Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Adrian paused by the door that led out into the rose gardens, drawn by the hushed sound of people talking.
He had not been out there since Valerie had left Blackwall Castle four days ago.
He had not left the castle at all, confined to his study or his chambers, though routine no longer brought him any solace.
Not when every room he frequented reminded him of her.
“Have you received word from her?” Jarvis’ familiar voice asked, his words hurried.
“Nothing,” came Mrs. Mullens’ regretful reply. “I told her to write when she reached her home, but there’s been no word. I’ve checked the tray every morning, just in case, but… nothing.”
The butler made a strange, humming sound of contemplation. “Do you think she made it?”
“I imagine so,” the housekeeper replied.
“It’s likely that her father has denied her the means to write.
She said he was cruel. Goodness, I hate to think of her under the rule of such a man, waiting to marry some…
oaf she doesn’t know and doesn’t want to marry.
What if the man is cruel? What if he’s unkind?
What if he treats her badly? I can’t sleep, worrying about it. ”
“Nor can I,” Jarvis admitted. “And it’s not just because of her.
I confess, I was angry with the duke when he sent her away, but…
now I am just anxious about his welfare.
He is not himself: he doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t seem…
alive. Obviously, he is breathing and whatnot, but there is no vitality in him anymore. ”
Mrs. Mullens made a noise of agreement. “He misses her, so he is punishing himself. It is what he has always done.”
“I wish I had known about the betrothal when Miss Wightman departed,” Jarvis said with a sigh.
“I am certain I could have persuaded His Grace if I had known. Although, I understand why you were reluctant to mention it. It can’t have been easy for her, to know what awaited her back home, then unexpectedly finding a place for herself here. She must have been so torn.”
She thought she could trick me, you mean. Adrian frowned, anger prickling in his veins. What right did the servants have to speak about him in so casual a manner? What right did they have to feel sorry for Valerie, when she was not the one who had been lied to?
“There must have been a good reason she said nothing to His Grace at first, though,” the housekeeper ruminated. “I daresay she was falling for him, and thought it best to be truthful. Perhaps, she didn’t realize it was important until she found herself falling in love with him.”
“Well, that, and His Grace accused her of being a scheming vixen when he first met her,” Jarvis pointed out, the words striking Adrian in the chest with a bolt of shame. “Heavens, she was probably too afraid to say anything, in case he thought she had planned it all.”
“My thoughts exactly! Mercy, I could shake His Grace. I mean, why would she scheme to get a proposal from one duke if she had another duke already waiting in the south for her?” Mrs. Mullens said pointedly.
“Quite wealthy, I hear. No less wealthy than His Grace. She simply would not do that; it makes no sense, but I doubt His Grace could be convinced of that.”
Adrian froze, his forehead so deeply furrowed that he could see the edge of his eyebrows.
There were parts of Valerie’s story that he had been missing, and the housekeeper had just slotted a few of them into place.
Not that they made his thoughts any clearer; if anything, they had just muddled him more.
A duke? She is to be married to a duke?
He had berated her for seeking out a better prospect, but clearly that was not true.
He had also accused her of trying to ruin herself so she would not have to proceed with the wedding, but it was becoming clear to him that she could not have set out to do that.
After all, she had not known what she would find when she stumbled up to his door.
Which meant that it was highly unlikely that she had been enacting a scheme or ploy with him.
She will be another man’s duchess…
The thought boiled his blood, his heart clenching like a fist squeezed too tight.
“It is just so tragic,” Mrs. Mullens continued in a voice heavy with regret.
“Clearly, they were fond of one another. Now, he has ruined it, and I just cannot understand why. If he had permitted her to explain, I am certain she would still be here right now, no longer betrothed—not to that other duke, at least.”
Jarvis sighed in unison with the housekeeper. “She would have been the perfect duchess.”
“What a waste of her good humor, her wit, her charm, her vibrant character, and her beauty, to be sold to a man who will not see her worth,” Mrs. Mullens said, her tone edged with bitterness.
“Sold?” Jarvis asked, at the same moment that Adrian thought it.
“Her father is a terrible gambler, or so she told me,” Mrs. Mullens answered.
“Terrible in that he loses often and plays often. He has an immense debt, and it is dear Miss Wightman who must pay for it. I assume her father and this duke have come to an arrangement: her hand in marriage in return for covering the debt.”
Adrian had to move away from the door in order to exhale the breath he had been holding. Walking to his bureau, he braced his hands against the wood and expelled that air in a gasp, before dragging more of the room’s stale air back into his lungs.
Is that what she was trying to tell me?
He struggled to shake off the thought as his eyes darted back to the closed door.
A barbed thought lodged inside his mind: Were they saying all this on purpose?
Did they know he could hear them? Perhaps, Valerie had managed to send a letter, instructing them on how to help her avoid her arranged marriage.
The butler and the housekeeper were loyal to Valerie, after all.
“I cannot do this,” he murmured, so exhausted and frustrated and confused that he thought his head would burst apart.
