Chapter 24
“What do you mean, there was something wrong with his face?” Thalia looked at Lydia’s tearstained face with a degree of dread that crawled slowly through her body.
“He looked as though he had been in a fight. There was…” Lydia swallowed. “There was blood. And he couldn’t move properly, as though he’d been hurt. I don’t think he wanted me to see, but…”
Thalia glanced at Simon, who had accompanied the young lady to the house. He nodded grimly. “The worst I have ever seen.”
Thalia had seen Maxwell fight. In the ring, he became some sort of demon. Even when he went out regularly, he never hurt himself to that extent. He had always protected his face and entered Society the next day as though nothing had happened.
Her heart pounded. Her pulse thudded to the very end of her fingertips.
Something was very, very wrong.
“I must go to him,” she said, reaching for her reticule.
Simon held out a hand. “It’s not as simple as all that.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“He went to Marrowhurst Hall.”
“Why?” Thalia’s heart contracted in her chest. “In the middle of the night?”
“He gave no reason, and yes.” Simon’s face was grave, tight with worry. “Ordinarily, he has no particular love for the place. It has memories of his brother.”
Christopher.
Thalia’s stomach gave an alarming lurch, and she thought she might cast up her accounts all over the breakfast table. Lydia’s face was also pale, but evidently, she hadn’t come to the same conclusion as Thalia.
Good. Thalia would do her best to shield the girl as best as possible.
“Anna,” she said frantically to her friend. “Will you look after Lydia?”
“Of course,” Anna said without hesitation. “As long as you need. You know that.”
“I must go after him.”
“I want to come too,” Lydia said.
“No,” Anna and Thalia said at once.
“You must stay here and not let anyone know of the situation,” Thalia said, doing her best to remain calm even though that crawling feeling of dread was spreading through her body.
Surely, he would not do the same as Christopher. Surely, he would not hurt himself—or them—that much. He had so many people who relied on him, who loved him.
Even if he didn’t love her, surely, she meant something to him. Was that not reason enough?
“This is between them,” Anna said to Lydia, offering the scared girl a smile. “Let them resolve it. And besides, do you not have plenty of events to attend? This is such a crucial time in the Season; you wouldn’t want to miss anything.”
“Maxwell is more important than a Season.”
Thalia crossed to Lydia and took the younger girl’s hand in hers.
“And I’ll be going to him. You’ll have nothing to worry about, I promise.
I’ll look after him, and…” She couldn’t bring herself to say that she would bring him back with her.
After all, she didn’t know that she could promise that. “I’ll find him,” she said.
“I’ll send for a carriage,” Simon said, disappearing from the room.
Anna embraced Thalia. “He loves you,” she said under her breath. “Simon is certain of it—there is no other reason he would be behaving in such a way.”
Thalia clung to the hope, fragile as it was. “I will confront him when I find him.” If she could. “Thank you for everything.”
“Go. Pack.” Anna gave Thalia’s shoulders a gentle push. “We will handle everything from here.”
Thalia needed no more encouragement.
The journey felt as though it took forever. For the entire duration, Thalia stared at the window and tried not to vomit. Worry ate her alive, and she felt as though she had lived several lifetimes by the time they finally arrived outside Marrowhurst Hall.
The moment the door was open, she burst from the carriage and into the house, past the startled butler, who looked as though she might have been a ghost.
“Maxwell!” she called, running from room to room.
All empty. No signs of anyone being here, although he must have been in the house for an entire day by now. Panic seized her lungs, and she paused, one hand braced against the doorway. Behind her eyelids, all she could see was images of Maxwell throwing himself from a clifftop.
If the house felt as though it was empty, then perhaps it was.
He wasn’t even in the bedchamber they had shared together. The stale air didn’t smell like him.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, alarmed by the way it cramped.
The butler appeared in the doorway. “Excuse me, Your Grace. Are you searching for His Grace?”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat, dashing a hand across her eyes. “Where is he? Is he in the house?”
“He’s in the schoolroom, Your Grace.” The butler hesitated. “That is to say, the studio.”
The studio. She hadn’t even thought of looking there.
