Page 26 of The Season of Lady Chastity

“I am a horrid son, Mama. Forgive me.” He fought back the urge to wail and cry along with his mother or send for the physician and the opium that never failed to end his mother’s suffering—at least temporarily. His breakdown would serve no benefit to either of them. He’d given in to his tears on only two occasions until he realized he cried out of pity for himself, not his mother’s sorrow and grief. “We shall return home. Tomorrow—or tonight if you will only come back to me.”

It had been a while since he’d held his mother in such a way, and he was discouraged to notice she’d lost more weight. Her elbow pushed into Bastian’s ribs, and her knobby, ashen knees were visible as the hem of her nightshift rode up on her thigh. Like this, in the waning candlelight, his mother appeared little more than a helpless babe.

And Bastian was her blackguard son, pushing her to move on and move past his father’s death before she was ready. But it had been over a year.

With that thought, Bastian’s eyes drifted shut as he continued to rock his mother in his arms, praying silently to the Lord above to calm her before he gave in and called for a physician and a tonic. It was easier for him, but it did little to assuage his mother’s suffering.

His heart was torn clean from his chest with each attack, a little less returning to him each time.

A cry ripped through the room, and Bastian glanced over his shoulder to see that the maid hadn’t fully closed the door. He would not have his mother’s grief paraded about Oxburgh Hall if someone heard her agony. Yet, Bastian could not leave her during her time of need. Never would he abandon his mother when she needed him the most.

She would come back to him, and he would see her safely home—as soon as she was well enough to travel.

“Why did he leave us, Bastian?” his mother whimpered, burying her face against the shoulder of his evening coat. “I shouldn’t have... It was—”

“It was not his choice to leave us,” Bastian cooed in her ear. “Never would he have chosen to leave you.”

Bastian could not fathom a connection so strong as to leave one broken and crying when the other was gone. Love, it was a peculiar thing.

Many spent years seeking it out, a lifetime of striving to be worthy of such a grand destiny, only to be left in tatters once it was stripped away. Though Bastian suspected that even if his mother had known her fate, she would have fallen in love regardless.

His mother sucked in a deep breath, and Bastian waited for the coming wail.

“Duncan, my love, come back…” Her body quivered with each word, and Bastian’s only recourse was to gather her closer to him, hoping the heat from his body warmed her chilled flesh.

Love could not be meant to cause such pain, such utter despondency.

Certainly, his father’s death had left a void within him, but nothing near the depth and magnitude of his mother’s loss. She’d been so strong during his father’s illness, and now she could not hold herself together for any great length of time.

His mother twisted in his hold, her strength—at least in that movement—growing as she pulled on his arm, lifting her head high enough to see the bedchamber threshold behind Bastian.

“Duncan?” Her manic tone spoke to the hallucinatory phase of her attack that would ultimately end with her realizing that her husband was gone forever…again. Reliving the greatest loss of her life weekly, and sometimes, daily. “It is you. I feared I’d lost you forever. That you’d gone despite your promises…”

She whimpered and tucked her head close to Bastian’s shoulder again, twisting her head from side to side as she did.

“No,” his mother mumbled. “No. No. No.”

The utterings had no backing, as if she spoke unbidden, even to herself.

“Shush, Mama,” Bastian cooed, burying his face in her hair. “I am here. I shan’t leave you. Ever.”

“You are not my Duncan.”

“No, Mother. It is Bastian.” Her attacks hadn’t been so severe in months. Not even recognizing her own child? “Your son.”

With a sudden intense ferocity, his mother attempted to push from his hold, her eyes still focused on something over his shoulder. Normally, the hallucinations disappeared when Bastian spoke, giving his mother something real to focus on.

“You. You. You.” She trembled in his arms. “You.”

“There is no one there,” he comforted her. “It is only you and me. We are at Oxburgh Hall for the Duke of Montrose’s wedding. Do you remember Harriet? Your dear friend? Montrose—Roderick—is her son.”

“She. She. She,” his mother stuttered, “she is not Harriet. Look.”

Bastian was hesitant to give in to his mother’s demand. Perpetuating and addressing her phantom visions only made things worse when she discovered that her mind was playing a cruel jest on her.

“Son, look.”

It was that simple plea, and her whimpered use of the word son that made Bastian finally turn to glance behind him.