Chapter 14
Dorothea stirred and slowly opened her eyes, blinking into the dark. Her bedchamber was steeped in shadow, the only light coming from the dying embers in the hearth, casting a faint amber glow along the walls. The sun had long since set and she realized that she must have slept the entire day away.
Oddly, her body no longer felt as heavy or achy. The churning in her stomach had quieted, and her limbs no longer trembled. Whatever had plagued her earlier now seemed to have loosened its grip. She was pleased that rest had helped.
She shifted slightly and turned her head—only to find Dominic seated in the chair beside her bed, his eyes fixed on her. He was leaning forward, hands clasped between his knees, as if he hadn’t moved in hours.
His gaze, when it met hers, was strikingly gentle. Steady. Warm in a way that made her breath catch for just a moment. That warmth was what she had once imagined he might offer her freely, if only he let down his guard. For a heartbeat, her anger softened.
But only for a heartbeat.
Because Dominic still intended to cast her aside.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice scratchy from disuse but still sharp.
“I’m here to keep you safe,” he said simply.
“From what, exactly?”
He hesitated, then drew a slow breath, his features shadowed in solemnity. “It would appear that your recent misfortunes weren’t accidents. Someone may be trying to kill you.”
“That’s absurd.”
“I thought so, too,” he said. “Until I began putting the pieces together. The closed damper. The burr under your saddle. The tea. All isolated, they could be explained away. But together?”
He shook his head and pressed on. “It’s too much to ignore. And when I went to question the footman who delivered the tea, he was gone. Disappeared.”
Dorothea placed a hand over her stomach. “The doctor said it was influenza.”
Dominic sat up straighter. “Have you ever heard of Aqua Tofana?”
“No.”
“It’s a poison. Created in the seventeenth century. A concoction of arsenic, lead, and belladonna. Slow-acting and nearly undetectable. It mimics illness—starting with cold-like symptoms, then escalating to something resembling influenza.”
He continued, his voice calm but grim. “The doctor mentioned your pupils were dilated. That’s a known effect of belladonna since it was once used in cosmetics to make a woman’s eyes appear more alluring.”
Dorothea’s brows knit together. “And if I’d had more?”
“Four drops,” Dominic responded. “That’s all it takes. The first causes mild discomfort. The second—influenza-like symptoms. The third brings severe illness. The fourth… is fatal.”
A chill crept across her skin despite the warmth of the blankets. “Is there an antidote?”
“There’s no guaranteed cure,” he admitted. “But vinegar and lemon juice are believed to help combat it if caught early.”
Dorothea glanced towards the table beside the bed and saw the glass. “Is that what’s in there?”
He nodded. “It is. You should drink it.”
“Will I die?”
Dominic met her gaze. “No. Not if I’m right. You’ve only been given the first two doses. You’ll recover.”
Still uncertain, she pushed herself upright slowly. Dominic stood as she moved, but she held up a hand. “I do not need your help.”
“I know,” he said. “But I’m here anyway.”
Propping a pillow behind her back, she settled against the wall. “Why would someone want to hurt me?” Her voice had lost its bite—now it was small, uncertain, shaken.
Dominic’s jaw tensed. “That’s what I intend to find out.”
“But the footman is gone, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Dominic responded. “But I’ll find him. And when I do, he will answer for what he’s done to you.”
Without another word, Dorothea reached for the glass and took a small sip. The taste was sharp and sour—like drinking vinegar laced with bitterness. She coughed as she set it back down.
“That is vile,” she muttered.
“It’s meant to be,” he said. “It’s for your own good.”
She stared at the glass, then back at him. “Don’t pretend you care what happens to me.”
“I do care.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s difficult to believe, considering you’re trying to annul our marriage.”
Dominic exhaled and returned to the chair beside her, rubbing a hand along his jaw. “That decision wasn’t as simple as you believe.”
She turned her face away. “If the annulment is granted, I’ll be ruined in the eyes of the ton. And if it isn’t, I’ll be trapped in a marriage with a man who doesn’t want me.”
“I do want you,” he said, almost too quickly. “And that’s the problem.”
Dorothea turned to face him again, her brows raised in disbelief. “Pardon me if I don’t follow that logic.”
Dominic leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His voice dropped to a murmur. “I care about you, Dorothea. More than I should. More than I dare to admit. But I’m not the man you think I am. I’m not sure I ever was.”
