Chapter 19
Nineteen
Thalia woke the following morning to the sounds of thunder and the heavy patter of rain. She thought it was still night, for her room was dark and the house sat quiet and still.
Despite the dreadful weather, Thalia found herself smiling because she sensed that today was going to be one worth remembering.
Memories of the previous evening still sat fresh in her mind, and she was all but certain that the duke had been as affected by the moment as she had.
More than that, she was certain that he was finally willing to show it.
Thus, she dressed quickly and woke Olivia so the two could break their fast together.
She took her time with Olivia, realizing that there was no need to rush and that perhaps it would benefit them to be late.
She knew little of the duke’s sleeping patterns, but she did not want to arrive so early that they had finished eating before he had the chance to.
“What is going on?” Olivia asked Thalia as she led the little girl to the breakfast room.
“What do you mean?” Thalia asked.
“That smile.” Olivia frowned up at her. “Why are you smiling?”
“Oh… am I?”
“Yes!” Olivia cried. “Is something funny? What? Tell meeeeeee.”
Thalia laughed to herself, not even realizing that she had been smiling. But she had been, and she knew the reason. Although the duke had not said as much, she felt certain that this morning, he would be joining them to break his fast.
The breakfast room was empty when they arrived, but Thalia did not let that get her down. Still, she remembered the moment she had shared with the duke, and how honest he had been with her. He wants to make this work. I know he does. All he needed was that little push…
“Is His Grace joining us?” Olivia asked once they were seated.
“I am not sure.” Thalia shrugged. “Maybe…”
It was raining heavily by the time they were settled. Thunder shook the manor, and lightning lit the room brightly. Olivia cried out each time it did, for she had always hated storms. But Thalia hardly noticed, her stare was trained on the door through which she fully expected the duke to appear.
Only, he did no such thing.
“Does His Grace not eat breakfast?” Olivia asked, pouting.
“He… I am sure he is just sleeping.”
“He is always sleeping,” she complained. “Why does he not join us?”
Thalia wished she had an answer.
She tried to remain positive. She tried to remind herself that this was not such a strange thing—it was not as if he had joined them before. But it was hard to stay in that space, as she had been so darn sure that last evening changed his perception of this marriage and what it might be.
And that wasn’t to say that she expected him to suddenly grow warm to her. That he would start to laugh and joke with them, that he would seek them out, that he would behave in ways that were once anathema to the stern, surly duke.
I had thought he would at least try. That he wanted to try. The way he looked at me… I know there was something there. I just know it.
It did not matter what Thalia knew. As things stood, the duke was acting as he always did. He wanted little to do with Thalia and Olivia and despite what he might have said, nothing was going to change.
So it was that Thalia’s mood soon matched the dreariness of the weather. A storm raged inside of her, wet and horrid, one not to be messed with because to be caught in it would suggest the world was ending.
She spent the morning in the library, curled by the fire, reading to Olivia because there was nothing else to do on a day like this one.
The story she chose was a romance, because Olivia liked those best, but it was hard to read, the happiness of the heroine in the story clashing horribly with her own torrid emotions.
Before long, with the storm raging and the fire flickering, Olivia found her eyelids growing heavy…
her mind drifting… the comfort of the rug too much to resist and she drifted off to sleep.
When she woke up, what must have been hours later, it was dark, and she was alone.
She shook her head to clear it, looking about the dreary library and shuddering from the cold. “Olivia…” She called for her daughter. “Olivia…”
A thunder clash had Thalia jumping where she sat.
The fire had long since simmered to ash, so the library was nearly pitch black.
Thalia felt a chill ripple up her spine, and she suddenly felt…
not afraid. Rather, she was worried. Olivia hated thunderstorms, and in a home like this one, she couldn’t begin to imagine where the little girl might have gone.
“Olivia…” Thalia started from the library.
It was not yet night, but the hallways were cloaked in dark shadows, the only light to guide her coming from the odd torch bracketed into the walls, and the random flashes of lightning.
