Chapter 11
A Misunderstanding
His eyes flew open wide. “But I never told you I was dying! Why would you think such a thing? Is that why you have continually asked me if I am unwell? I’m perfectly healthy.”
“You told me you were dying!” Lillian’s head swam. What was happening? Part of her was ecstatic to learn that he wasn’t suffering from some fatal affliction but the other part of her felt betrayed and… used.
And more confused than she’d been in her entire life.
But it was this betrayed part of her that was fit to be tied in that moment. “You lied to me!”
“I never told you I was dying!” Christian faced her now, one arm along the bench of the seat, the other in the air, as though to emphasize his innocence.
“It is the reason for the ad! Do you take me for a fool? Why else—? What of all that business concerning your sister? And making an heir!” she sputtered. “I don’t understand. Why would you lie to me?”
“Lillian.” He pushed his spectacles higher onto his nose with one hand and reached out to pat her leg with the other. “Please, my love, settle down.”
How dare he call hermy love? She drew away from him, pressing her body against the side of the carriage.
But he refused to be cowed. “Inevertold you I was dying,” he repeated. “I told you that I wasgoingto die! You must realize I wouldn’t lie about something so important. I would never.” His shoulders dropped as he stared at her and he looked… sad. “I… would never.”
Lillian turned away from him and stared out the window. She did not want to think that she had made him sad when it was he who had betrayed her.
He was making no sense at all. He had to realize that knowing one was dying and knowing that one was going to die most certainly held the same meaning.
Didn’t they? But…
If one was dying, then one was physically deteriorating to the point of death. If one was going to die, then the same was not necessarily true.
She turned back to face him. “Are you dying or not?” And then she corrected herself. “Are you going to die soon? And if so, you’d better have a very good explanation for it.”
The coach pulled to a stop in front of Master’s House and one of the outriders opened the door for them with a flourish.
“Drive around until I say otherwise.” His voice was clipped as he spoke to the footman.
Lillian had never heard him sound so angry, or was this him sounding frustrated? She wasn’t sure. The time they had spent together had been spent in a cocoon—a closed off world of sensuality. It had been the thing of fairytales. They had only disagreed about a few insignificant things, and those disagreements could hardly qualify as arguments.
The carriage lurched back into motion and Christian inhaled deeply.
“I am going to die, but I do not know when.”
Lilian shook her head. He’d yet to make any sense whatsoever. “How do you know this? Why? And how are you going to die? Have you done something illegal and expect to be caught and hanged? Have you harmed another, and someone wants revenge? Are you in danger?” But it was impossible for her to imagine any of these explanations, not if he was the person that she had imagined him to be—a good man, a kind man—a man whose dog loved him with unwavering loyalty.
His foot was jumping frantically on the floor of the carriage. He removed his spectacles and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I just know,” he ground out, almost as though he was in physical agony. It was not physical though, she realized. But something else. “I feel it. Inside.” He replaced his spectacles and looked over at her. It was as though those lovely blue eyes of his were begging her to understand something that he couldn’t put into words.
“Perhaps you’d best start at the beginning.” Upon hearing such pain in his voice, her anger all but disappeared. “Why would you believe this?” She placed her hands in her lap and, setting her own hurt aside, prepared to listen to whatever he had to tell her.
“It is my destiny. All the men in my family die tragically, at a young age—all of them.” His throat moved, as though swallowing unwanted emotions. “And I know this doesn’t sound rational to most people, but I cannot escape it.”
“It’s not rational, Christian. Please, do not lie to me.” Whatever the truth could possibly be, it must be horrible. Some villain must be after him. Perhaps this seemingly sweet man who was now her husband had, in fact, dallied with a married woman or swindled someone at the gambling tables.
He stared at her in earnest. “It is the truth.”
Sounds from the street penetrated her awareness as she sat in silence, trying to make sense of such a nonsensical claim as John steered them around Mayfair.
The pain on her husband’s face was real. She would hear him out.
If his belief made sense to him, then there must be a very good reason for it. He was an intelligent man, and until that morning, she’d considered him to be mostly sane.
