Chapter Twenty

“Get that goddamn leech off me,” Alexander snarled, his eyes snapping open, an unbearable fire tormenting his lower back. He grabbed the slimy creatures sucking at his chest and flung them away from him. The pain pummeling his body was a ravaging force and reminded him of the agony in the early days of his healing.

“Your Grace!” Dr. Monroe cried, quickly pulling away the rest of the slimy, blood-sucking creatures from his chest. “I believe there is an infection in the blood, and they are needed to assist your recovery! You are feverish and not yourself at the moment.”

A hiss slipped from Alexander as pain crowded his thoughts. Sweat coated his skin, and an odd weakness quivered through him. Despising any form of fragility, he pushed to his elbows and shoved the sheets from his body. The billowing dark blue curtains hanging from the four-poster bed served only to increase the heat. With a grunt, he made to move from the bed, and a cold knot of fear iced through his veins. “Why am I not feeling my legs?”

Dr. Grant came forward, his eyes serious and worried. He pushed his spectacles up his nose before answering. “The spasms this time were bad, Your Grace. We fear the constant movement over the last few weeks did more damage than good. The inflammation seems extreme, and…and…”

“And what? Come, man, do not quibble,” he snapped.

It was Dr. Monroe who stepped forward. “There is a possibility you may never walk again.”

A flash of horror pierced his soul before he buried it under layers and layers of ice, suppressing all emotions. The darkness that had slowly hovered slipped around him, and in its embrace, he found the cold comfort of silence.

For several moments, the only sound in the room was the crackling fireplace and his harsh breathing, before even that faded away as he exerted his will over the raw emotions that could tear him apart if he allowed them to. They watched him, anticipating his reaction perhaps, but he had nothing to give. “I have been told that before,” he said flatly. “Provide another prognosis at once.”

“Your Grace…your many fractures healing would have always taken years. Inflammation is a recurring problem, and there are theories that when the ligaments and muscles are overly inflamed, it can lead to an infection and irreversible damage to the bones and structures, which have struggled to heal themselves over the years. We… I will summon Dr. Perrott from Edinburgh right away. But I am not hopeful a life out of the bath chair is possible.”

“Do not say that,” a fierce voice whispered from halfway across the room; then the door was gently closed.

A ripple of awareness pierced through him. Katherine. He’d not heard her entrance.

Footsteps echoed, and she appeared in his line of vision, striking in her loveliness. He tried to swing his foot from the bed to stand, but his body did not respond, and it took every ounce of willpower he had built over the years not to bellow his rage, frustration…and fear.

She glared at the doctor, a righteous yet frightened lady given the paleness of her face and the redness of her eyes.

She had been crying. For him.

“Surely you are aware of the manner of man Alexander is,” she said. “He will walk again. If your words will not be positive, you will leave this chamber!” Her voice cracked, but she lifted her chin in that familiar defiant way of hers.

The doctors stared at her as if she were an unusual creature.

“I beg your pardon,” Dr. Monroe said with a stiff upper lip. “And who might you be?”

“Leave me,” Alexander commanded, staring at his doctors. “I wish to speak with the lady for a few minutes.”

“Your Grace, you are fevered, and we must—”

A wave of anger burned through him. “I will not repeat my request for privacy with Miss Danvers!”

They complied immediately, leaving him alone with Katherine, who watched their departure with an air of anxiety. She whirled to face him. “We will fight this, and I believe with all my heart in your full recovery,” she said, her eyes alight with fear and pity. “Please allow me to summon back the doctors to tend—”

The pity sent fury surging though his heart, and the awareness he would have to permanently let her go sliced through him like a poison-tipped blade. “We?” he said with such lethal softness, she flinched.

She searched his face and firmed her trembling lips. Her chin lifted once more, and her beautiful eyes flashed their defiance. His brave, foolish Katherine then leaned in and brushed the softest comforting kiss along his jaw, scattering tender kisses up and down its rigid curve. “Yes, my darling, we.”

