True, he was her husband, so it was not outlandish or improper for her to look, but he wasnother husband, in her mind, so her eyes instinctively diverted to anywhere else.
“What did you wish to say that could not wait until morning?” he asked, leaning on the banister beside her.
Below was a steep drop that made her blood run cold, imagining how terrible thingscouldhave been if she had… rolled over the edge when she fell.
The danger might not yet have passed,she realized, as she became suddenly, keenly aware that she was alone on a precipice with the stranger who claimed to be her husband. The man who had found her when she fell but had not bothered to mention it. The man who seemed to be hiding things; she just could not decipher what.
CHAPTER 8
She turned her back on that chilling height and stooped slightly as her breath began to even out. “I wanted… a carriage,” she replied. “I wanted to leave, to go to Farhampton. Mr. Baxter… refused me. And I came to tell you… that I will not be a prisoner here. I will not… be a prisoner… in my own home. If I have… the freedoms that I seem to here… then I ought to be heeded when… I ask for a carriage to take me… wherever I mean to go.”
With a hand to her chest, exertion and anger vying for control of her lungs, she sucked in breath after deep breath. Twice as furious that she should be so disheveled in front of this man.
Henry nodded slowly, but where there had been impatience and some anger of his own in their prior conversation, there was nothing but infuriating calm now. As if he were talking to an imbecile.
“Your freedoms are not in question, Thalia,” he insisted. “Your health, however, is. You are in no condition to journey anywhere alone. Why, if I had known you would attempt to climb so many stairs alone, I would have forbidden it. Not out of cruelty or control, but so you do not worsen your affliction.”
She glared up at him. “There is… nothing wrong with my limbs.”
It was a lie and they both knew it, for she was trembling from head to toe, and the world was spinning. If it were not for the banister against her back, she would surely have toppled over again.
“But exhaustion affects the mind,” he said. “You must rest the mind as you would a sore limb.”
She sniffed. “I did not realize you… were a physician as well as a duke.”
“No, but Ilistenedto the physician,” he replied. “Now, about this carriage: it is too late to venture out now, and I have some business to attend to today, so I cannot accompany you. We can discuss you visiting them when I have concluded my business and I am satisfied that you have rested properly.”
Straightening up somewhat, Thalia swallowed down the rising nausea and met his unreadable gaze. “You found me… here. Why did you not tell me that?”
“For the same reason I cannot let you leave tonight; you are not yet rested enough for more detailed discussions,” he explained. “Moreover, I hoped to see if any of your memories returned before I spoke to you of that night, so that my version of events would not influence yours.”
It was an annoyingly rational and reasonable explanation, and one she had not considered in her fury. After all, anyone could say anything about the night she fell, and she would believe them, for she had no memory of her own to contradict or verify it.
“I was told you do not live here,” she continued, her tone cold.
“That is true, for the most part. I visit occasionally, but never for very long.”
“Is that why I came here that night?” she pressed, her irritation transforming into something more like a plea for information. Any snippet she could get her hands on. “Did I come to see you because you were here for once? Was that common during your… visits?”
He puffed out a breath and moved an inch or two closer. “I do not know why you came up here that night because, no, it was not common for you to want to see me. Not common at all. So rare, in fact, that you haveneversought me out.”
“How can that be?” she whispered, mostly to herself, as she frowned at his handsome face. “No… I do not believe that I would ever marry a man like you. Is this… a trick, a ploy betweenyou and my father? Are you pretending all of this so that Iwillmarry you?”
He pulled a face. “That the entirety of my staff has been part of for four years?”
Said like that, she heard how ridiculous she sounded.
“You see, this is what I mean,” he added, moving closer still. “You are not yet ready to be up and about. Your head is full of fog and mistrust.”
His hand slid along the banister toward hers, but stopped just shy of touching her fingertips. Even so, electricity crackled between his hand and hers, her eyes wide as she stared down at their closeness, while her other hand flew to her chest. There, beneath her ribs, that strange feeling stole her breath again; her heart was beating like a caged bird desperately seeking freedom, her entire being suddenly shaky, though neither dizziness nor exertion were the obvious cause.
Henry’s body edged nearer, until he stood before her, barely a breath away. With his hand and arm to one side of her, it might have felt like he was trying to hem her in, but he had left the other side entirely open: an invitation for her to leave whenever she pleased.
“Tell me,” he said, his head lowering slightly, “what is it that so displeases you about me? Is it my appearance?”
The question disarmed Thalia, drawing her attention to the parts of him that she had urged herself to look away from: the ledge of his collarbone, the cords of his neck, the triangle of bare skin visible between his open collar, the suggestion of hard muscle beneath his shirt, from his broad chest to his powerful arms; and up to that sharp jaw, full lips, intense blue eyes, and the waves of his dark hair.
“Y-Yes,” she stuttered, immediately glancing away. “I cannot… bear to look at you.”
