Chapter Fifteen
Andrew hadn’t known what it was to hate until that very morning.
Everything even remotely hateful he’d ever felt paled in comparison to how he loathed to get out of bed.
For long minutes, he just lay there and stared.
The curtain of Della’s unbound hair had fallen over her face, and he swept it back behind her ear.
His eyes started to draw lines between her freckles, forming abstract shapes across her cheeks and up over her nose.
Waking up next to Della was the most precious gift of Andrew’s life, and getting up and leaving her behind felt like handing it back. As if it were somehow unwanted, and not something he cherished.
He stood up with perhaps more furor than was necessary. He just knew he had to stay in motion, because if he stopped moving, his body would naturally gravitate back to hers. Breaking that pull took all of the strength he had and more.
Andrew surveyed the room and realized he’d made a bit of a mess in only the few days he’d been here.
He couldn’t let Della see this in the light of day and think him slovenly.
He packed as he tidied up, wrinkled shirts and lonely socks going into his satchel with little fanfare.
He dipped behind the privacy screen to change, and the fabric of his last clean shirt felt stiff and starchy.
Tying a cravat around his neck was intensely uncomfortable now that he knew the sensation of Della’s fingers running up and down his throat.
She was still asleep when he returned to stand in front of the bed, fully packed and fully dressed.
It was almost impressive that she’d managed to sleep through the flurry of him pacing about the room.
Andrew sat down on the edge of the bed at her side, his hip resting against the crook of her bent knees.
Della was facing away from him, and he spent entirely too long watching her, counting her breaths.
He thought he might be able to see the beat of her pulse against her neck if he tried hard enough.
He would. Try hard enough, that is. As he watched her exhale on a dreamy sigh, he promised himself this wouldn’t be the last time he got to see Della like this.
It was the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.
He’d get so many more cold mornings and warm nights and he’d collect each of her smiles like the treasures they were.
“Della,” he whispered, even though he suspected she wouldn’t wake so easily. Maybe he was just prolonging this, wanting to spend each last moment he could in this bed with her. That was shortsighted, though, he told himself. The sooner he left, the sooner he could come back.
“Della,” he tried again, a bit louder this time. He found her elbow, resting at her waist, and it was radiating heat even over the blankets. His hand drifted to the curve of her shoulder, and it was burning, too.
She woke up then, as he gently shook her. Her eyes were bleary at first, almost startled, and then they seemed to melt as they focused on him. Andrew tucked that miniscule moment away for later. On a particularly bad day, it would hearten him to know Della’s first instinct was to trust him.
“Andrew,” she said, her voice nothing but a confused breath. “What’s the matter?”
She must have sensed it, then. His disquiet. The way it would pain him to leave this room. He was sure it was written on his face.
“I have to go,” he said as plainly as he could. He didn’t want to worry her, but he also didn’t want to give her false hope. If he told her all he’d be willing to do on her behalf, she wouldn’t ever let him leave her sight.
“Oh . . . I—” she started to say, but she cut herself off mid-sentence. “All right.” She seemed suddenly resolved. Gone was the innate trust and natural warmth in her eyes. It had been replaced by a guardedness he hated to see. Something chilled and resigned.
He tucked a strand of that rogue hair behind her ear again. He ran his thumb over the apple of her cheek, trying to memorize the feel of those freckles.
“Goodbye for now, Della,” he whispered, as if she were still asleep and he didn’t want to wake her. In reality, he just didn’t want to hear the words from his own lips.
“Goodbye,” she whispered back. Her warm fingers wrapped around his wrist where he still held her face. For the briefest moment, her lips pressed against the skin just above the sleeve of his coat. His breath caught in his chest as he fought against an onslaught of unwelcome emotions.
He couldn’t do this right now. He had to go.
He stood from the bed just as he had earlier that morning, abruptly and vehemently, though his hands lingered.
They drifted slowly over her, not feeling the sensation of the counterpane but the heat of her skin beneath.
He reached the door entirely too soon, and he paused for a single moment in the doorway.
He’d lost all the warmth of her body, and he shivered as a bereaved chill swept over him.
“Andrew?” he heard her say, still in that faint whisper.
This was another moment he’d keep. Not saying goodbye, not leaving.
But the sound of his name in her early morning voice.
Against his better judgment, he turned back to face her.
She was stunning. All he could see was her pale face and her dark hair and the faint lines of displeasure around her lips.
“Don’t forget to write.”
