Chapter 26

Andrew wanted to crawl beneath the wheels of the cab and command the driver to run him over.

He wanted to flee the reality of what had happened to him, what was happening to him, what would eventually happen to him.

He wanted to bury his face against his hands in shame.

Instead, he summoned every shred of his de Montforte pride, straightened to his full height, and like the gentleman he was, handed Celsie up into the cab before him.

Moments later, they were moving.

"So now you know," he muttered, gazing out the window and watching the traffic passing in the other direction. He swallowed hard, refusing to look at her. "We can get an annulment, you know. You have grounds. I would understand perfectly."

She said nothing, but he could feel her gaze upon him. He gripped his hands together and clenched them between his knees, staring out the window as he waited for her to say something, to utter the damning words, to lash out at him with anger and hurt for withholding such a terrible secret. But she didn't say anything. She simply sat there, a presence whose silence said more than words.

"Well?" he said flatly, turning his head to glare at her. "Are you going to get an annulment?"

She gazed calmly back. "Most certainly not."

"You're insane if you don't, you know. You managed to come up with a damned good excuse to satisfy the gawkers and gapers back there, but I can promise you that what happened to me then will only happen again, that sooner or later you won't find some convenient excuse to explain it. Then I'll leave you humiliated and pitied, and you'll wish to God you'd got rid of me when you had the chance."

"I don't want to 'get rid of you'," she said firmly, her eyes beginning to glitter dangerously. "You are my husband. And I care about you very much."

"You can't care for someone you don't know. You don't know me. Oh, God, you don't know me —"

"That is because you won't let me know you."

"Celsie, I implore you, don't throw away your life, your dreams, your pride, on me . . . I'm a worthless oddball, damaged goods . . . There are plenty of men out there who would make far better husbands, men whom you can bring out in public without fear of being humiliated."

"Stop it, Andrew. I don't want to hear such rubbish."

"It isn't rubbish, it is the truth."

"You're pushing me away. I can't let you do that anymore." Her voice gentled, became pleading. "I'm your wife."

He just raised a hand to his eyes, flung it away.

"I'm your friend."

He swallowed hard, fighting back the rising tide of emotion.

"And I'm the woman who's falling in love with you."

He turned to her in anguish. Celsie could see the faint glisten of what looked like tears in his eyes, a bleak, panicky desperation that beseeched her to leave him alone even as it begged her not to. She reached out and threaded her fingers through his. "Andrew," she said quietly. "I married you for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. We took vows, pledging ourselves to one another. We're in this for the rest of our lives, and if you think I'm going to abandon you to whatever it is that so affects and frightens you simply because I might otherwise find myself embarrassed about your behavior, then you don't know me very well, do you?"

He put his head in his hands and bent his body over them, fighting a battle with his will.

"You are ill, aren't you?"

He just made an inarticulate little noise and nodded his head. A lump lodged in Celsie's throat, and she felt the sting of tears behind her eyelids as her heart went out to him. How hard he tried to maintain his composure when it was obvious that he was coming apart at the seams. How hard he tried to push her away with anger, when it was all too apparent that he needed her with a desperation he could never admit. And how hard he had tried to pretend that whatever ailed him was no more than an embarrassing annoyance — when Celsie knew, deep in her heart, that it was something that filled him with dread.

It was terrible to be alone with your own fears.

Even more so when you were alone in so many other ways as well. As she had always been.

As Andrew was now.

She got up, moved to the other seat, and lowered herself down beside him. He didn't move, just sat there bent over his hands, suffering in his own private anguish. She put her arms around him and he leaned slightly into her, his shoulders lurching as hoarse sobs of fear finally claimed him.

"You shouldn't have to go through this with me," he blurted, still curled over his hands. "Oh, Celsie, it will be a living hell for you . . . a nightmare . . . why do this to yourself?"

She held him in her arms, comforting him, reassuring him that he was not alone and never would be. He would not uncurl himself and return her embrace, would not go that last step in trusting her. Oh, Andrew. . . . my heart aches so for you. She tried to find the right words. Tried to think of what she could say to comfort him. And then her heart found her own private dread, and her eyes filled with tears of their own.

