Chapter 4
JOHN
After spending the previous afternoon grappling with the emotions that their snowball fight had unleashed, John retreated once again to his journal, seeking refuge in the only place he felt safe enough to be honest with himself.
The moments when he’d laughed—actually laughed—during their exchange had been like coming up for air.
Had he laughed a single time since Ry died?
His muscles had remembered how to form a smile before his mind could remind him why he shouldn’t. He’d felt more like his old self than ever before.
That glimpse of his former self had been both a blessing and a curse.
He’d spent the better part of five years trying to rediscover the man he once was—the man who laughed easily, who found joy in simple pleasures, who didn’t feel like he was perpetually viewing the world through a pane of frosted glass.
There had been moments, brief and scattered, when he’d felt himself emerging from the fog.
A sunset in Italy that momentarily pierced his numbness.
A child’s laughter in a Parisian square that made him smile despite himself.
A book that engaged his mind so completely he’d forgotten to feel empty for an entire afternoon.
But the moments had been fleeting, and inevitably the darkness would descend again, often feeling heavier than before.
It had been worse in those first two years—days when rising from bed seemed an insurmountable challenge, when food turned to ash in his mouth, when even breathing required conscious effort.
He’d tried to drown the pain in wine and women, only to discover it could swim.
The turning point, he recalled, had come after one rough night in Vienna when he’d woken in a stranger’s bed, unable to recall how he’d gotten there.
As he stared at his reflection that morning, hollow-eyed and unrecognizable, he knew he needed help.
He stumbled his way to a nearby doctor. The man gave him the set-down he needed and helped him figure out what fed the melancholy and what would help keep it at bay.
He abandoned the drink entirely for a couple of years.
He took up fencing again, willing his body back to strength even when his mind resisted.
The doctor recommended a bit of normalcy, so he forced himself to read, to converse with others, to go through the motions of living until perhaps it would feel natural again.
But most helpful was when he started his journal, pouring onto those pages all the things he couldn’t speak out loud.
And slowly, inch by painful inch, he reclaimed pieces of himself.
Not enough to make him whole, but enough that he could at least recognize reflections of the man he’d once been.
Enough that he could function, could pass for normal in brief encounters, could fool most people into thinking he was merely serious rather than broken.
But Maddie wasn’t most people. She’d known him before, having seen him at his best. And that knowledge made him both desperate to prove he could be that man again and terrified that he never would be.
That moment in the garden, when genuine laughter had escaped him like a bird from long captivity, had given him something dangerous: hope.
Hope that perhaps he wasn’t as irreparably damaged as he believed.
Hope that somewhere beneath the sediment of grief and regret, the John that Maddie had once loved might still exist. And even more dangerous, that she might love him again.
But then reality had crashed back upon him, as the momentary lightness was extinguished by the knowledge of all he had lost, all he had thrown away. He wasn’t any closer to being able to tell Maddie everything he needed to say, but he could write it. And that would have to do for the time being.
John leaned against the wall in the ballroom, scowling at his sister, who had just announced the teams for the morning’s activity.
And of course, in his sister’s meddling fashion, he was paired with Maddie.
Brilliant. Not that he didn’t want to be near Maddie.
That wasn’t the problem. It was that he did, with an intensity that would only bring him more pain.
Everyone had gathered in the ballroom, and now Maddie stood by his side, appearing just as uncomfortable as he was about the turn of events.
Rosina announced the rules for the scavenger hunt and that the winners would receive a fine bottle of wine to share.
The prize certainly wasn’t enough to motivate John, given that he mostly avoided spirits.
He’d been better off for the past couple of years drinking sparingly, finding that the drink only deepened the darkness rather than numbing it.
Maddie shifted on her feet beside him, and he couldn’t help but notice every detail about her—the few strands of chestnut hair that curled at her nape, the pink of her cheeks, the subtle scent of lavender that had always been uniquely hers.
