Chapter 14
The rain had stopped sometime the night before. James couldn’t have pinpointed when, exactly. But when he awoke this morning, the incessant drumming on the stone had ceased and a calm had settled over Acklan.
He’d risen early that morning, earlier than usual, and his mind kept returning to Cori as he wondered what to do about her.
If he should do anything. He had lain in bed for another hour telling himself to go back to sleep, but he eventually gave up when slumber refused to find him again.
So, he dressed in the dark and went downstairs before the rest of the castle was properly awake.
Out of habit, he went to his study but then stood in the threshold, looking at the desk.
There was nothing that required his immediate attention.
He’d seen to everything yesterday, and the absence of having anything useful to do was considerably worse than having too much.
A man with too much to do did not have time to think.
A man with nothing to do had no such excuse.
Again, he thought of Cori. He couldn’t help it.
He thought about the night before, about arriving in the drawing room after port only to find her gone.
He’d told himself that she must have retired early, but he hadn’t examined that too closely.
Examining it, after all, would have required him to ask himself whether he’d been relieved or disappointed by her absence, and he was not prepared for either answer.
Fresh air would help him clear his mind. It always did.
So, James headed for the kitchen gardens but—
She was already there.
He stopped in the gateway and swallowed a bit nervously, which was ridiculous. He was the damned Duke of Linthorpe. He shouldn’t be nervous, just coming upon a young woman in his gardens.
Cori was crouched at the far end of the herb beds with her back to him, her attention on something low along the east wall, her light hair braided loosely over one shoulder. She hadn’t heard him approach which allowed him a moment to collect his composure.
The garden was saturated from the last few days of rain.
There were puddles on the stone path, the espaliered trees along the south wall still dripped with rainwater, and the smell of wet earth and thyme filled the morning air.
The moors beyond the open wall were visible for the first time in days, pale gold and grey in the early light, the sky above them wide and clean.
Cori turned something over in her fingers, examining it, entirely absorbed in her work.
James should go back inside. He’d come to the garden to clear his head, not to find her, and finding her before he’d decided what his next steps should be would only confuse him more.
But he went through the gate anyway, like a lovesick schoolboy who couldn’t help himself even though he knew better.
She heard his footsteps on the wet stone and looked up at him, surprise in her blue eyes.
"The rain stopped," she said, as though this explained everything, which perhaps it did.
"It did," he agreed and came to stand closer to her, noticing a sprig of rosemary in her hand, bruised from where her fingers had pressed. The scent of it was sharp and clean.
"It survived," she said, glancing at the bed. "I wasn't sure it would. The stems were quite waterlogged."
"Rosemary is resilient," he said.
"Most things are," she said, offering him the slightest of smiles before returning her gaze to the herb bed, "if you give them time."
She said it lightly and he wasn't certain she meant it the way he heard it.
He looked at her profile and said nothing for a moment. “You weren't in the drawing room last night," he said. "After dinner."
She looked at up at him again. Level and direct. "No," she said. "I wasn't."
"I thought you'd retired."
She held his gaze and said nothing, and in that silence he understood. She hadn’t retired early. She’d waited for him somewhere, and he hadn’t gone in search of her. But neither of them was going to say that aloud.
"It was a long day," she said, finally. Giving him the perfect excuse if he wanted to take it.
Foolishly, he pressed forward instead. "Cori.”
She waited, her brow lifted in expectation of whatever he meant to tell her.
"I’ve been trying," he began, carefully, "to do what’s right by you."
"And what is that?” she asked.
How could he explain it? How to make her understand? He didn’t even understand any of it himself.
“Do you think I don’t know my own mind, James?”
“No, of course not. I—”
“That I shouldn’t have a say in deciding what's right for me?”
“Well, I—”
“I will have you know that I make decisions that affect the running of Beckett Salt and the livelihood of a great many people all the time. I am quite capable of making decisions about my own life.”
“That’s not what I meant. I—”
“No?” she asked a little tartly. “What did you mean, then?”
