“I should not have guided you to the discussion. When I had left, they had just started trying to determine who the author might be. I did not foresee that it would delve into the medical aspects, the discussion of…”
“Limbs.” Blythe knew what had bothered him and came to his side. It was comforting.
“I know that you faced more horrors than I could ever comprehend, especially following Waterloo and I apologize if those memories were brought forth.”
“You had no way of knowing.” He nodded to those gathered. “Nor do they as I assume they were thankfully spared from the experience of battle and the aftermath.”
She placed a hand on his sleeve. “We can go join a different discussion, if you would like.”
Orlando looked into her light blue eyes, full of concern for him, when it truly was not necessary. It was because of moments like this and the similar ones they had shared on the Continent that pulled at his heart.
“Or the two of us could talk more privately,” he suggested.
Blythe stared into his eyes, uncertainty in hers, then nodded. “I would like that.”
She then led him through the various areas of conversation, past the paintings displayed until they came to a smaller sitting area with only a settee and table.
She turned more fully to him. “Do the nightmares still visit?”
Chapter Twenty
Why had she not predicated where the conversation of Frankenstein could lead? Why had she taken Orlando to that conversation when there were others that were equally interesting.
She’d seen the haunting in his grey eyes as soon as the topic of body parts was introduced and had wanted to pull him away, shield him from the ugly memories to protect him, but feared what others may perceive of her actions. So, she had stood there, by his side until he left and she followed. She had also wanted to forget her memories of what she had seen when she had gone to The Farm of Mont St. Jean to look for.
It was no wonder he suffered nightmares and was surprised that she hadn’t. Now she would sit with him, be his friend, as she had been in the past.
“You remember the nightmares?” he asked.
Vividly! “Yes.”
Blythe had ached for him then and wished that she could make the war magically disappear, but with Napoleon on the march, battle was inevitable and all she could do was hold Orlando and give him what comfort she could before he drifted off to sleep again.
Thinking back, that may be the only time in her life that she had been needed, for herself, and not because her father was a duke and she was wealthy.
“Do they still return?” she asked when he hadn’t answered. “The nightmares.”
“Not for some time.” He stared off, and she suspected he was not really seeing anything.
“But you fear that they will return tonight?” Blythe asked quietly. The closest they came to being physically intimate was when she’d hold him after he’d awaken, sweat on his brow.
“Not if I free my mind of the memories.” His smile was forced and doubt lingered in his grey eyes, but Blythe would not argue with his intentions to forget.
Oh, it was so tempting to ask him to stay the night so that he was not alone if the nightmares visited him again, but they were no longer in the same position as they had been before and Orlando might take her request as an offer of something else.
“Tell me about your family,” she prompted. She knew about each one because Orlando had discussed them in length, when he spoke of his childhood, and being raised by a vicar, so long ago. She had felt as if she knew them even though she had only met Isabella.
“As you know, Isabella married Storm. That did not happen until last spring, when Nate found her in London quite unexpectedly.” He grinned at Blythe. “Much like I stumbled across you. At an entertainment.”
“I have been here since leaving Brussels,” she reminded him. “If you had wanted to renew an acquaintance, you could have found me. It was no secret where I was living.” Yet, he hadn’t bothered to look as they both knew and they likely would not be having a conversation now had they not crossed paths at the Venetian Breakfast, which she needed to remind herself.
“I assumed you were with your family in the country. I have been here two years and never heard your name.” He raised an eyebrow. “You are the one who left.”
“Yes. I did,” she admitted, and he knew the reasons because she had explained them in her letter. “Tell me about your sisters.” It would do no good to think about the past or anything that may have happened prior to the Venetian Breakfast.
“All my sisters have married and now my eldest brother,” he answered. “They married well and one is even a duchess and another a marchioness.”
“Do their husbands…” Blythe asked quietly, not revealing his secrets.