Her assurance was a hot lance through his heart. He disentangled himself from her soothing embrace and reclined against the headboard. “There is no we. My problems, whatever they might be, are my own.”

“Do not be a stubborn, boorish—”

“You bore me, Miss Danvers,” he said, softly but with cutting precision. “As agreed, the instant my interest wanes, our agreement has ended. Whatever happened in the conservatory was an aberration that is unlikely to ever happen again, for I would never allow it.”

He cleared his throat and gripped the bedsheets, bracing against the pain he would cause them both. “Now I will ask you to leave my chambers and prepare to return to London. The rent on the town house there is paid up for a year, and the carriages and horses are yours. I will leave it to you to decide when to inform society the farce of our engagement has ended. But understand me clearly, for I shall not repeat myself. Whatever madness pushed me to blackmail you to stay here has ended.”

A raw breath hitched in her throat, and the vulnerability that lined her face shredded through his soul. She held his gaze, her eyes huge and heart-stoppingly delicate, and they filled with tears.

“Come now, what nonsense is this? Tears, Miss Danvers? We hardly know each other.”

The words felt like glass scraping at the inside of his throat.

And he knew if she cried…dear God, if she cried, he would pull her into his arms and consign her to share his damnable fate.

She pressed two fingers to her badly trembling lips. The dark depths of her eyes were reflecting so many emotions, they took his breath. “Alexander…you do not mean what you say. I—”

“I am perfectly lucid, Miss Danvers. This show of emotion is entirely unnecessary and unwelcome,” he said in deliberate accents of withering scorn. His voice sounded rough, foreign to his ears.

Katherine stared at him wordlessly. The look of rejection in her eyes was unbearable to witness. That pain unmoored him, made him want to bow his back and scream. But his burdens were never anyone else’s to bear, just his alone. That had been his will for more than ten years, and it would continue so.

He wanted to lay the world at her feet; he wanted to know her dreams so they could also be his, and to cage such a wonderful spirit as hers would be a grave sin that he couldn’t condone because he loved her, utterly and completely.

Sweet Christ. The awareness was like a honeyed blade, painfully cutting but wonderfully sweet. The agony that stabbed at his chest felt as if a physical knife had pierced him. “You are no longer my captive… Now go!”

She dipped into a mocking curtsy. “Of course. As…as you wish, Your Grace.”

Her lips trembled, but a fierce and unwavering pride shone from eyes washed with tears. She turned away from him and moved brusquely toward the door. But he saw the stiffness in her frame. He almost called her back, begged her to share the darkness that would once again come for him. Alexander could always feel it crashing against his senses, taking the pinprick of light that had been inside him these past few weeks. The door opened soundlessly, and she slipped through like a waif without looking back.

I love you, Katherine. God, I love you.

He bit into his lip until he tasted blood, as he fought the need to shout for her to come back, please. A profound welling of desolation swamped his senses. He allowed it to drown him, taking away the light Katherine had placed in his heart in the form of hope.

…

Alexander felt weak and depleted, but blessedly the ravaging heat had lessened, and only a slight throb remained in his lower back. A cool finger brushed against his forehead. “The fever has broken,” Penny said softly. A gentle kiss against his cheek elicited a vexed snort from him, and it felt good to hear her laugh.

“Rest. Do not be your stubborn self and move from this bed,” she encouraged, and then her presence vanished.

He closed his eyes, taking stock of the various pains and aches within his body.

“He might not walk again.”

“We shall perhaps need to operate on him.”

“He might need opium for the pain. The diluted bit in laudanum will not do.”

The whispers of his doctors echoed while he had thrashed as fever rattled around his head. Alexander grabbed the sheets covering his lower limbs and tossed them aside. He stared at his feet, trying to take stock of the varied sensations running through his body.