He meant to tell her that he’d wanted to see her the night before. That he hadn’t meant to hurt her. He wanted to tell her that their kiss had consumed him since that night in the library. But what flew out of his mouth instead was, “I had a seizure.”
“What?” She blinked at him.
He was stunned. And from the expression on her face, so was she. If he could call the words back, he would have done so in a heartbeat.
“A seizure?” she repeated as though making sure she’d heard him correctly.
“I didn’t mean to tell you that,” he said.
“Last night?” Her pretty blue eyes were clouded with worry.
“No.” He shook his head. “Six weeks ago. In London." He blew out a breath.
“Six weeks ago?”
James couldn’t hold her gaze. He could not bear to see the worry on her face, so he focused on the moors in the distance instead. “The morning of Darling’s wedding,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “Hannah found me, Daniel sent for Dr. Wells, and—”
Her hand settled on his arm and he glanced down at her once more.
“—he couldn’t give me assurances, Cori. So, I have none that I can offer you."
She said nothing. She simply looked at him with her clear eyes and an expression he couldn’t fully read.
The silence between them stretched and felt like a confirmation of sorts.
The very thing he'd been trying to protect her from had arrived anyway. She was a young woman with her whole life ahead of her, and he’d just told her that he couldn’t promise her anything.
Her silence said everything that her kindness wouldn’t let her say aloud.
"So, you see," he began, and then cleared his throat, "why I thought it better—"
"Oh, James," she said softly and squeezed his arm with the tiniest bit of pressure.
He stopped.
She was still looking at him, her eyes steady and very clear. "Hannah found you?"
"She doesn’t remember it,” he told her. And it was the one thing he was truly grateful for. "She’s only five. Daniel convinced her it was a nightmare."
Cori released a staggered breath. “That sounds like Daniel.”
It did, indeed. His brother’s roguish skills had come in handy that day.
“And you’ve been carrying the weight of this for six weeks?”
“There’s nothing that can be done about it,” he said stepping away from her, hating the emptiness in his own voice, hating the loss of her touch even more. “I should go in.”
He left the garden before she could stop him or say something else that might make him foolishly change course.
Cori watched him go and her heart ached. She wanted to run after him, to soothe him, to promise that all would be well. To vow that she would not allow it to be otherwise. But she knew that wasn’t possible.
She stood, her feet planted firmly in the garden and she stared off at the moors in the distance.
A seizure.
Six weeks ago.
Good heavens!
How had he managed the weight of that alone? He hadn’t of course, he’d had Daniel and—
And Cait!
There was no doubt in Cori’s mind that her sister had known this horrible secret. But for how long? For six weeks? For less than that? Did the amount of time even matter?
Cait had known and she’d not given Cori even the tiniest indication that something was wrong.
Oh, she’d warned Cori to be careful, but that was hardly the same thing.
The fact of the matter was, her sister should have told her the truth when she knew Cori fancied James.
But now… Well, now her feelings for him were much stronger than a mere infatuation.
She loved him, and the implications of his health hit much harder than they would have done six weeks ago.
Oh, James.
Cori closed her eyes, blocking out the grey sky and the moors, and thought she might shatter into a million pieces.
A seizure.
Six weeks ago.
Her thoughts turned to Hannah. Five years old and adorably precocious. Much too young to have to face such a horrible situation, let alone understand it. Daniel had convinced the little girl it was a nightmare, had he? Cori scoffed. It was a nightmare. That was the only word for the situation.
A nightmare of the worst variety. And James should not have to face it by himself, even if he was bound and determined to be noble and suffer it alone. There were no awards for martyrdom, and it was ridiculous of him to push away anyone who cared for him.
And she did care for him. More than she had known was possible. And she wasn’t about to let him push her away. She was built of sterner stuff than all that.
Cori went in search of James. After all, they were not finished with their conversation, no matter what he might believe.
She made her way to his study, the library, the breakfast room, and would have thought he'd found a way to vanish into thin air, if she hadn't stumbled upon Mrs. Fairleigh in the corridor.