Slowly, Henry withdrew his embrace, the distance as she stepped away from him like a physical pain, aching in her chest.
“I believe you have clothes in the boathouse,” he told her. “I will swim a while longer; you will not be disturbed.”
Thalia did not dare to turn, her heart sinking at the sound of him turning aloof again. Only when she heard a splash did she glance back, watching as he disappeared beneath the water.
Still trembling with the intensity of his embrace, her skin feverish where his breath had caressed it, she hitched up her sodden skirts and ran for the protection of the boathouse. Behind those walls, she would be able to catch her breath and try very hard not to think about Henry out in the lake, that athletic body gliding through the water.
The moment she closed the door behind her, she leaned back against the wooden walls and exhaled a shaky breath.This cannot be. I think… I think I am in love with my husband.
It was what she had always wanted, was it not? So, why did she feel so anxious? Surely, this was a good thing?
Shaking away the thought, she looked around at the unfamiliar building… and was struck by a familiar scent of pine, her gaze drawn to a staircase just ahead. Golden light spilled down the steps, as if inviting her upward.
Why would I keep clothes here?she wondered, only now realizing the weirdness.
But, considering the lower floor had nothing in it but three rowboats and two sort of wharves running down each side, and closed doors that presumably opened onto the lake, she figured upstairs might hold the answer.
Still shaking slightly, conscious that her and stairs were not the best of friends of late, she ascended.
A soft gasp slipped from her throat as she looked upon a beautiful, airy space, rafters adorned with colorful garlands, walls decorated with what appeared to be children’s drawings. To the right was a small wardrobe, to the left was a crammed bookcase, and straight ahead, silhouetted in the heavenly light that shone in through a large window, was a writing desk.
I should write a letter! Confess my feelings!For there was no possible way she would be able to form a coherent sentence if she tried to confess to him in person.
Perhaps, if those feelings were returned, this might be her happy ending after all. Married to a man she loved. A fulfillment of her mother’s last wish, even if ithadbegun as an arranged match.
Giddy with excitement, and a small quaver of nerves, she rushed forward to the writing desk and sat down. She grimaced as her wet skirts squelched on the seat, but no matter… This could not wait.
“Now, where would the duchess put paper?” she murmured aloud, tugging open the top drawer of the desk.
A leather-bound book lay within it, a snowdrop embossed on the cover as if it had been a gift.
Puzzled, she reached for it, drawing it out with tremendous care, as though it might disappear if she moved too quickly. Just as slowly, she opened the cover… and almost cried out at the sight of the writing inside.
Herwriting.
This is where I have been hiding my things…
Her eyes devoured the first page hungrily, realizing that it was her diary, her journal, her account of all of her innermost thoughts; not lost but right here, in a room she could not remember visiting.
But the days of the diary passed too slowly for her desperate curiosity, prompting her to rush ahead, nearer to where the pages lay empty. Not yet filled by her hand.
Tea with Frances… a ball with Frances… reading by the lake… Dorothy visited… I went to the schools to see how they were progressing…It seemed mundane, but the more Thalia read, the more her head began to hurt. Beginning as a dull ache behind her ears, she ignored it at first, but the discomfort spread quickly, traveling up the back of her skull and over the crown.
Hoping to delay it, she skipped pages, skipped great chunks of her personal history, but the pain kept coming. As if it were directly linked to the movement of her eyes as they absorbed the words in front of her.
Long before she reached the last sentence she had written before her accident, the pain became unbearable: a white-hot nail being driven directly between her eyebrows. Gasping in agony, her eyes blurred, she strained to read one more passage, like sucking in a last gulp of air before drowning:The silence in this house is deafening, but this was part of the deal.
With that, she slammed the diary shut and slid off the chair, curling into a ball on the floor of her secret domain, praying she was not about to forget everything all over again.
And though Henry had said he would not bother her, as she lay there with her eyes scrunched shut and her brain on fire, she fervently wished that he would. So she could at least remember a moment of affection before her mind betrayed her again, shutting her out of herself.
CHAPTER 21
“Did the duchess return?” Henry rubbed the last of the dampness from his hair with a bath-linen, as he turned to look at Baxter.
The butler gave a small bow of his head. “She did, Your Grace.”
“How did she seem?”
