Through it all, Darius had held his head up. Maintained appearances. But now he was breaking. Because the one person he could not afford to lose, the one person who held his heart like no other, had almost been lost to him.
Tears soaked his hands as he tried to calm himself, but he still felt like he couldn’t breathe. He could not lose Meredith. He would never survive if he did.
18
Minerva Crell reclined in her rolling invalid chair in the garden next to the little table where Meredith had laid out the tea. A contented sigh escaped Meredith’s neighbor.
“It is quite lovely this evening, is it not?”
Meredith added two lumps of sugar to her teacup and stirred it with a dainty silver spoon.
Meredith agreed. “Quite lovely… Perfect, in fact.”
It was just as she’d hoped it would be to have her new friend over for tea. There was a gentle breeze, and the night was pleasantly quiet with a nightingale singing in a nearby tree. She took a sip from her cup, relishing the way the tea warmed her throat. But it left a strange taste behind… something like laudanum.
From the far end of the garden, Darius walked toward their tea table, pausing a moment to take in the scent of roses that bloomed amid the wildflowers. He shot Meredith a smile that made her belly tingle with warmth and excitement.
“You’ll be happy with him,” Mrs. Crell said. “I know it.”
“You think so?” Meredith still feared that she would not be enough for Darius, that someday he would find her lacking and regret marrying her.
“They say opposites attract. But in truth, love is a calling, and like calls to like. You and he are so similar, at least in the ways that matter, the ways that heal. You need each other. There is no greater destiny than one loving heart finding another.”
Meredith studied Mrs. Crell’s face. “What went wrong…with you and your husband?” It was an intimate question to ask, but Meredith sensed her new friend would answer. “Were you ever actually in love?”
“I had been enchanted by his looks and charm, and he by my sizable inheritance. I thought in time it would become something more. But as the years passed and my illness set in, no foundation of love had grown between us. Money and desire will never be enough to sustain the flowering of true love. But I was too young and foolish to know that. And now…”
Meredith reached out and curled her fingers around Mrs. Crell’s hand, squeezing it gently. Her hand was strangely cold the touch. She let out a soft little sound, almost a choked sob, before she turned to Meredith again.
“Perhaps in time I can rest. But you… you’ve rested far too long.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have taken up too much of your time. You must wake up.”
“Wake up?”
Mrs. Crell shook Meredith’s hand, her eyes wide and suddenly fearful. “Wake up, my dear!”
Meredith jolted awake. She tried to swallow, but her throat was painfully tight. She was in a darkened bedchamber. Comforting images of ocean waves greeted her upon the walls. She was in the Seaside room of Darius’s townhouse, not in the garden with Minerva Crell.
A dream… just a dream.
Minerva Crell was dead. Meredith touched her throat and winced. Mr. Crell’s hands around her throat. She’d been trying to get him to confess what he’d done. She’d goaded him until he’d attacked her.
I was such a fool to think that would work.
Vague memories of Darius holding her surfaced. Had he been there, or was that a dream too? Darius was supposed to be in the countryside with his friends on a shooting party. It must have been Warren who’d come to her rescue. But Darius must have been there. She remembered his arms around her, his masculine scent filling her nose. She recalled only brief flashes of seeing Crell pulled to the ground by Warren and Doyle before she blacked out.
She pushed back the covers and walked around the room. Her body was stiff and sore, and she had a sense that she’d been asleep a long time. She poured herself a glass of water and drank, though her throat protested each time she swallowed.
Moonlight bathed the bedchamber with a pale, milky light, and she took in the night as she drank the water. She looked out at the lonely dark Crell house. How long had she been asleep? A few hours? Days? She found her dressing gown draped over the back of a nearby chair and slipped it on, tying the sash tight around her waist. Then she slipped her feet into her mule slippers.
She opened the bedchamber door and peered into the corridor, finding a quiet, darkened house. Darius’s bedchamber door was closed. Just then, a shadow emerged in the hall and moved towards Meredith. She held back a strangled scream but then a lamp was lit and Frances’s face appeared in the darkness at the end of the hall as she held the lamp up.
“Meredith? I knew I heard something. What are you doing out of bed?” Frances said in a hushed tone. She also wore a dressing gown, her hair pulled up in a messy knot atop her head.
“I needed to move about a bit. I’m dreadfully stiff. How long have I been asleep?”
