CHAPTER7
A PLAN WITH NO FUTURE
Near dawn
“Can you stay?” Katherine asked, rather liking how Thomas had linked his fingers with hers beneath the covers.
“Is that an invitation?”
She inhaled softly. “Yes. Or... did you have plans to spend Christmas with your sons?”
He shook his head. “No plans.”
She blinked. “You said you were on your way to your hunting lodge.”
It was his turn to blink. “I did?”
Trying to remember exactly what he had said the night before, Katherine inhaled suddenly. “I asked if you were on your way to Saltford. You... you asked how I knew about your hunting lodge.”
Thomas winced and rolled onto his back. “I was on my way,” he admitted.
Katherine gave a start. “Oh, dear. Your servants are probably expecting you. They no doubt wonder what’s become of you. I can have my driver head there after he sees to your driver. Let them know—”
“There’s no need,” he interrupted, squeezing her fingers.
“What?”
“There aren’t any servants at the hunting lodge.”
Furrowing her brows, she angled her head to better see him. “Not even a cook?”
He shook his head in the pillow.
“Were you going to cook for yourself? I mean, I can imagine you knowing how to boil water, but—”
“I wasn’t going to cook for myself.”
She inhaled softly. “There aren’t exactly any coaching inns or... or pubs very close to your lodge,” she countered. “What did you expect to eat?”
He audibly sighed. “I didn’t plan to eat anything.”
Scoffing, she lifted herself onto an elbow and stared down at him. “What? Were you planning to starve?”
A grimace marred his features. “As a matter of fact, yes.”
“To death?” she asked in disbelief.
“Actually, I thought I might drink myself into a stupor and not wake up.”
For a moment, Katherine thought he might be teasing her, but the serious expression on his face convinced her he was telling the truth. She remembered how he had referred to being a duke in the past tense the night before, as if he was no longer. “If you truly wished to die, you could have done so last night. When the coach burned,” she accused. “You said you had to escape,” she added, her voice sounding with hope.
“The thought of dying in a fire held little appeal,” he replied, immediately understanding her comment. There had been that awful moment when the coach careened into the ditch. A moment when his life seemed to flash before his eyes, and there was one thought that stuck in his mind when the equipage came to a halt and the smoke started to fill the interior.
Is this really how I want to die?
“So... you could have simply fallen into the snow and frozen to death,” she countered.
He stared at her. “Freezing to death would have been nearly as bad as burning to death,” he reasoned, remembering how numbness had changed to the painful sensation of pins and needles he had felt in his extremities. How his eyelashes threatened to freeze together so he might be unable to blink or open his eyes completely. How easy it would have been to simply keep his eyes closed and slowly fall into oblivion.
