Nevertheless, she hesitated. It was not something she was embarrassed about, but it was such a long-ago dream now that speaking of it was like trying to play a song you had heard just once.
“I was raised with fairytales and love stories,” she began, staring down into what was left of her drink. “My mother would read them to me, even when I was probably too old to have stories read to me. I used Dorothy as my excuse to keep listening, and, when my mother was gone, I took over. It was my mother’s dying wish that I should marry for love, and I believed in this dream of finding that perfect love, until… well, you know the rest.”
“A noble wish,” he said quietly. “A noble dream.”
Thalia laughed tightly. “For Dorothy, I hope it will come true. Indeed, she stands a fair chance because of you, because of… this.”
She gestured awkwardly between them.
“I pray she does not squander the opportunity on someone unworthy,” he said.
“As do I.”
A more comfortable sort of silence fell between them, interrupted by the lively crackle of the fire in the grate and the hoot of owls calling to one another, somewhere in the dark beyond the windows.
“What about motherhood?” Henry asked a short while later, confusion creasing his brow. “Your request, I mean. Why did you ask that of me when you did?”
The pages of the diary turned in Thalia’s mind, flipping through all of those lonely moments, the feelings of isolation and despair, the emptiness and silence of Holdridge Court. It had been a sanctuary, true, but, as she had discovered, a sanctuary could easily become a prison of one’s own making.
“It was the only dream left,” she replied. “I suppose I tried to suppress it by founding those schools, but… it was not the same. I reached a point where I wanted someone to care for, so I decided to make the request.”
“And is that something you still want?”
When she met his gaze, he was looking at her with such strange intensity: an expression that leaned toward fear, or apprehension at the very least. As if he did not necessarily want to learn of her answer to that.
I am falling in love with you,she realized, with some fear of her own.And you are most likely going to leave me again.She had sensed it when he departed her bedchamber three days ago, and she sensed it again now; that he was only asking so he could let her down gently.
More than ever, she wanted a child with him… but she would not raise a child without him. She could not bear the thought of having to explain to her beloved son or daughter why their father was never there, why he was a stranger in their lives; just someone who sent money, maybe a letter or two, and nothing more.
“No,” she replied. “I think the fall knocked that out of me.”
Henry nodded. “Yes, the physiciandidwarn against it, after all.”
And that, it seemed, was that. Another dream gone. Thalia’s last dream, whipped away by the same man who had taken her first dream too. The same man who, deep down, she wished would give back both of her dreams at once.
CHAPTER 25
London had seen fit to echo Henry’s temper, the skies a moody gray, dense rainclouds unleashing a fine, irritating drizzle onto the city below. The cold droplets clung to his hair and dripped into his eyes as he stared up at the small house, just as church bells began to chime noon in the distance.
The residence was a dismal thing, like a rotten tooth in an overcrowded row of them, on a narrow street in a disreputable part of the city.
“I do not trust this,” Henry said to his friends, who flanked him. “Are you certain it is not a trap?”
Owen shrugged. “There is but one way to find out.”
“We must remember ourselves,” Luke chimed in. “To us, this may seem a measly place. To the man we are here to speak with, it may be a palace.”
It was a fair point, and one that shamed Henry just a little bit. Not everyone had the fortune—both kinds—to be able to reside in a manor in the countryside, with a townhouse for when they visited the city.
Sweeping the rain from his hair, Henry knocked on the front door and took a half step back to wait for the response.
No more than five seconds later, a man appeared: dark eyes darted from left to right, searching the street; fair curls sticking out from beneath a woolen cap; much younger than Henry had anticipated.
“Come in,” the man hissed, making no attempt at courtesy.
Then again, Henry was not there to be courteous either.
Digging his fingernails into his palms so he would not lose his temper immediately, he stepped into the questionable abode. The man waited until all three were in the house, then all but slammed the door, and paused to take a deep breath of apparent relief.