She searched his face for the sincerity, confusion, and heartache swirling in her chest. “I thought I knew you. I thought… I was falling for a man who might one day love me in return.”
She caught herself, clamping her mouth shut, but the damage had been done.
Silence stretched between them.
Dominic’s expression shifted—pain, guilt, longing, all in the flicker of a blink.
“You were,” he said softly. “But I lost that man somewhere along the way.”
Dorothea didn’t speak again. She simply looked at him—truly looked at him—and realized for the first time that the distance between them was not just emotional. It was haunted. Wounded.
And she didn’t know if love would be enough to bridge it.
Dominic suddenly pushed back from the chair as if the weight of their conversation had become too much to bear. He strode across the room and came to a halt before the hearth, bracing both hands on the edge of the mantel.
His voice, when it came, was low and raw.
“I want the annulment because I do not want you bound to me. Not out of guilt. Not out of duty. I see the light in your eyes, and I fear I will smother it. You deserve a man who will love you freely, openly. A man who hasn’t been hollowed out by everything he’s seen and done. ”
“And you couldn’t be that man?”
He flinched. “It is better that I not be tied to anyone. It’s safer for everyone.”
Dorothea watched him, her heart twisting. “Don’t you require an heir?” she asked, gently probing.
He turned his face away from her. “As I told you, I don’t want children.”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and rose to her feet. With purposeful steps, she walked towards him and came to a stop just a breath away.
“If that is what you truly want,” she said, “then I will accept it.”
His head turned at last, his eyes meeting hers with a conflicted intensity. “But I must assume that you want children.”
“I do,” she admitted. “Or… I did.” She gave a small shrug. “But dreams can change. They often do.”
He exhaled sharply, a sound somewhere between a sigh and a scoff. “I can’t ask you to make that kind of sacrifice.”
“And if I want to?”
“This annulment,” he said, his tone becoming more formal, more distant, “would be the kindest thing I could offer you. I would establish a household for you, ensure you had everything you could want. Your own space. Your own life. Freedom.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “Without you?”
He dropped his eyes. “You don’t want to be married to me. You think you do, but you don’t. The things I’ve done… the things I’ve become… they’ve darkened my soul.”
Without hesitation, she reached out and took his hand. To her relief, he didn’t pull away. “Then let me help you,” she said.
“No one can help me. I’m a lost cause.”
Her lips curled slightly. “That happens to be my specialty—lost causes.”
He glanced down at their entwined fingers. His voice dropped, more vulnerable than she’d ever heard it. “You want to know what happened... after they dragged me away with the dead.”
“I do.”
His shoulders stiffened before he began to speak, slowly, deliberately.
“I woke up in a shallow grave. There were bodies all around me—my comrades. Friends I’d laughed with.
Fought beside. Bled with. The smell…” He closed his eyes, jaw tightening.
“It was thick with death. I had to claw my way to the surface.”
Dorothea’s hand gripped his more tightly. “How awful,” she whispered.
He nodded once, almost absently. “It took me days to find a British company. I wandered half-starved and disoriented, unsure if I was even alive or some ghost trapped in a nightmare.”
Her chest ached at the image of him, broken and alone, covered in the blood of his friends, staggering through the woods with nothing but sheer will keeping him upright.
“They arranged transport home,” he added. “But a part of me… a large part… wished I had never left that grave.”
Dorothea stepped closer, gently placing her free hand on his chest. “But you did come home. And that means something.”
He looked down at her, pain still etched in every line of his face. But in his eyes, there was something else now, too. It was faint, but it was there, nonetheless. Hope.
She held his gaze. “You are not as lost as you think you are, Dominic.” The words hung in the air between them like a fragile thread—tender, steady, and unmistakably sincere.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Thea,” he said. “Truly, I do. But I can’t be the man you want. Not anymore.”
He stepped back, and with that single motion, he let go of her hand. The absence of his touch felt sudden, jarring, like a door closing in her face.
But Dorothea didn’t wilt under his retreat. Instead, she squared her shoulders. “I’m not ready to give up on you.”
Dominic didn’t respond at first. Instead, he walked slowly back to the chair near the bed and sank onto it. “I wish you would,” he murmured. “Because I gave up a long time ago.”
His eyes didn’t rise to meet hers this time. He stared into the dying fire, as though the glow in the hearth held something worth remembering—or forgetting.
“You should rest,” he added. “Your body’s still recovering.”