But they were always joined by claps of thunder that shook the walls, and even Thalia found herself growing anxious.
“Olivia!”
She hurried to the little girl’s bedroom, peering her head into the black-drenched room. She wasn’t anywhere in sight, and the room was cold and musty and lifeless.
“Where on earth…”
It was then that Thalia found her worry increasing. She doubted the little girl had left the castle. There was no way with how savage the storm sounded. But what if she had taken a wrong turn somewhere? Was lost and afraid? Huddled in a room, terrified and alone.
“Olivia!” Thalia started to rush down the hallways, crying out for her daughter. “Olivia!” More thunder! More lightning. It was relentless, as if the storm was trying to tear the castle down around her. “Olivia!”
She didn’t do it on purpose, but Thalia found herself walking toward the duke’s side of the castle.
Olivia had been told time and time again not to come here on her own, or ever for that matter.
But Thalia wondered if perhaps Olivia had sought safety in the arms of the duke.
And what was more, if the duke had given it.
I want to say that is unlikely, but where Olivia is concerned, he has always been more gentle than he wants to appear. For some reason, she is the only one who is capable of drawing him from his shell…
And sure enough, it was when Thalia found herself approaching the duke’s bedroom that she heard voices.
They were hard to make out with the rain lashing at the walls of the castle, and the wind battering the towers, and the thunder rumbling non-stop.
But the doorway to the duke’s bedroom was open, beyond which she saw the burning light of a fire, and deep within she heard what could only be the duke’s voice.
“… the princess was scared,” she heard him say. “She did not know this man. She did not know what he wanted or what he might do. Was he dangerous? Did he mean to hurt her—”
“But he’s a prince!” she then heard Olivia cry out, giggling as she did.
“But she does not know that yet,” Ronan grumbled. “How could she?”
“But… but… but it’s always a prince.”
Shockingly, Ronan laughed. “Maybe to you. But to the princess, she doesn’t know any better. She’s been living in a tower her entire life, remember? What does she know about princes?”
“But it has to be a prince. Who else would—”
“Am I reading the story, or are you?”
Thalia crept to the open doorway and slowly, ever so carefully, peered around the corner. And when she saw what lay beyond the doorway… she very nearly started to cry; such was the beauty of the scene before her.
Ronan was sitting on a single couch by the fire and Olivia was perched on his lap.
He had one arm around her, while the other held a story book that he was reading from.
And Olivia was happy to curl up in his arms, with her own arms wrapped around him.
More than once a clap of thunder shook the room, and each time it did, Thalia noticed the way that Olivia clung to the duke, and how he held her as if for protection.
“Now, where was I…” Ronan was back on the book. “Ah, yes.” He cleared his throat. “Did he mean to hurt her? She could not say, but there was something about him that she could not help but be drawn to. A sense of comfort that she found when she met his eyes and when she saw his smile—”
“Because he’s a prince!” Olivia cried.
Ronan smiled and shook his head, and then he continued to read.
Thalia thought to walk into the room and join them. At the very least to let Olivia know that she had seen her. But she found that she did not want to ruin the moment, happy to stand back and simply watch, which was exactly what she did.
There was still so much she did not know about her husband. Never mind the why of it. It was the what that she chose to focus on. What did he want? What did he expect from this marriage? And what did he see as their future?
He had spurned them this morning, and it had rightly upset her. But she knew not to take it personally. He was warming to them at his own pace, and she was certain that he wanted more… that he wanted what she was offering. She just wished he would realize it already.
The only problem as she saw it was when or if he would ever come around. He was scared. He was unsure. He was happy to pretend that he wished to be left alone. But that wasn’t the truth as Thalia saw it now, and she decided at that moment that she wasn’t going to give up on him.
A smile reached her lips, a tear fell from her eye, and she turned and left the duke alone with Olivia, knowing that this moment was not for her. She and the duke would have their own moment soon, of that she was certain. Even if she had to force the issue…
Likely, that is the only way it will happen.