Chapter 21
It was killing him.
The silence. The tension. The feeling of dread that he might have made a terrible mistake. The fear that he knew what might be the cause of it.
Another sleepless night kept Joseph pacing back and forth in his bedchamber.
The moment they’d returned from the ball, in complete silence, Catriona had headed straight to her bedchamber and locked herself inside.
He’d knocked almost thirty minutes after they returned home, well after midnight, but she didn’t answer him.
He couldn’t tell if it was because she’d already retired to bed or because she was ignoring him.
That sensation of dread told him that it was the latter.
Unable to stop himself, Joseph made his way to the wall adjoining hers and pressed his ear against it, listening desperately for any signs of movement. He jerked away a moment later, embarrassed by his actions.
“You wanted this, Joseph,” he said to himself, recommencing his pacing. “You were the one who told her that there could be nothing between you two. And there is nothing.”
He paused, looking longingly at the wall attached to her room as if he could somehow see her through it.
Then why did he feel like this? Like he was making a terrible mistake?
This was what was best for everyone involved, and he knew it.
If he dared to get any closer to Catriona, she may entertain ideas of love.
She might actually fall in love with him.
And if he could not return her feelings, would she succumb to her sadness like Hannah had?
The very thought felt like a cord around his neck.
Thankfully, his thoughts were broken by the sound of a knock. Joseph flew across the room to his door in a second. He yanked it open, hoping to see Catriona standing on the other end.
It was Dorothea.
She was in her pale nightgown, gripping the sides of it with big, teary eyes. “Daddy…”
Joseph sank to his knees, putting his hands on her shoulders in alarm. “Dorothea, what’s the matter? Were you crying?”
The answer to his question came in the form of a sniffle. One tear fell. “I had a bad dream.”
He hesitated. His mind emptied. What did one say to a seven-year-old child who was crying from a bad dream? That everything would be all right?
“Can I sleep with you?” she pleaded.
He nodded, throat thickening. It was certainly easier than trying to figure out what to say to her.
Joseph straightened and moved to the side as Dorothea stepped uncertainly into the room. He watched as she looked around, drinking in every inch. He realized suddenly that this was her first time seeing where he slept.
“Get in bed, Dorothea,” he said, a little sharper than he intended it to come out.
She nodded and did as she was told. She looked so small sitting in the center of his bed, staring at him. Joseph hovered nearby, awkward, racking his brain for what to say to her.
What would Catriona have done in this moment?
She would have gathered Dorothea into her arms, if the younger girl allowed it, stroked her hair, and whispered words of comfort to her until Dorothea relaxed.
She would have made Dorothea laugh, and if she felt it appropriate, she would have asked Dorothea if she wanted to talk about the dream.
He didn’t know how he knew, but he could see it in his mind’s eye.
Catriona holding Dorothea to her chest and soothing her to sleep as if she were her very own.
The thought brought on a wave of emotions he could not understand.
“Daddy? Are you all right?”
Joseph blinked, refocusing his attention on his daughter. “I should be the one asking you that.”
She twisted her finger into the mattress, not breaking eye contact for a single moment. “I feel a little better now that I am with you.”
Joseph drifted closer, sitting on the bed. “Was this the first time you’ve had a bad dream?”
Dorothea shook her head slowly. “I have them sometimes.”
“But you’ve never told me about them before.”
“I didn’t want to disturb you. You always work late, so I thought that if I interrupted your sleep, you would be mad at me.”
That assumption bothered him more than he could ever express. “You could never be a bother to me, Dorothea.”
Dorothea nodded as if she knew that all along. “Stepmother says that too. She says that I should go and interrupt you as many times as I wish.”
The mention of Catriona, the reference to her as her stepmother, did something unspeakable to him. “When did she tell you that?”
“When we were planting our flowers—” Dorothea broke off, slapping both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide.
It made him laugh. “I already know about your little secret in the garden, Dorothea.”
