, when Valerie cut in front of him. Her hands fell upon Adrian’s chest, her face wincing as the thud exacerbated her wrist, while her beautiful green eyes looked at him in earnest.
“They are children, Your Grace,” she implored. “They believe whatever they hear. And I believe that they believe they could put an end to the storm by hurling stones.”
Her touch made Adrian stop, her voice soothing the angry beast in his mind, turning its roar into a purr. “They could have broken a window.”
“And what is a window compared to the plight of two children who are out here in the cold? Two children who have clearly walked through this awful weather because they thought they could relieve this castle of its curse?” Valerie replied with a small smile.
“Children who, it seems, have come from an orphanage?”
Adrian felt a little foolish, seeing it from her perspective.
Indeed, if the boys were there to beg something from him or cause trouble, they would not have traipsed through thick snow and biting winds for miles to reach the castle; they would have waited for the snow to melt and the storm to abate first. And if they had simply meant to cause trouble, they would have done it closer to where they hailed from.
“Hetty told us; I swear it,” the standing boy repeated, shaking. Although, it was not certain if he was trembling from the cold or out of terror.
Grumbling in the back of his throat, Adrian stooped toward the injured child—Isaac, apparently—and grabbed him out of the snow. The boy tried to protest, tried to insist it was because of this girl named Hetty, but Adrian ignored him and threw the child over one shoulder.
“I am just bringing them inside,” Adrian said, catching sight of Valerie’s anxious frown. “Or would you prefer me to leave them out in the storm?”
He moved past her and took hold of the other boy, throwing him over his right shoulder. That done, he trusted in the breadth of his left shoulder and Isaac’s stillness, and curved his arm around Valerie, ushering her back toward the castle before she could catch a chill.
After all, though he had not paid nearly enough attention before, she was standing out there in nothing but her nightdress.