“The answer to that is me. It’s me that forces our separation. I do not wish it.”
“By Jupiter, don’t talk to me in riddles! I’m not your brother. I don’t like mysteries. Tell me plainly or don’t tell me anything and just get out!” She pointed toward the door, her patience gone, her heartache resurfacing.
He took a step toward her then stopped. “I beg your forgiveness for being so cryptic. I’ve only told a few people why I must retreat to the north wood, and only one of them knew all.”
She crossed her arms at the reminder that others knew but she had been left in the dark. She’d always enjoyed the dark, but not when it meant a lack of knowledge. It just hurt. “Anthony?”
Darius raised his right brow. “My brother? No. He only knows what he saw when we were younger. No, the one person I truly shared my secret with was Dinah.”
She didn’t think the pain of betrayal could be worse, but hearing that he’d shared something of great importance with his first wife but kept it from her had her gripping the back of the settee until her knuckles turned white. “I see. You felt comfortable confiding in her.” She couldn’t look at him, the softer feelings she’d held for him shrinking even more. Once again, she wasn’t quite good enough. “I understand. Then there is no need to share with me what you shared with her. I would not presume to impose on such a sacred trust.”
She forced herself to let go of the settee and turn toward the door.
Darius snorted. “Hardly a sacred trust.”
His words brought tears to her eyes. She wasn’t even worthy of learning a secret that wasn’t important? She didn’t turn back toward him, not willing for him see how close she’d come to loving him, but that tiny flame she’d kept going after reading Anthony’s letter extinguished itself. “I should not have intruded on your privacy. I shall not bother you again about it…or anything.” She walked to the door.
“Ellie, wait.”
She didn’t. She closed her hand around the knob and turned it. Just as she started to open the door, it was slammed shut, the knob slipping out of her grasp, Darius’s hand firmly on the wood.
“We have not finished our conversation.”
His voice had grown cold, which made it so much easier for her. “Was there something else we need to discuss?”
“Yes.”
Though he stood just to the side of her, his hand still on the closed door, she didn’t turn to face him. Instead, she turned away and strode toward the closest wingback chair. Unfortunately, she bumped into the table next to it, toppling it. Instead of feeling embarrassed, she felt vindicated. Satisfaction filled her, and she continued past the chair and purposely tipped over another small table. Again, a small feeling of ugly pleasure flew through her.
Then her gaze landed on the telescope. She headed for it, the thought of throwing it through the glass windows filling her with an odd sort of anticipation. But two steps away from it, Darius yanked it out of the way.
“No. If you’re angry at me, then hit me, not some innocent inanimate object.”
She rounded on him. “That telescope is far from innocent. It wasyourgift to me to make me think you were thoughtful. To make me think I was worthy of being your wife. And then, like you, it betrayed me and revealed to me your perfidy. It showed me the truth of what you thought of me—not nearly as worthy as Dinah.”
He stepped back, setting the telescope behind him to protect it. “That’s what you think? You’re twenty times as worthy as Dinah.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, tired of the conversation. “You said you had something else you wished to discuss?”
Darius closed his eyes for a moment then opened them. “Yes. I wish to tell you why I had to leave the house and stay in the old bathhouse alone.”
She raised her brows. “But that’s a secret. One I’m not supposed to know.”
“I was wrong not to tell you. I didn’t wish you to feel betrayed.” His hands formed fists. “Now I see I only made you hate me sooner.”
She started at his use of the wordhate.Didshe hate him?
“What I should have told you is that I hide away in the north wood because I suffer from bouts of melancholia. And when that happens, I am not in full control of my thoughts, feelings, or, most importantly, my words. Rather than inflict my mercurial presence on others, act and say things that would destroy my relationships, I stay away from everyone. No one wants a monster in the house.”
Despite her need for revenge, a drop of sympathy sizzled against the fiery anger in her heart. “And that is the only way for you to cure this? Hide from everyone…alone?” She let her doubt that what he spoke was the truth seep into her tone.
“I have tried all avenues. My parents brought in the best physicians to cure me when I wasn’t yet sixteen. After numerous purgatives, bloodlettings, special foods, cold baths, and one session of blistering, I overheard a physician suggesting to my father that they take me to a private madhouse. After that, I pretended to get better, always hiding this malady I have, which my uncle, who was the marquess before me, also had. He drowned himself in the north pond.”
She stared in horror, not just at the suicide, but at what Darius must have endured. Everything he described was part of why the Duchess of Northwick had insisted on educating them all on how to treat the unwell. To be so set upon by the medical community and then threatened with a madhouse had to have been terrifying for such a young man.
Her anger dissipated, and she was unable to do much but empathize—but that still left behind the raw hurt, which was far worse. “Why could you not tell me this?”
He cocked his head slightly. “When I was married before, I could not live with the guilt of lying to my wife, so I told her. After that, she wanted nothing to do with me. She called me a madman and insisted on leaving me, but I couldn’t let her. I couldn’t allow her to tell others, and I still needed another son.” He moved to face the windows of the terrace. “My hope was that if I eventually succumbed to my black moods, my wife would be here for my children until they were grown. I wanted them to have the love of at least one parent, and not the formal relationship many children have today with their mother or father. I was raised with loving parents and wanted that for my own children, but I cannot know how long I will be here.”
