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“Did they?” There was horror in Nina’s voice.
“No.” He sounded mesmerized to his own ears. “No, but I ended up in the operating theater anyway. I took a fall, a bad one. After the surgery, I spent months on my back. With her beside me.” He rolled onto his back, freeing his arm in the process. He folded both his arms beneath his head.
“Does anyone know?” She propped herself on her elbow beside him. “What she did to you?”
“I told Geoffrey, after she was dead.” His jaw clenched. “He already thought I was an ingrate. Once I left for Oxford, I never went home again, not while our parents were alive. But after I told him, he thought me a delusional ingrate.” He formed his lips into a smile. “It’s hard to believe, after all. That a mother would do such things.”
He realized that he was tense with anticipation.
Nina’s gaze met his. “I believe you.”
His smile slipped away. This, too, was miraculous. Air rushed into his lungs.
“The person you most want to listen to you”—she spoke cautiously—“it’s yourself, isn’t it? As a boy. He couldn’t believe it, and so it took him longer to free himself.”
His teeth tapped together, and he tasted blood. He’d nicked his tongue. He kept staring into her beautiful eyes, all the way down to her beautiful heart,
He’d said so much, and yet, not nearly enough.
He wasn’t free.
His nightmare had become his reality.
It was the worst part of the pain. That no doctor he saw could pinpoint a physiological cause for its shattering force. He should tell her that, reveal not only his scars, but his wounds, so she didn’t take this for a story of redemption.
“I believe you,” she said again. “Alan, it wasn’t your fault. It didn’t happen because you were too attached to her. It happened because she was sick.”
He opened his mouth, changed his mind, gave a slight nod instead. He’d made a mistake, letting her stay, absorbing her light. And he was selfish enough, even now, to rise up onto an elbow, to grasp her hand, spreading her fingers with his. He brought their clasped hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.
When he lowered their hands, he was going to kiss her mouth. No better angel could stop him. She was watching him with half-lidded eyes, parted lips.
He lowered their hands. She started, breaking his grasp.
“Blast.” She turned her head. “Is that Boyd?”
“Blast,” he echoed. His valet was an aspiring actor and paced the hallways of a morning, running lines, before he burst into the bedchamber.
Today he was reciting The Vicar of Wakefield.
Alan sat up, leaning his back on the headboard as Nina scrambled from the bed. She spied Fritz on the bookcase and gathered him into her arms. She was blushing—at the idea of Boyd catching them in bed—and looked back at him shyly.
He grinned. Mistake or no, he was happy she’d stayed, happy she was here. Tonight, they’d attend the ball. She’d steal Geoff’s letters. And that would conclude her part of the bargain. Someday he’d visit Nina’s Sweets. He’d taste her gooseberry tarts, and meet her truehearted village husband, and content himself with knowing that all her dreams had come true.
She was smiling at him now, smiling a dimpled smile, in her cotton nightgown, long hair streaming over her shoulders, a monkey clasped to her breast. He hoped his expression wasn’t wistful.
As soon as she’d left the room, he pushed back the covers and stood. He slid an ebony cane from the stand, walked to the French doors, and flung them open. The morning was blue and rose and gold.
I believe you, she’d said, instantly, easily, and it was the truth. She did. She believed him. The ache in his hip felt oddly soft, no hot coal, but rather cool gray cinders. He stood for longer than was his wont, looking at the clouds.
Chapter Twenty-three
The globe lights in the ballroom had been replaced with chandeliers of tiered crystals, sparkling prisms that scattered stars in every direction. Mirrors in heavy gilt on the upper walls expanded the firmament. Alan wandered in and out of a dozen conversations, gaze straying again and again to the arched entranceway. It was too soon for Nina to reappear. The house teemed with errant guests who spilled out of the downstairs rooms into the garden and up the front staircase. These wanderers would make Nina’s little act of larceny more challenging to commit.
A waltz ended, the sea of silk and tulle parting. He crossed the dance floor, heading toward the orchestra. Fanny had installed whole hedges between the columns. The air was humid with warm flesh and vegetation.
He felt hot breath on his ear.
“Could it be?”
