“It gets worse. She accused him of loving me in my mother’s place. All because on the very first day of my arrival, when I was just twelve, he had said I was the mirror image of my mother.”
Theodore felt as if he’d been struck by something sharp and painful. A direct hit to his heart. The feeling was not dissimilar from the way he’d felt upon hearing that Violet had eloped. Only worse, somehow. Had Beatrice’s uncle transferred his unrequited feelings to her? Had he taken advantage of his guardianship?
“My uncle refuted her claims, but he stayed away even more after that. And he stopped bringing me gifts as he did forViolet, stopped treating me as if I were his daughter. He hardly looked at me after that. It was only when he fought for me to accompany Violet this summer that I thought perhaps he still cared for me just a little. Either that or he simply wished to be rid of me, to have me gone from his sight.”
The breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding escaped Theodore’s lungs heavily. He brought Beatrice’s hand to his lips and kissed it, soverygrateful she was here with him and whole and well. That she had survived all her scars. “You will never, ever have to return to your aunt and uncle’s house,” he said, his throat thick with emotion. “To that place where others scorn you, where they cannot appreciate the truly beautiful person that you have become.”
“IF I AM able to push my chair twenty steps across the lawn today, you should wear your hair down.” Hands braced on the back of his chair, Theodore took another labored step.
Beatrice began unpinning her bun. “I have no doubt you will achieve your twenty steps, and my hair is already down.” The July afternoon was warm and leaving it up would have been cooler, but since that day in the library two weeks ago, she’d been careful not to provide the earl another opportunity to be so close to her.So intimate.Feeling his hands in her hair and on her face had been the most frightening—what were these feelings he evoked, and how am I ever to live without them, having now experienced such?—and exhilarating experience of her life.
He reached out to her frequently, either for reassurance that she was nearby or for assistance getting into and out of his chair or accomplishing some other task. Each of those simple connections affected her deeply, starved as she was for any sort of care or warmth herself. But that afternoon had been different. He had merely wished to know what she looked like, but his touch had caused her to wish for things that could not be.That he touched me because he cares for me. That he felt the same stirrings as his touch caused me. That he would not stop but would hold my face in his hands, lean forward and—
“Ten steps—ha!” Beside her, Theodore grunted at the small victory. “Halfway there.”
“Marvelous!” Beatrice clapped and relegated her scandalous thoughts to the back of her mind, where she hoped they would remain until tonight, when she lay tucked in beneath the luxurious bedding Theodore had had delivered to her room weeks ago, after she had agreed to stay.
She could not seem to help thinking of him each night, and while she ought not indulge in such thoughts there either, a lot of things about her time here were improper—from their familiar use of each other’s given names to the long periods of time they spent alone together each day. But the staff either chose to ignore such or found nothing wrong in their conduct. She’d felt no judgment from any of them. Logan, Mrs. McNeil, and the others had been nothing but kind to her and grateful for all they perceived she had done for the earl.
“Are you still there? Or has my brown-eyed assistant abandoned me?”
“I am right here.” Beatrice hurried to catch up to him and placed a hand on his sleeve for a brief second. “Isn’t this so much better than walking between the bars?”
He gave a jerky nod. “Outside is better. Though more difficult. I am unable to support my weight on the chair as I can on the bars. I fear I cannot—”
His leg buckled and Beatrice reached for him, already too late to stop his fall. As he went down, his weight pushed the chair forward and it surged ahead, sending him sprawling.
“Theodore!” She knelt beside him on the grass, touching his shoulder and then head, checking for injuries. “Are you hurt?”
“Only my pride.” He groaned, rolling onto his back. “And maybe my leg a little.” He reached for his left leg, attempting to straighten it. “Hard to tell since it was screaming at me already.”
“I’m so very sorry,” Beatrice exclaimed. “I shouldn’t have pushed you to walk behind your chair. I only thought that if you could learn to walk by pushing it around, that would give you more mobility. I thought the lawn would be a good place to start—less slippery than the floor.”
“All good thoughts, if only my leg would cooperate. I am beginning to fear it never functioning correctly again.”
“You’ve been walking on it scarcely a month,” she reminded him. “Considering that you nearly lost it, your progress has been remarkable.”
He frowned and his brow furrowed above his bandages. “I didn’t realize I’d mentioned my injuries in such detail.”
“You didn’t,” she admitted. By some unspoken rule, they never discussed Crimea or anything to do with the war or his injuries. Beatrice sensed he did not wish to talk about them, so she hadn’t asked. But she knew. “I merely assumed that with an injury requiring surgery and this long period of recovery...” She bit her lip. She’d said too much. And also not enough. She needed to tell him the truth.He will find out. He’ll know what I did.And then what? All of his kindnesses to her would be gone. He would think the worst of her, and his feelings would be justified. She would have to return to England, to her aunt bent on making her suffer.
Anything Aunt Margaret did to her now wouldn’t come close to the sorrow she’d feel leaving this magical place.Leaving Theodore.
If I tell him myself. If I explain . . . mighthe understand?
“What do the clouds look like today? I feel the warmth of the sun, so I assume there are few.”
Beatrice reined her thoughts back to the present and found Theodore facing the sky, his hands propped casually behind his head, a smile on his face.
All is forgotten.For now. He recovered from setbacksmuch quicker than he had six weeks ago. His legs were strengthening, as was his spirit. More and more he was the man she had come to know before ever coming here, though the brooding had not left him entirely. She suspected it never would. Recovering from trauma and completely forgetting it were entirely different. In her experience, the latter rarely happened.
He cleared his throat. “The clouds? Are there none? Or have you gone? Where are you, my Beatrice?”
Right here, but I am not truly yours.“There are few today. They are white, fluffy.” After nearly a solid week of rain, the day was bright, the sky mostly clear.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Theodore moved one hand from behind his head to pat the ground beside him. “Lie down and look up as I am. It’s the only proper way to see their true forms. Then you can tell me if there is an elephant prancing above us, or a Viking ship rowing toward shore.”
Beatrice shifted off her knees and leaned to the side but did not lie down beside him. She craned her neck and studied the sky. “No elephants today but a lion’s face, complete with a shaggy mane all around.”