An unexplained sense of urgency did not have him tarrying long on that matter. With a groan, Alexander pushed onto his elbows and up, bracing his back against the headboard, and then scanned the room. He tried to remember all that had happened, recalling only the terrible pain that had burned its fiery path along his back, the spasming, and Katherine’s cries of alarm.

Katherine.

He sensed a presence in the room but knew it was not her. If it had been Katherine, every part of him would have surged to life. “How long have you been here?”

“More than an hour,” his cousin murmured. Indecipherable emotions twisted in his voice and scraped at Alexander.

“I need no expression of pity or remonstrance. I’ve had enough for the last ten years.” His voice cracked like a whip through the room.

For several moments, Eugene made no answer. Then he replied, “I have never pitied you, Alexander. A stronger man I’ve not had the privilege to know. My only desire is to inform you that you are never alone.”

Alexander glanced around the room, a shadow of discomfort lurking in his mind. Unexpectedly, his heart ached, and a feeling akin to fear settled in his bones. “Where is Miss Danvers?”

A shadow detached itself from the wall, and Eugene stepped from the window where he’d been overlooking the lawns of the northern side of the estate, then made his way over to the bed.

He made no reply, and unease wafted through Alexander. “Where is she?” he demanded.

“A couple of hours ago, she left this room with such haste, it was as if the devil chased her. There were many tears on her face. And in her eyes, I have never witnessed such heartbreak.”

You now bore me… Go.

The memory washed over him in an unrelenting wave of unexpected pain. He ruthlessly suppressed the tangled emotions, trying to accept that it was for the best. “I see,” he murmured, dropping back against the headboard and lifting his head to stare at the painted ceiling of his chamber.

The cold insouciance that had normally cloaked his emotions seemed impossible to find. His heart pounded a desperate, furious rhythm, and he held the sheets in a tight fist which gripped, struggling against the feelings hammering at his heart. Silence. Loneliness. The empty spaces where he could always find solace were filled with jangled, complex sensations he did not understand for having never endured them before.

“I have only one question, then I shall take myself to the library, where I will drink and read while trying to pretend you have not foolishly given up on your only chance of happiness.”

Eugene sounded angry, and Alexander lowered his head and considered him through hooded eyes. “Ask your question and then leave me be!”

“Do you love her?”

More than I thought possible.

Yet he could not bear to say it aloud lest the loss became unbearable. “I like her,” he said gruffly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I hold her in considerable affection.”

“I like her,” Eugene snapped. “I do not stare at her like a hungry wolf desperate for a taste.”

Alexander tried to sit up farther to relieve the uncomfortable ache in his back. He dragged himself weakly toward the mound of pillows and cushions in the center of the overly large bed. With a savage curse, he tumbled back onto the bed, hating how he felt so weakened. It had taken so much to be self-sufficient, and to be reduced so piteously again filled him with a fury unlike any other he had known.

Yet there was no piercing sense of loss or pain at his misfortune.

Alexander could not afford to repeat the dark days of his past. The echoing despair tried to creep up on him. He closed his eyes. Fought against it. Never that, he vowed. He would never be that man again. Even if it meant he had lost the use of his legs forever.

But there was an awful pain eating at his chest. All that was reserved for Katherine.

“I’ve answered you, Eugene; now leave me be.”

His cousin scowled. “It has been a couple of hours since you callously ordered her away from your life. The last time I checked, the carriage was being prepared for the four-day journey to London.”

Those words propelled Alexander from the bed with a strength he’d not thought he possessed. He grabbed his stick resting by the headboard and tried to stand, but his legs would not cooperate with his desperate intentions. A fire rippled along his back, and a hoarse groan escaped Alexander. Sweet mercy. Sweat popped along his forehead, and for a moment he wondered if the fever had returned.

He stepped forward and toppled. Eugene lunged, caught him, and assisted him into his wheeled chair.