He then chastised himself, knowing that he shouldn’t stand there and ogle her. He didn’t have that right any longer.
“Let the hunt begin!” Rosina declared, her smile one of smug satisfaction when she glanced over at John and Maddie.
The room burst into activity. Guests descended upon the cup with folded papers inside that would send each pair off in search of their first item.
John noticed that Viscount Ashworth held back from his partner and approached Maddie. The man leaned close, whispering something in her ear that made the corners of her mouth twitch upward. It was far too familiar, and John fought the growing irritation within him.
Maddie laughed softly at whatever Ashworth had said.
John’s jaw clenched involuntarily. The viscount’s hand lingered at the small of her back, a gesture so casual but still caused John’s blood to boil.
They’d been friends for many years, and it had never bothered John before.
But at present, he decided he didn’t like it one bit.
“Maddie,” John said, his voice emerging more clipped than he’d intended. “We should collect our first clue if we’ve any hope of winning.”
Maddie stepped away from Ashworth, her expression unreadable as she turned toward John. “Shall we begin, then?” she asked, her voice cool and measured, though a flicker of something—perhaps amusement at his obvious irritation—crossed her features.
They approached Rosina together, and John reached for the cup with the papers.
His fingers brushed against Maddie’s as they both reached at the same time, and he felt that familiar jolt of awareness that had always existed between them.
He withdrew his hand as if burned, attempting to mask his reaction with gentlemanly deference. “After you.”
Maddie selected a folded paper and opened it carefully, her curious eyes scanning the contents. “It’s a riddle,” she said, and began reading aloud. “I hold immense treasures of the mind but never speak a single word. Seek me where silence reigns and wisdom is stored.”
“The library,” John answered immediately, then felt foolish for his eagerness. He didn’t even like this game, or so he had convinced himself before being paired with her.
“The library,” Maddie agreed with a nod, her voice softening slightly. “You always were quite clever.”
Her unexpected compliment warmed something within him. But he couldn’t allow hope to creep in, not when he’d already caused her so much pain.
They moved in awkward silence through the grand hallway. He tried to focus on their task rather than his racing thoughts, but memories of yesterday’s snowball fight and the glimmer of joy that emerged from both of them kept creeping in.
“It must be hidden among the books,” Maddie murmured as they entered the library, moving toward the nearest shelf.
“There are thousands of volumes here,” John replied, scanning the vast room. Then he noticed another urn on the desk in the corner, similar to the one that had contained their first clue.
He crossed the room and found that the urn did, indeed, contain several folded papers. John reached in and took one, then quickly unfolded it and read the clue aloud. “Though I do not speak, I see it all, from where I reside against the wall.”
“A gallery of some kind?” Maddie said, coming to stand beside him. She was close enough that he could see the light dusting of freckles across her nose—freckles she’d always attempted to hide with powder, but he had adored.
John nodded in agreement as they hurried off to seek a portrait gallery within the estate.
The game continued much the same way as they moved throughout the house together, from clue to clue.
Their mutual competitive spirit took over the more clues they found.
It was almost like old times when they’d played yard games with Rosina and Ryan.
John fought the sadness at the memory, focusing instead on the way Maddie’s eyes lit up each time they solved a puzzle.
Several clues later, they had established a rhythm, the initial awkwardness giving way to something that wasn’t quite comfortable but wasn’t entirely strained.
When Maddie pieced together a particularly challenging riddle before he did, the pride that flashed across her face made his chest constrict.
They collected yet another clue from the drawing room. John wondered how many Rosina had prepared for them. Although, he couldn’t deny that he was having more fun than he’d had in years.
Maddie found the clue and then read it to him. “Where frost meets glass and green defies winter’s grasp, seek your next challenge where summer lives eternal.”
She looked up at him, her brow furrowed in concentration.
She had never looked more beautiful, and he froze in place.
All he could do was memorize her every feature, as he wanted to remember her how she was at present.
Full of life and intelligence, like she was before he’d made the worst mistake of his life.