There was supposed to be peace in silence, so why could he find none?
I will not be lured in again. Even if I were to go to her, to help her, and I find that everything is true, I will be more unworthy of her than I was before.
He stalked toward the door and headed out into the hallway, his footsteps matching the pounding thud of his heart. He did not stop until he was all the way upstairs, striding into the darkness of one of the guest bedchambers that were never used but always ready for visitors.
At least these rooms held no memory of Valerie. At least here he might find some peace and solitude, away from everything that reminded him of her, everything that was driving him mad.
There in the dark and the cold, a sliver of moonlight to see by, he stripped off his clothes and climbed into the bed, his weary bones sinking into the comfortable mattress while his breath plumed in the air.
No fire had been lit, but he did not care; he was too tired to care, for he had not slept well since before the party.
He had not slept much at all, in truth, and those endless, waking nights were beginning to catch up with him.
Church bells chimed out across a gray and moonlit graveyard, thick fog slithering between headstones like something living, each toll sending a shudder up Adrian’s spine.
One o’clock… two o’clock… three o’clock…
He glanced down to find his hand resting upon an ancient gate, damp moss pressing against his palm like a sponge.
His head raised as the clock struck four, a figure emerging from the mist like the rose garden ghost that Mrs. Leggat had spoken about.
A vision in white, a maiden with long, honey blonde hair, blown back by a teasing wind. An oh-so familiar maiden.
“Valerie!” he called out, but she did not glance his way; she did not seem to see or hear him at all.
He called for her again, his hand pushing open the gate. The shriek of hinges could have woken the dead, but she continued to wander through the gravestones as if in a dream of her own. Oblivious to his presence.
Five o’clock…
Instinct urged him to run to her, but in his dreams, he was not in control of what his body did or did not do. Instead, his feet trudged forward, as if each were tied to heavy boulders that he had no choice but to drag behind him.
Six o’clock…
Just then, another figure appeared among the dead and buried, as though he had risen from a grave himself.
Dark hair and waxy skin, eyes bloodshot, with a wiry frame that belied the violent strength he possessed.
Another familiar face, twisted by the dream…
or, perhaps, Adrian’s father had always looked like that.
“Get away from her!” Adrian roared, but no one listened.
His father extended a thin-fingered hand to Valerie, and with that radiant and na?ve smile of hers, she put her own hand into his.
Seven o’clock…
“Valerie, get away from him!” Adrian yelled, his throat burning.
All the while, he continued to lumber toward them, desperately willing his dreaming body to move faster. Could it not tell that Valerie was in danger? Or did it mean to make him watch as another person he loved died before he could save them?
The two figures, one so beautiful, one so ugly, turned in unison and walked together toward the towering doors of that gray and gloomy church.
Eight o’clock…
As Adrian’s father opened the doors and guided Valerie inside, swallowed up by the darkness, the bonds that slowed Adrian seemed to snap. All of a sudden, he could run… and he did, as fast as his legs would carry him, toward the church.
Nine o’clock…
He burst through the doors to find a candlelit scene, the pews all empty, a hooded priest standing at the altar, while Adrian’s father led Valerie down the aisle toward…
Adrian came to a jarring halt, unable to move at all as the clock struck ten.
At the end of the altar, a shadow waited for its bride.
The same shadow that had lurked in his dreams for as long as he could remember.
The unknown, shapeless darkness that mocked him from the corners of his nightmares, never revealing itself or its purpose.
Eleven o’clock…
“Valerie, no!” Adrian shouted, as his father passed her hand to that dreadful thing of shadow and misery, that spectator of Adrian’s darkest moments.
Once again, whatever was holding him back released him. Breathless, he lurched forward, sprinting with everything he possessed down the altar to Valerie.
But as he lunged for her hand, the shadow caught him by the wrist, that vaporous entity of black mist suddenly becoming flesh: fingers, a hand, a wrist, a forearm...
Adrian followed that slowly revealed form to the shadow’s face, a cry rasping from his throat as he saw himself reflected back. Only, the other him was smiling, his eyes bright with merriment, and Valerie was gazing at him with such affection that the dreaming him immediately withdrew his hand.
With a nod, his smiling self gently released his hold upon Adrian’s wrist and turned his attention back to Valerie, eyes burning with such love that Adrian’s heart ached.
Midnight…
As the clock chimed that final stroke, the church vanished along with the happy couple… and Adrian awoke to the canopy of the guest bedchamber. Alone and drenched in sweat, panting as if he really had sprinted across a graveyard.
“I cannot be the shadow,” he whispered as he sat up, clawing a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “I cannot be the watcher of my own misery anymore.”
The message had been clear, but the solution was not so simple.
Valerie… His gaze darted toward the window, the night sky tinged with the bluish hues that signaled the slow transformation into dawn. It would be hours yet until the sun came up, but he did not have a moment to lose.
Indeed, he had a wedding to stop, if he was not already too late.