“I must find her, Eugene.” What he would say, he had no notion. Alexander couldn’t explain the sensations sweeping through him, knowing only he must go to her. They could not part with such hurt between them. “I cannot let her leave with bitterness between us. We must remain friends at least.” That way he would still have a part of her always.

“What did you do to place such heartbreak in her eyes?”

Alexander turned the wheel of his chair toward the door. “She is a flame I will not out,” he said, unable to render any more explanation.

Eugene seemed to understand, for the man sighed after closing his eyes briefly. “You are very disheveled. Let me summon your valet and—”

“No. Take me to her.” Without waiting for his cousin’s assistance, he spun the wheel of his bath chair and pushed himself toward the door and out into the hallway. At the top of the stairs, he grabbed the railing and, with a grunt, hauled himself to his feet. He took one step, then another, and another before he crumpled.

His manservant was hurrying up the stairs, his face creased in worry. Once he reached him, Hoyt assisted him up and back in the chair. Then the man deftly maneuvered him down the broad staircase with thumps and grunts.

“Take me to Miss Danvers,” he ordered.

Hoyt’s face lit with approval, and Alexander did not have the care to inform him that he meddled and assumed wrong. The man pushed him with impressive speed down the large hallway toward the front door. The butler wrenched it open, and Alexander wheeled himself over the threshold, staring at the departing carriage that had nearly reached the end of the mile-long driveway.

“Should I summon another carriage for you to follow, Your Grace?” Hoyt asked, his tone hopeful and anxious.

Alexander made no reply, staring at the coach until it disappeared from view down the rough roads that would take her back to London. Probably once back in town, Katherine would find that she went on quite happily without him. Perhaps she would discover her feelings for him were not love but merely a passing fancy, an infatuation. Then the pain he’d seen in her eyes would lessen, and she would smile that winsome smile of hers again.

Yet such justifications did not dull the hunger and desperate love that had grown in his heart by the minute for Katherine Danvers.

I cannot let her go.

He closed his eyes in defeat, knowing he had even less to offer her now than he had a few weeks ago. Then, he could be on his feet for a few hours. Now…he glanced down at his bare toes, a silent snarl covering the edges of his lips.

“Take me to my room.” The moment of madness had passed, and rationality had returned.

Farewell, Miss Danvers.

…

The evening sun burned low in the sky, slowly slipping behind the mountains in the distance. The cool breeze sweeping across the land, the twinkle of sunset glistening atop the lake, the fresh, crisp scent of the air did not bring the joy to which Alexander had been accustomed. A painful, aching tightness lingered inside him, and at the crest of each dawn, that lingering torment only increased its intensity.

It was a little more than a week since Kitty Danvers had left Scotland and his life. The bleakness he endured had nothing to do with the fact that he had not left his wheeled chair in the wretched nine days she had been gone or because it would take weeks, possibly months to regain his ability of leaving it for even a short time without severe discomfort. He had pushed himself for too long because he had desired the sense of normalcy he had dreamed of in her presence.

But his body would heal, his strength was returning, and eventually he would find himself out of the chair again, even if it was only an hour or two each day.

This emptiness was all because of his stupidity in pushing her away.

Nothing stirred within his gut any longer. No burst of heat, no fleeting flash of pleasure. He had consulted a few days’ past with the more open-minded Dr. Grant, who believed the re-inflammation of the bone might have had a deleterious impact on his awakening manhood. The man had once again suggested self-ministration, but Alexander had not attempted to try.

The soft crunch of footfalls echoed, and Penny came up beside him. Dressed in a red carriage dress with a matching bonnet, she looked the epitome of an elegant young lady. The picture was ruined by the small piglet clutched lovingly in her arms.

There had been a strain between them, for he had arranged for her to travel to London. The season was quickly drawing to an end, but there were enough weeks for her to take to society and charm them with her lovely manners. He was confident of her grace, poise, and wit. He trusted his godmother to take care of his sister. Her inheritance of sixty thousand pounds and her dark beauty would see many gentlemen flocking to court her, and Alexander expected the man she decided on would be understanding of her quaintness and sometimes unchecked opinion.