*
He hadn’t responded. Della lay there for what felt like hours, absorbing what was left of his scent on the sheets and considering everything he’d said and everything he didn’t say.
She’d asked him last night if he’d come back, and she didn’t like his answer.
She’d asked him to write to her, and he hadn’t answered at all.
It had been a long while since Della had felt this hopeless.
All of the contentment she’d worked so hard to build was long gone.
It was in a carriage headed back to London, perhaps never to return.
She tried to go back to sleep, but she was haunted by the sight of him walking out the door.
It repeated over and over in her mind, and the relative silence around her served as soul-stirring background music.
“Mr. Lockhart?” Della heard, along with a particularly aggressive knock at the door. “Have you seen Della? I cannot find her anywhere, and its long past time for breakfast. I’ve never once walked into her room to find her missing.”
Della rolled her eyes. She’d failed to account for Clara when she’d decided to lie here forever, and that was a critical mistake.
“I should be concerned, but I’m hoping that you have”—Clara’s voice abruptly halted when she opened the door—“an explanation,” she finished.
“It’s terribly rude to enter someone’s chambers without knocking,” Della chastised.
“I knocked,” Clara responded. She entered the room in earnest, taking slow steps until she reached Della’s side of the bed. “And there was no answer. I tend to take silence as permission.”
In spite of herself, Della laughed. Clara leaned against the bedpost and crossed her arms. Della’s laughter fell away at the sight of that posture. She felt as if she were being reprimanded by her mother. This interaction held all of that protective energy, but none of the existential terror.
“Dare I even ask why you are here?” Clara began to tap her foot against the carpet impatiently.
Della rolled her eyes again like a misbehaving child.
“And where is Mr. Lockhart?” Clara looked around as if she’d just realized the man to which this room belonged was in fact nowhere in sight.
Well, this room used to belong to him, anyway.
Della feared once she left, she might never be able to set foot in this chamber again.
“He’s gone,” Della forced herself to say. She crossed her own arms, assuming a defensive posture now that she’d been awake long enough for her arms and legs to move at least somewhat.
“Gone?” Clara fell into the armchair next to the bed, succumbing to yet another fit of dramatics. “What do you mean?”
Della sighed. She loved Clara. She loved everyone here at Westfield Manor, but she found the thought of explaining this to any of them exhausting beyond belief. Already, it weighed on her. It made her eyelids heavy and her bones ache. That her bones always ached was not the point of the matter.
“He’s gone,” she repeated, her voice broken by another heavy sigh. “He left. He went back to London in search of answers. I don’t know that he’ll ever find any.”
She closed her eyes, letting the heaviness take over. She was emotionally treading water, and she was getting tired. It felt like the time to let go and lose herself in the watery depths.
“So you are telling me that he’s left, what, in the middle of the night?” Clara’s voice bordered on hysterical, and Della couldn’t tell if that was anger or vexation or a deep sadness she heard there. Perhaps a devastating mix of all three.
“Early this morning,” Della clarified. “Right at dawn, I believe.” Her head was beginning to ache, too, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she’d been holding back tears, or if it was the screech of Clara’s voice, or if it was simply a result of missing breakfast. She never missed breakfast. Clara had been well within her rights to worry.
“Without saying goodbye?” Clara asked. Della’s eyes were still closed, but she could almost imagine the look on her face. Wide eyes. Probably leaning so far forward in her chair that she’d have fallen by now if not for her death grip on the arms.
“No, he said goodbye.” Della rubbed at a sore spot in the center of her chest. “To me, I mean. I suppose he didn’t speak to anyone else before he left.”
“I’m sure Harry would’ve told me if he’d seen him leave,” Clara muttered.
That sore spot bloomed into a deeper ache. Clara was so certain of Harry. Of her relationship with him, whatever that may be. Della had briefly thought she had that security, too. That certainty. Now, he was gone, and she wasn’t sure of anything at all.
“Did he have business back home?” Clara asked. Della actually winced at the use of the word. Home. The best part of traveling, he’d said.
“I don’t know,” Della admitted.
“Well . . .” Clara replied. She was silent for a moment, and Della could feel her carefully collecting her words. That was a terrifying notion, Clara being careful. “I’m sure he’ll find whatever he’s looking for.”
“I don’t know,” Della repeated. “I don’t know what we do now.”
She heard a rustling and an indignant huff. When Della finally opened her eyes, Clara was much closer. Standing over the bed in a way that was almost menacing.
“We eat breakfast.” Clara extended a hand, pulling Della to a sitting position. “That’s what we do now.”