Chapter 45
DRASKO
Nina stood by the entrance.
“She could barely walk, sir,” she tried to explain as Drasko approached. “I was about to send you a message?—”
He did not let her finish, just rushed through the door, into a dim hallway, then the drawing room, to one small parlor, then another.
“Grace!”
A maid tried to stop him, but he pushed past her, then past Eden who stood outside the door to a small room.
All these bloody doors, the rooms, the servants…
“Grace!” Drasko stepped into a small room like nothing else he had ever seen in London. But in India, they were so common—thick curtains, handmade rugs, low divans, vibrant colors, incense and candles, the smells so familiar he inhaled deeply, taking it all in.
“Mr. Mawr.” Rivka’s voice brought him back to reality as she stepped into his sight of vision. Her gaze was as always calm and kind. “Gracie is all right. But she needs some time to recover.”
He stepped around her, and there she was, his wife, the sight of her so small and fragile that it made his heart clench.
Grace lay on one of the divans, curled into herself, both hands under her cheek. Her eyes closed, her parted lips opened now and then with labored breaths.
“Grace?” he asked softly as he walked up and sank to his knees.
Momentary panic rushed through him, then subsided—she didn’t seem to be in danger, though visibly in pain and so very, very beautiful, even at her worst.
Drasko stroked her hair and studied the sweaty strands sticking to her forehead, her chapped lips, her eyelashes against her pale cheeks.
Her eyes fluttered open.
She saw him but didn’t show surprise, seemed disoriented.
“I will be all right,” her voice struggled through the silence between them.
“I want to take you home,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “Is that all right?”
“I need a little…”—her eyes fluttered closed—“a little time… so I can walk,” she said barely audibly.
Her feeble voice scared him. So did her ghostly mutter. The sight of her brought the memories of his past, people lost, time spent on things trivial instead of next to those who mattered.
Grace looked like a flower plucked from the ground and left for too long without water. She was wilting, still so beautiful but so weak.
His chest tightened at the sight.
Rivka’s scrupulous gaze was on him as if she could see through him. Knowing the stories about her, he was sure she could. He was grateful Grace had a friend like this, giving her comfort when no one else could. When he, Drasko, wasn’t there for her.
He grew angry at himself in seconds, at his own lies, his deceit, the games he played with her, teaching her those little lessons, one at a time, coaxing her out of her timid shell, provoking her. Whereas he should have told her how he felt and how much he cared.
“I am taking her home,” he said, rising to his feet.
Rivka nodded. “Please take the medicine and tea. She will need them tonight and perhaps tomorrow.”
“Tell me. Tell me what she needs.”
“She will be all right by morning, Mr. Mawr,” Rivka said. “She just needs care.”
“Care?”
“Yes. Eden has done that for years. She knows what to do.” That inquiring gaze of hers was on him again.
“Eden?” Why in the world did a maid know how to serve his wife and he didn’t?
A flash of anger came and went as he looked at Grace again.
“The Sommervilles never told me about these pains of hers,” he said bitterly.
“Of course not. Grace was a mere job for them. A contract,” Rivka explained.
A contract —the word cut into him like a razor. That was what Drasko had called Grace right after their wedding.
“Do you know why her maid knows more about her than her guardians, Mr. Mawr? Not because the Sommervilles didn’t care. But because her servants did. They loved her. Worshipped her. She played for them, you know.”
“For the servants?”
“The Sommervilles did not much care for her or her talent. They were cold people, almost soulless, if I may. They only let her practice at a certain time. It was the saddest thing! They raised a piano prodigy and could not tolerate piano music!”
Now it made sense, Grace sneaking around, so protective of her music.
“Whenever the Sommervilles were away, Gracie played for the servants. I was there once, when she was twelve or so. A rare occasion, for I wasn’t allowed there.
She ordered all of the service staff into the music room and had chairs lined up in a row like at a real concert.
Only twelve, she was so excited about it, polite and attentive.
She put on her best dress, asked the staff to remove their caps and aprons—to make them feel like they were at a concert, you see.
She stood by the piano and bowed to them.
” With a kind smile Rivka absently looked around as if remembering that night.
“Then she announced the music piece she was about to perform.”
Rivka’s gaze drifted to Grace on the bed, so much endearment in it that Drasko felt envious of their friendship.
“She took a seat at the piano and played… Played… Played… And in the end, she got up and bowed again. The staff flung to their feet and applauded, Mr. Mawr. With tears and smiles. Oh, how they applauded! For some of them, that was the only concert they had been to or ever would. It made them feel important. And so for years, this was their little secret, Grace and the servants. For them, those performances were special. For Grace, that was how she learned to play from the heart. The prodigy of London was born out of playing for the servants. They were her most valuable audience. Until someone spilled the secret to the Sommervilles. And it all came to an end. And they started locking the music room…”
Drasko’s heart throbbed.
Eden had once mentioned that Grace had had to follow strict rules at the Sommervilles’. But locking up the music room so she couldn’t play when she wanted? What monsters would do that?