“You do? How?”
“You two have not been as discreet as you think you have been.”
She frowned slightly. “And you aren’t mad at me?”
“The truth was that I was a little mad at Catriona first. I could not believe she had allowed you to do such a thing as a young lady.”
“It isn’t her fault,” Dorothea defended quickly. “She thought it would cheer me up! And I begged her to go back after. Please don’t be mad at her.”
“I’m not mad at her,” he assured her, a little touched at how quickly Dorothea had jumped to Catriona’s defense. He hadn’t realized just how attached Dorothea had grown to her. “Now that I think about it, I think it was a wonderful idea. And I’m happy you are enjoying yourself.”
Dorothea visibly relaxed at that. She hesitated and then asked, “Will you join us next time, then?”
Joseph was tempted to say yes. It surprised him, actually, how quickly the word rushed to the tip of his tongue.
But then he recalled the fact that Catriona had not looked at him once since their dance tonight, and suddenly, he felt cold inside.
“Perhaps it is best if you and Catriona do it together by yourselves.”
“Why? It could be like when we went to the picnic.”
“I don’t think Catriona will appreciate my presence,” he couldn’t help but admit.
Dorothea tilted her head to the side. “Did you upset her?”
“I think I did, yes.”
“Then you have to apologize. And then we can all play in the garden together.”
“I’m afraid it is not that simple, Dorothea.”
“Why not?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. Nothing came to his mind. He knew what he’d intended to say, but, now he was overcome with the sudden fear that it was going to sound as foolish out loud as it did in his mind.
So instead, he said, “Tell me what you think about Catriona, Dorothea.”
Dorothea looked at him for a moment, and then she moved to the head of the bed, getting under the covers. Once she was comfortable, she said, “She’s the nicest person I’ve ever met. And she makes me laugh.”
“She makes me laugh too,” he admitted softly.
“And I think she really likes me, even though I’m not her daughter.”
That surprised him. “Did you think she wouldn’t?”
Slowly, Dorothea nodded. “My mother didn’t like me, so I thought she wouldn’t like me either.”
For a long moment, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. The lump in his throat would have made talking difficult anyway. Dorothea only stared at him as if her words hadn’t just reached into his chest and twisted what he called a heart.
“Your mother…” He didn’t know how to navigate this, how to find the right words for a girl as smart as Dorothea. “She was… unwell. It was not that she did not love you.”
“Did you love her?”
“I… had love for her.”
Dorothea nodded at that, clearly not understanding the underlying difference to his relief. He couldn’t even begin to explain any further. “I hope she’s happy now. And I want you to be happy too. I thought you would be when you married Stepmother.”
“That wasn’t the reason I married her,” he said, wondering why he was explaining all of this to a seven-year-old child.
“Then why did you marry her?”
“Because you needed a positive influence in your life.”
Dorothea frowned. “That’s silly. I have you, Daddy.”
It was like a knife in the chest. She didn’t have him. For years, he was just a figure in her life, not a true father. And yet, with all the love and innocence a girl could have for her father, she thought that he was enough. Even when he hadn’t been.
Without thinking twice, he reached out, pulling her in his arms. She was so small against his body and yet her words, as simple as they might have been, had rocked his world.
“I think I made the right choice in marrying her.”
Dorothea nodded against his chest. “Then will you go and apologize to her?”
Joseph huffed a laugh. He stroked her hair. “Yes, I will apologize in the morning. Do you think she will forgive me?”
“Yes. I do. She’s really nice. And I think she would like to garden with you too.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because…” Dorothea yawned. Her body slouched into his. “… she really likes you too.”
Joseph said nothing to that. He let the silence creep in, continuing to stroke her hair until she fell asleep. Her words lingered, however, playing over and over again until he too fell into a deep sleep.
It was the gentle push of hands against his chest that woke him in the morning—rather groggily in fact, and he was most irritated at the fact that he was being pulled from dreams filled with the laughter of a brown-haired, green-eyed lady.