“There are those who will think you are eccentric if you take…piggy with you,” he said, staring out at the lake.

Penny sniffed. “I do not care what others think; you’ve taught me that.” She shook her head, wiping moisture from her eyes. “I do not want to go, Alexander.”

“You cannot remain buried here in Scotland. You are seventeen. It is time to meet other young ladies of your society. Expand your wings and mind.”

“And dancing at balls will do that?” she demanded scathingly. “I doubt it!”

“What are you afraid of?”

Her breath hitched, and her calm facade crumpled. “Leaving you here…to be alone.”

His heart cracked. “I am never alone. The memories are always with me.”

She shook her head, her eyes fixed anxiously on his face. “Memories are fleeting and insubstantial.”

“They are real enough.”

“I can barely recall Mamma’s face or her scent or her laughter. I remember through you. The stories you tell me are how I keep them alive. Sometimes…I fear if I leave here, I will forget them entirely.” She cast him a sideways glance, her eyes large and wounded. “Do you fear that, too…that if you leave, all memories of our parents will vanish as ashes do in the wind?”

“I do not,” he said gruffly. “Leaving here and living your life is not a disservice to their memory. That is what Mother and Father would want. For you to have a season or two. Marry well, have a family of your own.”

Her chin lifted stubbornly. “And if I have other dreams?”

Alexander smiled. “Such as?”

She tucked a loose wisp of hair behind her ears. “What…what if I want to travel the world, too? Visit the great sights?”

“Then I’ll support you, always.”

“I’m the daughter of a duke. Society will have different expectations of me.”

Her earlier confidence had dimmed, and she now sounded young and uncertain.

“Hang society. You are the sister of a duke, and I will support you in any endeavor. Within reason, of course.”

Penny chuckled. “I’ll not do anything to embarrass you.”

“That I believe is impossible. You are planning to carry the pig to town.” They remained silent for several moments and stared at the beauty of the lake and the lowering sun. “I’ll visit you in London,” he murmured.

She hurried to stand in front of him, blocking his view of the starlings gliding over the lake and dipping low with such swift grace to fish.

“Do you promise it?” she whispered fiercely.

“When I am strong enough. I will need to be there to warn any rakes and libertines away with the point of my rapier.”

She smiled, relief glowing in her eyes. There was the slightest hesitation before she asked, “And what of Miss Danvers?”

“I am certain you will be guaranteed to encounter her.”

“And the engagement?”

“It is over.”

Penny searched his face. “Will you make an announcement that she is no longer your affianced?”

Why did his heart twist in such a violent manner? “If I do, Miss Danvers’s reputation will be tarnished. It is perhaps better to allow the lady to do the jilting.”

She sighed, then leaned in and kissed his cheek. “I love you.”

When she made to straighten, he grasped her by the shoulder and hugged her close. “I love you, too. Now go and finish your packing. All shall be well.”

He released her, and she nodded but did not attempt to leave.

“Do you love her?” she whispered. “Miss Danvers…do you love her?”

A pounding ache darted through his chest and seemed to split him open from the inside. The feeling was so unexpected and visceral, he rubbed at his chest. “What do you know of love?”

She thought on this for a moment and then replied, “I believe I saw it when you smiled at Miss Danvers. And you did, quite a lot. In unguarded moments when you thought no one observed you, or perhaps it was as if you could not help yourself. She would be walking in the hallway, and you would falter, as if arrested…more like spellbound…and you would stare and then smile. You did this several times a day, as if seeing her was the only thing you needed to brighten your mood. I do hope that is love.”