"We cannot always take away the suffering of those we love," she said quietly. "But we can make sure that they don't suffer alone." A beloved face was there in her mind's eye, dark eyes gone cloudy, once youthful face grey with age. Tears began to slip from her eyes, to trickle silently down her face. "Freckles has a lump beneath his ear," she continued, as Andrew shook with silent anguish. "One of these days he'll probably stop eating. One of these days he will lie down and refuse to get up. One of these days he will die . . . and a big piece of my heart will die right along with him." Hot tears scalded her cheeks, falling on his mud-stained coat, soaking his bent shoulder. "But do you think I'm going to go away when that time comes, that I'm going to abandon him simply because it would spare me the pain and grief of watching him die? Do you honestly think I'm that cowardly, Andrew? That selfish?"

His shoulders jerked on a harsh sob. "I'm sorry, Celsie . . . I didn't know . . ."

"I know you didn't. But you'll be there for me when that time comes. Just as I'm here for you now . . . as I will always be here for you."

"I'm going m-mad, Celsie," he choked out. "My brain is dying and I'm scared, scared of losing my mind, losing my science, losing who I am and turning into a drooling idiot at Bedlam . . . "

"You don't have to be scared all by yourself, Andrew. You aren't in this alone. You have me."

"You must despise me . . . pity me . . . wish you'd never met me. Look at me, blubbering like a two-year-old . . ."

"Despise and pity you? No, Andrew. Never. You are an incredible man, but I don't think you realize that, do you? I want to be near you, with you. I want to share your life, as I want you to share mine." She made her voice deliberately light. "And sometimes I even want to strangle you, because you're the stubbornest, most defiant individual I've ever met and you should have told me this long before now."

"Yes, I should have — then you could have left me."

"Only in your dreams," she chastised.

Her attempt at humor found its mark. He gave a half sob, half laugh, and raised his head, drawing his hands down his face but still refusing to look at her. Celsie reached into her pocket and found her handkerchief. She passed it to him and he wordlessly wiped his eyes.

She sat and waited, watching his fingers squeezing and unsqueezing the handkerchief as he looked down at his hands, trying to find the words that would release him from his own dark prison of pain.

"It all started last Christmas," he finally murmured, still staring down at the crumpled muslin. "Do you remember hearing about the fire at Blackheath Castle?"

"Yes — it was on everyone's tongue."

"It would be, wouldn't it?" he said ruefully. "Give people something to talk about and they'll bloody well exhaust it to death." He finally stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket and ran both hands down his face. Then he took a deep, steadying breath and leaned back against the seat, gazing up at the roof with weary resignation. "Well, for months prior to that, I'd been toying with the idea of building a flying machine, but I never quite got around to doing it because there was always another idea that was far more seductive, far more interesting." He reached out and took her hand, grasping it like a lifeline. "You already know I'm not the most organized of individuals . . . Well, Lucien, he used to taunt and ridicule me and tell everyone that I was incapable of constructing such a machine, until finally I got so angry with him that I determined to build the thing just to prove to him that I could."

Celsie squeezed his hand. It was cold and clammy. She tucked it between her own, lightly chafing the chilled fingers.

Andrew was still gazing up at the roof. "I built it, just as I said I would. I was so proud of it . . . so confident that it would put my name on the map of science, my footprints on the pages of posterity, and that all my peers would respect me as the great inventor I was determined to be." He gave a bitter laugh. "Well, they say pride goeth before a fall, and mine certainly did. Lucien was throwing a ball in honor of Charles's return from what we'd all believed was the dead. Everyone — including the king himself — was invited. And I, fool that I was, thought it would be the perfect opportunity to show off my creation, to launch myself off the roof of the castle and straight into the pages of the history books . . . and best of all, rub Lucien's nose in my success for having failed to believe in me all along."

He took a deep, steadying breath. "Everything was going along splendidly," he continued, his eyes bleak as he gazed into his memories. "The king wanted to see the machine prior to its first flight, and so I took him up onto the roof where I had it ready and waiting to be launched. Whilst we were up there, a fire broke out in the ballroom. Within minutes that whole wing of the castle was on fire. We came back down to my laboratory only to find ourselves trapped by the flames and unable to escape."

"Dear God," Celsie breathed, unconsciously clutching his hand and bringing it close to her heart.