Pushing past the butler, she ran along the hallway until she came to the studio. The door was shut, and when she tried the handle, it jiggled helplessly. Fear wrenched through her, and she tapped on the door, listening for any sounds within.
“Maxwell? Are you in there?” She closed her eyes, her pounding heart shaking her body. “It’s me, Thalia. I came when I heard… Why did you come here?” Her voice cracked, and she sucked in a deep breath. “Why have you been fighting? Please open the door. Just open it.”
Silence. Tears stung her eyes. All this time, she’d been fighting them, but what was the point of fighting now? Her chest shuddered with the first of her sobs.
“If you’re in there, come back to me,” she sobbed. “Please, Maxwell.”
Her chest constricted so much she couldn’t breathe, and she rested her head against the door, doing her best to find her composure, because if he didn’t open it—if he wasn’t there to open it—then she would have to find a way of breaking the door down herself, and she couldn’t give way to her despair until after then, so—
There was the scraping of a lock, and the door opened. Thalia nearly stumbled forward, her weight off-balance, and she landed against something hard.
Maxwell made a small sound of pain, and she remembered too late that he had been boxing. But just as she was about to withdraw, his arms came up around her.
“Thalia?” His voice scraped, as though he had not used it in a long time.
But she didn’t care about that. She didn’t care that his shirt was damp, and she could smell wet clay, and that she was almost certain her studio was destroyed. All she cared about was the fact that he was here. He was here, he was alive, and she was holding him.
She gripped his shirt in her hands, pressing her face into his shoulder and struggling to control her breathing.
“Why did you leave?” she choked. “All I knew was that you had left for here in the middle of the night, and I—” She broke off, her voice shaking.
Maxwell slid his hand up and down her spine. Now her dress would be ruined, too. But she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“I needed some time and space to think. And this is your room, Thalia.”
“What are you doing in here?” Finally, she broke away, peering at the rest of the room.
His arms barely loosened, but she still saw enough to make her heart throb in a new, wholly unexpected way.
He had destroyed her room. There was clay everywhere—piles of it slowly drying in the corner of the room where he had evidently gotten frustrated and dumped it. Clay-slick water was everywhere, darkening the floorboards.
And there, in the center of the room, was a… creation.
She couldn’t say for certain what it was. A misshapen lump that vaguely, possibly resembled a human form, if she squinted a little. Maybe tilted her head.
“What are you doing here?” Maxwell asked, turning her so she met his gaze. She couldn’t hide her flinch of shock.
His face was bloodied and swollen. One eye looked almost purple, nearly swollen shut. There were great, blooming bruises across his jaw and cheek. His lip had split; a red line down the middle created a harsh divide.
He looked almost like a different man.
“Oh, Maxwell,” she whispered.
“It’ll heal.” His eyes were fixed on hers, hard and unyielding. No matter what damage had been done to him, he could not hide his spirit. “Now tell me why you’re here, Thalia.”
“I came when Simon told me you had left here in the middle of the night. And the boxing.” She reached up to touch her cheek, not realizing she was crying until she tasted the tears. “What were you thinking, getting yourself hurt like this?”
His fingers closed around her wrist. “I hurt you.”
“Not like this.”
“I was afraid I might.” He released a long sigh, wincing at whatever pain he felt in his ribs.
She needed to call a physician immediately. Why Maxwell hadn’t done that for himself, she didn’t know. But his hand curled around her cheek, and she knew she would forgive him anything. No matter how angry she had been, or how hurt, her relief at seeing him here trumped everything else.
“You are a fool,” she said, her voice breaking. “As though you would ever harm me like this. I know that. I have always known that, even at the very beginning when I saw you boxing and when you faced off those men. I have never, ever been afraid of you.”
He shook his head. “I always swore I would never love someone, so I would never have a chance to become like my father.”
“We are not the same as those who sired us. Maxwell.” More tears flooded her eyes, both at how shortsighted he had been and how afraid he must have been. How awful his father must have been to have left such long-lasting scars. “How could you think you were ever that terrible?”
“I have a temper,” he said evenly. “It’s why I box.”
“I am not afraid of you,” she repeated. “I have never been afraid of you.”
His brows lowered over his eyes, and he searched her face. “Such certainty,” he murmured. “When I had no certainty for myself.”