Christ. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Penny…”

“I am filled with vanity of self, I think,” she continued as if he had not spoken. “Oftentimes I wonder if I had been hurt as you had, broken bones and dreams, scarred with no hope of a normal life, could I have borne it? There was a time when you wanted to give up, Alexander. I recall slipping into your rooms against express orders to stay away. There was a sweet, awful scent in the smoke that surrounded you. Opium…the servants would whisper. The air would reek of it, and at times I would stray from my room and hear your bellows of anguish and loss. Then one day I crawled onto your bed, slipped my hands into yours, and told you I needed you.”

She swiped at the tears running down her cheeks. “Do you remember, brother?”

“I do, Penny.” That had been the first ray of light to pierce his darkness and pain.

“I want you to be happy. I want you to love and be loved in return. I might not know much about romantic attachments, but Kitty…whenever she looked at you, I felt almost embarrassed at the yearning in her eyes. Her sentiments were wholly returned, and you would be a damn fool if you let her go.” She flushed. “I’ll not apologize for cursing. The brother I know and love does not feel fear or act foolishly. Please do not do so now…not when I can tell she is so very precious to you.”

Then she stood and walked away.

Alexander turned the wheel of his chair and watched her go. How much she had grown up over those ten years, maturing into a perceptive and intelligent young lady.

Katherine was precious to him, and he’d had to stop denying it the first night he slept in the castle knowing she was no longer resting herself in the east wing. That night he hadn’t slept. Or the next night. Exhaustion had claimed his mind and body on the fourth night of prowling the corridors of the west wing, wheeling his chair over and over down the hallway, unable to stop the strange tempest brewing in his gut.

The crunch of boots had him shifting toward the direction of the lake. He spied Eugene, and the man had an expression of someone tormented.

“You heard the conversation with Penny,” Alexander murmured.

His cousin glanced toward the mountains and skyline for several moments. “I’d planned when in town to call upon Miss Danvers in the hopes she might consider me. But now… You love her. I saw your face when Penny spoke just now, Alexander, and I’ve never seen such hunger and need on another before. I entreat you. Share with me.”

The silence stretched, and then he spoke. “To have Miss Danvers’s uncompromising trust and friendship, to see her smile every day for the rest of my miserable life would be worth anything,” he snarled, slapping a hand over his forehead, hating that tears pricked at his eyes. He was a goddamn duke. A man who had endured hell and had been reshaped with an iron will that had never failed him. Tears were not for the likes of him, yet his throat burned.

“I have often wondered what it would be like to be not quite so alone in the nights, to have a wife, a friend…a lover to confide my sorrows, expectations, and joys. I’ve struggled against falling in love with her, for the unsuitability of our match was quite evident to me. Yet the feelings she has roused in my heart are unalterable. Sometimes fear clutches at my heart when I think how unlikely our meeting was. What if Miss Danvers had chosen another man to pretend to be her fiancé? What if she had taken a different path?” Alexander murmured roughly. “I would have missed her, Eugene. I would have missed knowing her laughter, her brightness, the taste and feel of her. I would have missed knowing that happiness is still possible.”

“Then for Christ’s sake, man, how do you bear letting her go?”

“I do not bear it,” he said gruffly. “The world feels dark without her. And I hurt her…when she is so precious to me.”

An overwhelming panic crawled through Alexander’s senses, jerking his heart in a manner never before experienced. What a damn fool I am. She was something rare and unbelievable, and he had thoughtlessly lost her.

For so many years, he had been alone. Those who had tried to connect with him, he’d declined their help, seeing it as a lowering weakness. He’d refused to bow to his infirmities and had shrouded himself in cold distance from it all—empathy, curiosity, love, and understanding. All the things Katherine offered. And more: her smiles, her kindness, and her breathtaking acceptance of all he was.

Alexander wasn’t a beast, but nor was he a beauty.

And she seemed to like him despite all of it.

But where to start when he had been so foolish…where to start when he could not give her more than his title?

Anything but silence…a deep stillness inside him whispered.

And Alexander hoped he could start with a letter and a prayer.