"It was Charles who fought his way up the burning stairway and managed to bring the king and his attendants out. My laboratory was nothing but smoke and fire. I couldn't see a thing, couldn't hear a thing . . . nothing but the roar of the flames, falling timbers, and explosions as my bottles of chemicals and solutions began to go. I started to follow Charles and the others out; then I recalled some drawings I was determined to save, and ran back into the laboratory. That's all I remember. When I came to my senses, I was lying on the floor, everything was on fire around me, and Charles — he'd come back for me, of course — was holding me in his arms, covering me with his own body, trying to shield me from the flames even though it was obvious that we were both going to die."

Celsie put a hand over her mouth, her estimation of the worthy Charles soaring even as she shuddered to think how close Andrew had come to dying. "Your brother must love you very much."

"My brother would have given his life for me. As I would for him." Andrew turned his head and leaned his cheek against the window, his eyes distant. "There was no way out. The stairway was on fire, cutting off escape; we were too high up to jump to safety, and I was so dizzy and sick from the burning chemicals, my lungs so damaged by the heat, that I couldn't draw breath enough to even walk. In the end we escaped because Charles carried me — and the flying machine was still up there on the roof. It did not fly quite the way I intended that it should, but it did save our lives . . . though in the months that have followed, not a day has gone by that I rather wished it hadn't." He swallowed hard. "Or wished it hadn't saved mine."

Oh, Andrew . . . Her heart aching for him, she carried his cold, clenched hand to her lips.

He was still gazing sightlessly out the window. "After the fire, I was bedridden for months. I couldn't breathe. Lucien summoned the finest doctors from London and the Continent, and they all said there was no hope for me. That I would waste away and die. Lucien wouldn't listen to them, though. He wouldn't give up, even though my lungs were so damaged that it was all I could do to draw breath." He blinked, absently watching the traffic passing outside. "I used to have terrible fits of gasping, and someone had to be with me at all times, day and night, to pound on my chest in case I stopped breathing. Several times, I did stop." He swallowed, his voice flat and dead, and closed his eyes. "They should have just let me go."

He sounded so despairing, so defeated, that Celsie felt a new rush of hot tears flooding her own eyes. She blinked them back, determined not to show pity.

"Eventually I showed signs of recovering, and Lucien forced me to start exercising in an attempt to rebuild my strength. He used to challenge me to short duels with rapiers, and on the days I felt too sick, or too weak, or too exhausted to exercise, he'd come out with some hurtful taunt or insult that would make me so damned angry that I'd soon be up and out of that bed just for the chance to run him through." He gave a little laugh. "Of course, he knew just how to irk me. He knew just what he was doing. He always did. And I suppose I owe my life to him just as much as I owe it to Charles — what life I have left, that is."

At last he turned away from the window, looking down at their clasped hands. His face was very still. "That strange mix of burning chemicals and solutions I breathed in while I was lying there on the floor . . . it must have affected me in some bizarre, unfortunate way, because it was shortly afterwards that I started having these fits, or seizures, or whatever you want to call them."

Celsie squeezed his hand. "Is that what happened to you today, then? And while you were fighting Gerald, and while we were at de Montforte House a fortnight ago?"

"Yes, and also at your charity ball." He met her gaze then, his eyes darker than she'd ever seen them, full of pain and shame and sorrow. "Why do you think I fled the place as I did?"

"Probably because you didn't want anyone to know you weren't feeling well."

"Oh, it goes much deeper than just 'not feeling well.' I'm destined for Bedlam, Celsie. Mark me on that."

"I'm not going to mark you on anything until I hear the whole story and have time to think it all through. So let me make sure I understand this. You were in a fire, and you breathed in all these burning chemicals from your laboratory, and you've been having these episodes ever since."

"Precisely."

"And what does your all-knowing brother Lucien think?"

"He's a duke, not a doctor. He refuses to give up hope that I can be made well again. Over the past two months, he dragged in a parade of specialists, lecturers, and physicians to examine me. But all they did was poke and prod and bleed me, regard me as some sort of freak, discuss me as though I was not even there, and this when I probably hold more university degrees than they do. All they could give were long-winded explanations of complete and utter codswallop. They don't know what's wrong with me. Not one of them was able to offer one iota of help — or hope. And how can they? Even I don't know what I took into my lungs that night. I'll never know. Like that cursed aphrodisiac, it's a situation that cannot, and should not, be duplicated — and thus, cannot be examined, only wondered at."

He shut his eyes on a sigh. All fight had gone out of him, and Celsie knew then that the unpredictable anger that had been so much a part of him had been nothing but a cloak to cover these deeper, constant feelings of fear, shame, and vulnerability. He needed her; he had told her his darkest secret, his biggest shame, and now he needed her. It was a humbling realization.