“Daddy.” Dorothea’s voice drifted through the grogginess. “Daddy, wake up. It’s late.”
Joseph opened his eyes to find Dorothea sitting in his lap, staring at him with a worried frown.
“I thought you would never wake up,” she said with a frown. “It isn’t like you to sleep in this late.”
Slowly, still buffeted by exhaustion, he glanced at the window to see that the sun was indeed far higher in the sky than it normally was when he woke in the mornings.
“Forgive me, Dorothea,” he murmured, sitting up. “I suppose I was still just too tired.”
Worry flooded her eyes. “Would you like to go back to sleep then?”
“No, no, I’m fine. I should get up.”
She scrambled off his lap as he shifted. She watched his every move, not saying anything else until he was finally on his feet.
“Maybe Stepmother is really tired as well.”
“What do you mean?” Joseph asked as he gave in to a yawn and stretch.
“I knocked on her door, but she didn’t answer. I think she’s still sleeping.” Dorothea pouted a little. “I had hoped that we could all have breakfast together as a family.”
Joseph sank down to face her. “Why don’t you go to your bedchamber and get dressed? And then we can all gather in the drawing room within an hour to have breakfast. How does that sound?”
She perked up with a bright and happy smile. “Lovely!”
“Run along then!”
She raced off and out of the room, her little footsteps echoing down the hallway which brought a smile to Joseph’s face.
He hadn’t meant to sleep in. He couldn’t tell when he’d last allowed himself to remain in bed past eight o’ clock in the morning, but for some reason, he felt no urgency, no need to make up for lost time.
If anything, the thought of having breakfast with his family was far more appealing.
He had an apology to make, after all. Even if he wasn’t quite certain how he was going to go about it.
It consumed him as he got dressed, neglecting the help of his steward so that he could be alone with his thoughts.
The entire time, Joseph listened for Catriona leaving her bedchamber next door, but there was nothing.
At some point, he wondered if she might already be up and about in some part of the large manor.
Even so, he stopped by her door all the same. Trepidation seized him suddenly. He drew in a breath before he knocked.
His knock fell a little flat as her door drifted open. It was ajar?
Something was wrong. That trepidation morphed into dread.
Slowly, Joseph pushed the door open, peeking his head in.
The room was perfectly in place, Catriona nowhere to be found.
He made his way to the bed, noting the fact that it was cold to the touch, as if no one had slept in it the night before. Panic seized him.
Calm down, Joseph. You are overreacting.
She had probably gotten up early and was somewhere else in the manor. Simple.
But when he turned to leave, his eyes snagged on the slip of paper sitting on top of her desk, held down by a paperweight. It was so out of place that it only made that panic grow.
Joseph made his way over to the desk in slow, hesitating strides. He was already reading before he picked up the note, recognizing Catriona’s elegant scrawl.
She was gone.
She was rather to the point about it, which was very like her.
She’d stated that she could not bear to remain in the same house as him, not when they had grown to have such differences, and that she had left right before dawn.
She told him not to come for her, that she would be safe with her uncle, and that she would return once she’d reconciled with her future, but for now, she needed the space from him.
His hands were shaking by the time he made it to the end of the note. He wanted to bolt from the room, to bark orders for his horse so that he could go chasing after her. He wanted to march right into Heaton Manor and demand to have his wife back.
But what good would that do? Would that not only make her resent him further?
Slowly, he folded the note into a small square and tucked it into his pocket, trying to tamper down the fear and panic making an uncomfortable mixture in stomach.
What would he tell Dorothea? The truth? That he’d made his arrangement with Catriona so uncomfortable for her that he had basically chased her out of the house?
This was why he’d wanted to draw a clear line of boundary between them in the first place. He knew this would happen. He was not capable of anything but hurting others.
All he could do was hope that Catriona would return. Hope and pray that he hadn’t lost her forever.