Chapter 15 #2
His voice was an utter snarl, and her heart jackhammered in her chest as he reached for her as if to tug her from the wall.
As he lifted his hand, she froze, noticing the bandages that covered his forearms. His shirtsleeves were pushed up beyond his elbows, baring the thick muscle, but something was wrong.
Her fear was secondary to her worry as she stared back at him.
“Oscar, what has happened? Are you all—”
“I do not care to answer your questions until you answer mine,” he growled, his eyes carefully staying on hers.
She didn’t know if it was to intimidate her to flee from the room, or if it was to avoid looking at the portraits.
“I do not understand any of this,” she whispered. “Why… why do you keep this all locked away? This is your past, Oscar, I—”
“My past,” he scoffed. “My past is better locked up. You do not need to see it; you were specifically told to stay away from the northern turret.”
“Why?” she cried, exasperated. “What happened to make you lock up so many doors? Your scars—your parents… they—”
“Do not speak of my parents,” he warned.
Finally, his eyes lifted from her to the portrait above her head, and she saw how his disgust twisted his mouth.
He shook his head violently. “Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out of this room, out of this wing, and never return here. You are not welcome in this place.”
“I do not know you!” she argued, standing her ground.
“I did not know you fought in a war, or that you attended Cambridge, or what your parents’ names are.
I do not know if they were kind to you, if you were happy, or anything that has ever happened.
You are an enigma to me, Oscar. How much longer do you wish to continue to be? ”
“Leave, wife. Before I truly lose my temper.”
“I have no wish to go. I want to know more about your past and—” her words came out bolder than she felt, and his eyes dropped back to hers.
“Leave,” was all he said again.
Her attention fell back to the bandages, and she reached out, but he growled at her, pulling himself further out of reach.
He turned his back on her. “I will not tell you again.”
“It’s Morris,” she called out, stopping him with the only thing she knew would make him pause. “That is why I am here. He is injured, and he fled through the castle, and I ended up here trying to find him. With the door unlocked, I thought he had found his way to you in this wing.”
She offered no apology, for she did not think she ought to, but she met his gaze sternly when he turned to look back at her.
The anger dissipated for a moment, concern tightening his features. She still could not stop thinking about the difference in the light in his eyes, the life that had been stolen from them.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he muttered, turning his back on her once more. “Follow me.”
At that, Isabella finally conceded, and the two of them set out to find his hound.
He led her back down the hallway in quick succession, not lingering, and when he shut the door to the northern turret behind them, it was with a hard slam. He shoved at the padlock, his jaw tight, and Isabella pretended not to notice the aggression fueling his sharp movements.
After locking up, he jerked his head down the main hallway, leading her to a staircase she had not come across before.
Wordlessly, Isabella followed, for Oscar seemed to know where to look for Morris.
The staircase led to an exit that was set into the castle itself—some forgotten servants’ exit, perhaps.
It took them into the back of the garden, a part that was more overgrown with wildflowers than carefully pruned rosebushes like the rest.
Oscar hastened his paces, long strides that carried him with ease, but his body never released the tension he had been carrying.
Isabella was still not scared of him, and she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the tight line of his shoulders through his black shirt.
Soon, they came to a wilder underbrush where she heard the low noise of a whimper.
Crouching, Oscar reached out with a scarred hand.
“There you are, boy,” he said, his voice considerably softer than she had heard in a while. “Come on, let me see what’s the matter.”
There was blood on some of the brambles and branches, and Isabella wondered how long Morris had been quivering there, in a known hiding place.
“Does this happen often?” she dared ask as Morris slowly crawled out of his hiding place with more gentle coaxing.
As soon as his body was out, Oscar scooped him up, cradling the hound against his chest.
Her husband only nodded at her.
“It seems you both have your hiding spots I do not know about,” she muttered under her breath, unable to help herself.
She regretted the comment as soon as it slipped out, borne from her startlement from his anger at finding her in his private gallery.
But Oscar was too busy carrying Morris back inside through the main entrance and took him right to his own washroom in his chamber. He didn’t tell Isabella to leave them be, so she followed, shutting herself in the room with Oscar and the hound.
“There we go,” Oscar said, still speaking softly to Morris. “Let us check you over, all right? Good, that’s a brave dog.”
With gentle hands, he ran touches over Morris’s soft body, sometimes giving him a stroke or pat, but mostly keeping it clinical. When he touched Morris’s underbelly, the dog let out a hard whine, and Oscar froze.
For a second, he didn’t move, and Isabella watched carefully.
“I—” Oscar’s voice was rough. “Can you pass me a towel?”
Confused at his sudden change, Isabella busied herself with the towels and filled a washbasin as well. She didn’t know the first thing about a wounded animal, but Oscar fell silent again and methodically washed the wound. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and she noticed how labored his breathing was.
By the end of the cleaning, he clenched the bloody towel, which Isabella quickly discarded.
“Is it the blood?” she dared to ask.
Tightly, Oscar shook his head.
She didn’t ask anything else, and especially not when Oscar tore away from the counter.
“I’ll send for a veterinarian,” he mumbled.
He left the chambers, and Isabella began to stroke Morris’s ears.
She leaned close, nuzzling her face into his quivering body.
“Your master is most confusing,” she whispered in case Oscar had not gone far. “Between his strange reactions and these locked rooms, I do not know where I stand with him. Then there is, of course, the distance. He loves you, though; that much is clear. He tended to you very gently, did he not?”
