Chapter Twenty #2
Though he stood just to the side of her, his hand still on the closed door, she didn’t turn to face him.
Instead, she turned away and strode toward the closest wingback chair.
Unfortunately, she bumped into the table next to it, toppling it.
Instead of feeling embarrassed, she felt vindicated.
Satisfaction filled her, and she continued past the chair and purposely tipped over another small table.
Again, a small feeling of ugly pleasure flew through her.
Then her gaze landed on the telescope. She headed for it, the thought of throwing it through the glass windows filling her with an odd sort of anticipation. But two steps away from it, Darius yanked it out of the way.
“No. If you’re angry at me, then hit me, not some innocent inanimate object.”
She rounded on him. “That telescope is far from innocent. It was your gift to me to make me think you were thoughtful. To make me think I was worthy of being your wife. And then, like you, it betrayed me and revealed to me your perfidy. It showed me the truth of what you thought of me—not nearly as worthy as Dinah.”
He stepped back, setting the telescope behind him to protect it. “That’s what you think? You’re twenty times as worthy as Dinah.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, tired of the conversation. “You said you had something else you wished to discuss?”
Darius closed his eyes for a moment then opened them. “Yes. I wish to tell you why I had to leave the house and stay in the old bathhouse alone.”
She raised her brows. “But that’s a secret. One I’m not supposed to know.”
“I was wrong not to tell you. I didn’t wish you to feel betrayed.” His hands formed fists. “Now I see I only made you hate me sooner.”
She started at his use of the word hate. Did she hate him?
“What I should have told you is that I hide away in the north wood because I suffer from bouts of melancholia. And when that happens, I am not in full control of my thoughts, feelings, or, most importantly, my words. Rather than inflict my mercurial presence on others, act and say things that would destroy my relationships, I stay away from everyone. No one wants a monster in the house.”
Despite her need for revenge, a drop of sympathy sizzled against the fiery anger in her heart. “And that is the only way for you to cure this? Hide from everyone…alone?” She let her doubt that what he spoke was the truth seep into her tone.
“I have tried all avenues. My parents brought in the best physicians to cure me when I wasn’t yet sixteen.
After numerous purgatives, bloodlettings, special foods, cold baths, and one session of blistering, I overheard a physician suggesting to my father that they take me to a private madhouse.
After that, I pretended to get better, always hiding this malady I have, which my uncle, who was the marquess before me, also had. He drowned himself in the north pond.”
She stared in horror, not just at the suicide, but at what Darius must have endured.
Everything he described was part of why the Duchess of Northwick had insisted on educating them all on how to treat the unwell.
To be so set upon by the medical community and then threatened with a madhouse had to have been terrifying for such a young man.
Her anger dissipated, and she was unable to do much but empathize—but that still left behind the raw hurt, which was far worse. “Why could you not tell me this?”
He cocked his head slightly. “When I was married before, I could not live with the guilt of lying to my wife, so I told her. After that, she wanted nothing to do with me. She called me a madman and insisted on leaving me, but I couldn’t let her.
I couldn’t allow her to tell others, and I still needed another son.
” He moved to face the windows of the terrace.
“My hope was that if I eventually succumbed to my black moods, my wife would be here for my children until they were grown. I wanted them to have the love of at least one parent, and not the formal relationship many children have today with their mother or father. I was raised with loving parents and wanted that for my own children, but I cannot know how long I will be here.”
He turned and faced her. “I didn’t want to tell you because I feared the same rejection.” He took a step forward. “And rejection from you would truly end any reason for living.”
She sucked in a breath at the sincerity in his eyes. “Why?”
“Because I have come to love you. I married you for my children, but I now know you are as important to me as you are to them. Your presence in our lives has made us whole, a family.” He looked away.
“I cannot be whole.” He returned his gaze to hers.
“Yet with you, I wish it so with all of my being. I want to be the husband you need, the one you can depend upon, your protector and your champion. Ellie, please forgive me.”
Her throat closed with emotion at his impassioned plea. She blinked away the tears in her eyes. He wanted to be everything she’d always dreamed of but never expected.
Yet a niggling doubt remained. She swallowed hard, needing to ask. “But how could you think that I would act like Dinah?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Though I’ve constantly thought about how different you are from her, I feared having life return to how it had been with her.
And after understanding how perfect you are, I became more worried, because you make everyone’s life better by being a part of it, and I couldn’t lose that.
” He took another step closer. “I still can’t. ”
Perfect? He thought her perfect? She was far from—
Maybe she was perfect for him?
Darius took two more steps toward her before going down on one knee. “I am no more than a monster and don’t deserve your forgiveness, yet I kneel here before you, asking for it anyway, because there is nothing else I can do. Nothing I wish to do without you…my wife.”
Ellie’s chest tightened, warming as her love for her husband rushed back into her heart like the Great Comet of 1811.
Tears fell down her cheeks and she knelt to join him.
“Oh, my love. I do forgive you. You’ve been through so much, alone, fighting to survive.
I can help. I could never let you continue alone now that I know the truth. ”
“Ellie…” he whispered before pulling her to him.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on to him as his sweet kiss healed her heart.
He pulled his head back and gazed at her, love clear in his eyes. “My Ellie. I love you and will until the stars fail to shine.”
She smiled. “You do realize that depends on which star.”
He chuckled. “All of them.”
She widened her eyes. “That’s forever.”
“Exactly.” He kissed her again, a sweet, gentle promise that he meant every word.
When he broke the kiss, she raised her brows. “And you promise to never lie to me again.”
“I—I do, but I reserve the right to lie about any happy surprise I may be preparing for you, such as a present.”
She pretended to ponder his caveat. “That is fair, as long as that applies to me as well.”
“I agree.”
An inkling of guilt tainted her perfect happiness. She needed to take Sophie’s advice. “I must also tell you something that, while I have not lied about it, I have not been forthcoming about either.”
“Truly? Then please, tell me.”
She blew air out from between her closed lips, her need to tell him fighting against her willingness to do so. “I tend to knock things over.” She watched his reaction, bracing for his surprise or questions, but mostly for his disappointment.
He smiled gently. “I know.”
“What? How?”
“My dear wife, we all know, except the children. Why do you think the flower vases are on the top shelf of a bookcase in my study?”
She frowned. “You said you disliked them.”
“Indeed, I do. Immensely. But I had them moved up there because I didn’t wish you to feel guilty for knocking one over, which you would have eventually, based on where they had been.”
Her surprise was complete, even if her heart melted at his thoughtfulness.
Could he really still feel she was perfect for him?
“You must know, I won’t ever be able to stop.
I’ve tried. Mother had me take classes in walking, but I always failed.
I’ll always be”—she swallowed hard at the word her mother always said—“clumsy.”
He brushed a stray hair from her face with gentle fingers. “And I’ll always have these bouts of melancholia. They will never go away. Can you still care for me despite that?”
Though his tone was light, she sensed the tension in his body as he held her. “Not only can I care for you, but I love you and I can accept that because it’s a part of you.”
His gray eyes shone with pleasure at her words. “You love me? Then I am more than content.”
“I might even be able to help you with your malady.” As she said the words, a treatise she’d read came to mind.
“You don’t have to help. I just need to know that you will be here when I come home, and want me to be here.”
“I do want you, always.”
He smiled slyly. “I want you always, and especially now.”
He lowered his head, and this time when he kissed her, his tongue begged entrance, and she opened her mouth to welcome him in.