28. CHAPTER 28 #2
She didn't manage even a quarter of an hour, and then she was off again.
This time about a pair of red shoes Vivienne had worn to a wedding at the age of four.
Vivienne listened and smiled and asked questions.
But she did not look at her father, because her father was looking at her with the steady, unblinking attention of a man afraid that if he so much as turned his head, the miracle in front of him would prove to have been a trick of the light.
She loved them. At least, she was certain of that, in a way she had not expected to be so certain so fast. She simply wished, as she climbed the stairs to bed that night with her mother's latest story still ringing in her ears, that being around them did not feel like so much effort.
She had gone halfway up the sweeping curve of the grand staircase when the faint, unmistakable sound of her husband's voice came from below. The study, most likely. She paused with her hand on the banister, considering. Then she turned and went back down.
A fter dinner, Dalton asked the Kilbrannans to join him in his study before retiring.
Lady Kilbrannan took the chair opposite his desk. Lord Kilbrannan remained standing, one hand resting on the back of his wife's chair. A posture Dalton recognized from his own habit of positioning himself where he could shield and intervene at once.
"I need to speak to you about Vivienne," Dalton said. "And I would ask you to hear me out before you answer."
Lady Kilbrannan's mouth tightened, but she said nothing.
"The doctor who cared for her in Guernsey gave specific instructions before she left his care.
He was clear that her recovery depends on her not being overwhelmed.
Names, dates, stories, people, places. All of it at once.
The mind has been protecting itself for seven years.
It can't absorb everything at the pace we would wish to give it. "
"I am her mother — "
"You are her mother, and I don't question for a moment what that entitles you to.
But I'm telling you what the man who kept her alive told me before I took her from him.
And I am asking you — not ordering, asking — to slow down.
The stories. The reminding. She is working very hard not to disappoint you, Georgiana.
I can see the cost of it in her face at the end of every day, even if she won't admit it. "
Lady Kilbrannan stared at him. For a long moment she did not speak. Then she drew herself up in a way that would have been comic in a less formidable woman.
"Dalton. With respect, I have watched my daughter these past three days, and I don't see what you claim to see.
She is tired — of course she is. She has been through an ordeal no one in this room can imagine.
But she is not overwhelmed. Every story I tell her is a thread back to herself.
You can't heal a woman by hiding her own life from her. "
"I'm not hiding anything — "
"You are managing her." She said it without heat, which made it worse.
"You have been doing so since you found her, and I understand why.
You love her, and you are frightened, and that is what you do when you are frightened.
I know you, Valentine. I have known you since you were twenty-seven years old and walked into my drawing room with your heart in your eyes.
But there is a fine line between protecting a person and deciding for her, and I don't think you always know which side of it you are standing on. "
He didn't answer at once. He could not. Her accuracy was almost unbearable.
Lord Kilbrannan spoke for the first time. "The doctor on Guernsey. Was he a specialist?"
"He was a country physician," Dalton said. "A good one. But no."
"Then his instructions, however well meant, were those of a generalist. Not a man who has made a study of this condition." Kilbrannan's voice was quiet, thoughtful. "There are doctors in London who have. I should like her to see one."
"I have considered it. "
"Consider it more seriously." The older man's hand had not moved from the back of his wife's chair, but something in his posture had.
"Whatever you have been doing at Penrose has brought her further than I would have dared to hope three days ago.
But there is a man in this city who knows more than your country doctor about how memory comes back.
I have made inquiries. She deserves the benefit of his knowledge, and I daresay there is no time to waste. We have already lost seven years."
Dalton looked at his father-in-law for a long moment.
"You have made inquiries."
"I'm her father. I left Scotland a few days ago believing my daughter was dead. Did you imagine I would arrive in London and simply sit in your drawing room?"
There was no answer to that which wouldn't have been an insult, so Dalton gave none.
"Who is this doctor?" he asked instead.
"Dr. Linton. Harley Street. He studied under Charcot in Paris and has written two monographs on retrograde amnesia. I have not yet approached him. I wanted to speak with you first."
He recognized the courtesy. Kilbrannan could have written to Linton from his own townhouse without asking anyone's permission. He had not. He had come here, to his son-in-law's study, and offered the name.
Dalton exhaled slowly.
"Very well," he said. "I will take her."
The intake of breath at the door was very small. Yet it cut through the room like a knife.
He looked up.
Vivienne stood in the open doorway. One hand rested on the doorframe.
The other was at her throat, at the place where her pulse beat when she was frightened.
He knew that gesture. He had seen it in the vestry on Guernsey and in the entrance hall at Penrose and in the dark of the tunnels the night she had dreamed of the dungeon.
It was an instinctive gesture of protection .
She had heard enough of their conversation. And she did not like what she had heard.
"Vivi — "
"How long have you been planning this?" Her voice was very soft. That was the worst of it. If she had been angry he would have known how to meet her. This was something else.
"I was not planning anything," he said. "Your father has just now — "
"You agreed to take me to a doctor."
"Yes."
"Without asking me."
"I would have asked you. I was going to ask you tomorrow."
"No. You were going to tell me tomorrow." She took one step into the study. "There is a difference, Val. And I think you know it."
Lady Kilbrannan half rose from her chair. "Darling — "
"Please, Mama." Vivienne did not take her eyes off Dalton. "I would like to speak with my husband."
The word Mama had come out of her mouth without hesitation, as if she had been saying it for thirty-five years. Dalton saw Lady Kilbrannan register it. He watched her sit back down, as if a gentle blow had landed on her breastbone.
"I will not see any doctor," Vivienne said. "This Dr. Linton or anyone in Harley Street. I already have a doctor. His name is Paul Harrison and I trust him."
Dalton kept his face still. The mention of Harrison, here, now, was a weapon she had reached for without thinking. Did she know how much it hurt him? He filed it away to address when the wound was less fresh.
"We are only trying to help."
"Why is everyone so impatient for me to recover my memories? Why does everyone keep suggesting I am unwell?"
It was not blind loyalty to Harrison, or stubbornness, that made her refuse to see a doctor. No, there was more there. And it looked like fear. He would sort this out. But not now, when her agitation was so evident. What she needed at that moment was reassurance .
"It will be as you wish, dear."
"Promise me you will not force me to see this Dr. Linton, or any other doctor."
"I promise you I will not force you to do anything against your will."
The fear did not leave her eyes, but it receded a little. She gave a curt nod.
"Thank you." Her gaze swept over the room, encompassing them all, as if she were evaluating a threat.
"If you will excuse me."
With that, she turned and left, closing the door softly behind her.
She was already in bed when he went to her bedroom that night, but he knew she was not asleep.
She was curled on her side, and even in the low light, he could feel the tension emanating from her.
Wearing only his nightshirt, he slid into bed behind her.
She said nothing, but as he held her in the dark, her body softened against him by degrees.
He tightened his arm around her waist and pulled her closer.
"Tell me what that was about." He didn't need to elaborate.
"I don't like being discussed," she said finally. "It bothers me when the people who profess to love me decide what is good for me without consulting me. As if I can't be trusted to decide for myself. I won't have that anymore."
"You will not," he said. "I give you my word."
And he did so unreservedly. He wouldn't do anything against her will. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her. Even if she was still not telling the entire truth.