Morris’s deep, brown eyes looked up at her, and she imagined him agreeing. He sighed, nosing his own face into her palm.
“There, dear Morris. It’ll be all right,” she whispered to him.
She continued stroking his soft head until Oscar returned.
“The veterinarian will be here within the hour,” he told her. “Until then, I will keep another towel pressed to the wound. I cannot patch him up myself.”
His voice broke when he confessed that, and she saw regret and fear on Oscar’s face. Something in her crumbled at the sight of him as he stared at Morris.
After a moment, Isabella stood up.
“We can move him to my chamber if you need to breathe,” she offered, not knowing why he looked so torn, for this looked like more than distress at the wound.
He only nodded.
Then, he helped her bundle Morris into a blanket and moved him into her chambers.
Limply, Morris lay on her bed, and she sat next to him, continuing her petting.
She knew Oscar did not go far, but when he returned, the veterinarian was not behind him. Oscar still looked anguished but slightly more composed. Isabella was still curious about the bandages, but he had rolled down his sleeves, concealing them from view.
The veterinarian made quick work of checking Morris over, too, his face drawn tightly.
“It looks like some sort of animal attack,” he said. “I would guess, given the terrain, a fox. Does he often escape into the woodland?”
“He has been known to,” Oscar answered quietly. “Is he going to be all right?”
“He is in a critical condition, but you have done well cleaning him up.” The veterinarian looked at Isabella. “Your Grace, would you like to step out while I address the wound? It might not be a sight that is easy to stomach.”
She glanced at Oscar, who gave no indication of his preference for her staying or going.
“I am staying,” she said.
Together, they watched over the veterinarian as he treated Morris with salve to stop any infection, and then he stitched his wound closed.
Sweat slicked her back, and she did indeed find it hard to stomach, but Morris was going through it more so. She could handle a few unpleasantries in support of the dog, who seemed to have taken so well to her.
Once the veterinarian had departed with a promise to return the next day to check on Morris, Isabella slumped against the pillows, careful not to jostle the dog. To her surprise, Oscar hesitantly sat on Morris’s other side, avoiding her eyes as he played with Morris’s ears.
“I found him in the woods,” he told her after the silence stretched on for so long she thought he might have fallen asleep.
“I actually found him wounded in a similar way. He had had a run-in with wolves deeper in the countryside. The poor boy dragged himself all the way to the outskirts of our estate, collapsed by a creek, almost bleeding out. It was only seven years ago. I carried him in my arms all the way back here and told my father I was keeping him.”
Isabella held herself very, very still, for Oscar never shared anything, and it was the most she had heard him speak in one go. She didn’t want him to go back into that impenetrable silence.
“My father tried to refuse, tried even to toss him out into the garden. I found Morris once more, hiding in the underbrush where we had found him before. He was shivering, and I feared he would not live through the night. I took him to the veterinarian myself and stayed throughout his recovery. I returned to my father two days later with a dog I was determined to see to full strength once more. A proud owner indeed.”
He gave a fond smile down at Morris, still petting his ear. Isabella reached out to stroke the other one, her pale hand so soft-looking, so unblemished compared to Oscar’s.
“Is that…” She hesitated, unsure if she should push him further. “Is that why you reacted so stiffly in the washroom?”
Oscar shook his head, and she prepared herself for that to be his only response.
Again, he surprised her by continuing to talk.
“As you pointed out in the gallery, I fought in the war. I was a captain in the army, and there… I saw too many men who were fatally wounded, unable to be saved. And Morris’s wound…
it reminded me of that time. It is not the blood, but the anguish that comes with never knowing if I can do enough for a wounded thing. Person or dog, it is the same pain.”
Isabella’s stomach dropped, not knowing what to do with his vulnerability. She shifted her hand to cover his on the dog’s head. His hand was so warm, and she brushed over it.
“I do not know about your time in the war,” she murmured, “but I am certain you always did what you could.”
He shook his head, harsh enough that Morris stirred. “I am a fighter and have always been. I am not a healer, nor a savior, and sometimes… there is just not enough one man can do. I feared that earlier. I could not help but remember every man I had not carried to the medic tent in time.”
Isabella’s heart broke at the wound of his own, ringing through his voice.
“You are not to blame for such things,” she told him. “And you were not always a fighter.”
She thought of him as a young student, bright-eyed and hopeful.
After a minute of silence, she spoke up. “I should not have trespassed, but I do wish you had just told me it was private.”
“I did.”
“I should have known why.”
“One does not need a reason to obey orders, Isabella.”
He gave her a hard look that she pretended not to notice, fixing her focus on the dog.
“If I recall, you can follow them when you wish to, but I believe you like being rebellious, no?”
His voice was less vulnerable now, and she knew the moment of him opening up was gone, but Isabella still kept her hand on his. She squeezed lightly.
“You may continue to be haunted by those you could not save,” she acknowledged gently, carefully, “but Morris will make it through the night. You were his hero, and you continue to be.”
And perhaps, just perhaps, you might be mine, too, she thought, reflecting on her sister’s words from the past week.
Oscar only nodded wordlessly and let his head fall back against the wall.
“Isabella—” he began, faltered, then tried again. “I am sorry for raising my voice at you.”
That apology, more than anything that night, surprised her most.
For a minute, their eyes met, and she only nodded in the way he did.
Just a simple nod, no words needed.
For once, she understood why he favored silence.