And here he was, making more rules for the woman he, of all people, should give the world to on a golden platter. The woman his heart was beating so hard for.
Drasko had tiptoed around the edges of his feelings for so long, clinging to the cliff of sanity. One wrong step, and he would fall headfirst. And the time had come, had come in fact a while ago.
He couldn’t pinpoint when exactly he’d started free-falling.
When Rivka’s story began? Or when he’d heard the words, “Grace is hurting”?
Or when he stepped into his silent house hours ago?
The house that, without Grace’s music, was full of ghosts?
When he’d first heard her play, years ago?
Or perhaps when he’d stepped with her to the altar on their wedding day and finally felt her in his grasp?
No matter.
He had tried so many things to win Grace over. Bribing her, lying to himself that he enjoyed the game.
There was no bloody game. Not with her. What he wanted, all along, besides winning her heart, was knowing that she was safe and happy.
Not Eden or Rivka or Julien or God knows who would ever care more than him. They couldn’t. They hadn’t learned to fight monsters to do so.
Grace was his.
With her music and her pain and laughter and sadness. He wanted it all, all of her, suddenly envious that someone had a bigger past with her than him, greedy to know more, the things she’d never told others. For that would make him “the only one.”
Drasko picked Grace up in his arms and cradled her against his chest. Her head lolled onto his shoulder. She whispered, “Home,” or something of the sort. And he carried her out of the house like the biggest treasure he’d ever held.
The memories came back—how it felt to care for someone, love fiercely, without shame, and know what it was like to be loved back.
This woman in his life was his everything. And yet, he hid behind sarcasm and bitter jabs, played with the words and her feelings, acted like a peacock, spread his bushy tail so she could see what sort of man he was, what he had, how much he could offer, and how fast he could conquer her.
He was ashamed of himself.
He held Grace in his arms the entire ride to their house, thinking and thinking and feeling—her body against his, her hands resting on his chest, her breathing growing even, worried to death when she whimpered just slightly but weak with tenderness when she rubbed her cheek on his shoulder.
And he shamed himself for striking deals with her, whereas he could just gift his affection and hope that one day, it would make its way into her heart and perhaps bloom with something in response.
At the house, the guards stood silent as if in mourning at the sight of them arriving.
He carried Grace to his bedroom and lay her on his bed. She murmured something in her delirium, and he whispered words of comfort. His chest tightened at the sight of her fragile body, curled up, and he caught himself in a moment of desperation, for the first time in years, not knowing what to do.
Eden came in with a tray of hot tea and vials of medicine that she kept around for these episodes.
“I will take care of her,” she said, pouring the contents of one vial into a hot cup of tea. She sat down on the edge of the bed, gently shook Grace awake, and made her drink it all.
All the while Drasko watched in a stupor. How did he not know any of this?
Eden nodded. “I will stay here, if I may. I shall see that she doesn’t dwell in her nightmares too long.”
“Nightmares?” he asked, surprised.
“She’s had those since childhood, yes, sir. Especially when she had these pains. Quite awful. But I need to undress her and?—”
“You may go,” he cut her off.
“Sir, I?—”
“You. May. Go,” he insisted, nodding toward the door.
When the maid was gone, he gently shook Grace awake.
“Grace, I need you to get up for a moment.”
She murmured something but let him help her up, gazed at him half-asleep and confused but didn’t argue when he undressed her with the care of a doctor.
When she was only in her undergarments and camisole, he pulled a blanket over her. With only a faint light by the bedside, Drasko took a seat in the chair in front of the bed.
He didn’t want a drink or a cigarette. There wasn’t an ounce of sleep in him. He would sit and guard her sleep until dawn, until she opened her beautiful eyes, free of pain. He studied Grace and wondered how he had gotten so far in his denial about his feelings.
Drasko didn’t know how much time had passed when her whimpers came, low at first, then growing louder as she curled into herself. Her hands crumpled the sheets.
He frowned, studying her face marred with invisible agony.
Another whimper came from her, her breathing suddenly heavy.
“Grace?” he called out, leaned over, and stroked her hair.
“Monster…” she murmured in her sleep.
His heart answered with a hurtful thud at the word. “What is it?”
“Nightmare,” she whispered, sleepily rubbing her eyes. “Will you stay?”
The sound of her voice curled around his heart. He’d never leave even if she asked him to.
Drasko took off his shoes and his vest and crawled onto the bed behind her. His arms around her, he drew her into him, her back against his front.
“Sleep,” he ordered gently.
“The monster will come,” she said in her sleep. “With blood and screams…” She trailed off.
An ache saturated his heart as he kissed the top of her head. “He won’t,” he whispered. “Not when I am here.”
He thought of the scars she tried to hide. The one that scared her was below her ribcage, an atrocious mark of something from her childhood, something she never talked about and even her maid didn’t know—he had asked.
He would protect her. From his business, from the Wollendorfs, from the diamond game. From more scars, if he could help it.
“I am right here,” he whispered, watching her fall asleep and making a silent vow.
And she took his big hand in both of hers and cradled it to her chest.