She took both his hands within her own and pressed them to her heart. "Oh, Andrew . . . so much about you makes sense to me, now."

"You wondered why I didn't want to get married. Why I didn't want you or anyone else interfering in my life, or why I detest going out in Society more than I ever did. Do you know what it's like, having an affliction that strikes you without warning, without mercy, and oftentimes in the company of other people? Can you fathom the shame and humiliation, not just to me, but to those I love? Better just to stay home, where I'm not a threat to anyone else's pride, let alone my own. And that is the strange thing about it . . . I was fine as long as I kept within the walls of Blackheath, but if I so much as ventured beyond them . . . " He shook his head. "Well, you've seen what happens to me. And so I stayed indoors, stayed in my laboratory, deluding myself and my family into thinking there was nothing wrong with me. But they knew. And now you know, don't you? You've seen me in all my mad glory. And now you know why I prefer to stay in my laboratory. And why I don't want to go out in Society and risk embarrassing myself and others around me."

"You could never embarrass me, Andrew."

"No? Do you mean to say, then, that you were not embarrassed today?" he challenged.

"Of course not." Her chin came up. "I was worried sick about you, but never embarrassed."

He merely looked at her, studying her in confusion and disbelief and yes, even a wary kind of hope, unable to fathom why she wouldn't be embarrassed.

"Can you tell me more about these . . . episodes, Andrew? Today you saw Indians. The morning after our wedding, you saw and heard something else, something that Freckles and I did not. What was it then? I don't know much about fits and seizures, but it has always been my understanding that sufferers tend to be in a semiconscious stupor while experiencing an attack; you seemed to be fully aware of your senses."

"I am. And what I saw and heard that morning was a gleaming silver monster the size of three battleships, soaring over our heads in a roar of thunder."

She smiled. "That doesn't sound like a fit, Andrew — it sounds like a vision."

"A vision of what? Madness, I tell you. Madness. Lucien probably has a chain all picked out for me at Bedlam."

"Stop it."

"It's true, Celsie. I'm going mad, and there's nothing that you or anyone else can do about it except hide me away from Society until I'm ready to be committed so that I don't humiliate the lot of you."

"Hiding you away is the last thing I intend to do. You are the most fascinating, brilliant, incredibly intelligent man I know, and I will not allow you for one moment to deprive the world of what you have to offer it. Now, tell me some of the other things you've seen."

He slanted her a half-disbelieving, half-hopeful look from beneath his lashes. "It's nonsense, all of it. Bloody nonsense."

"Tell me anyhow."

"You really want to know, then?"

She smiled again. "I am asking, aren't I?"

"Oh, very well, then." And so he told her about being at the townhouse in London a fortnight earlier, and looking out the window only to see a string of amber moons glowing upon a shiny ribbon of grey. He told her about being at Rosebriar, near the village of Heath Row, and seeing the winking firefly roaring overhead the night of her ball. He told her about passing through Wembley back in April, and seeing thousands of people piled into a giant soup bowl with a field in the middle and yelling at the tops of their lungs. And he told her about a big, red, rectangular box, with two eyes in the front and rows of people sitting behind glass windows, and how it — and not any flight of brilliance or imagination on his part — had prompted his idea for a double-compartmented coach.

She listened in rapt fascination, eager to hear about every strange thing he'd seen and heard. Finally he ran out of words and turned his head to look quietly at her.

"So what do you think?" he asked. "I'm going mad, aren't I?"

She pursed her lips, thinking. "I don't know. I can't help but wonder if there's a purpose to these things."

"A purpose?"

"Well, yes. Maybe you're a modern-day prophet, Andrew. Maybe this is all allegory. Maybe God is trying to tell you something, or you have simply been gifted in a way that neither of us will ever understand. I don't know what to think. But I do know one thing: You ought to take advantage of everything you're seeing. Write it all down, catalogue each episode, try to find a pattern, try to use what you're seeing toward the pursuit of your own creations. I can help you."

"Help me?"

She grinned. "Well, you are not the most organized person in the world. If you leave all the paperwork, organization, and administration to me, you, my dear husband, can get on with your science."

Andrew stared at her incredulously. Dear God in heaven . . . have I been truly blessed? She's not going to turn away from me, then? She's actually going to remain at my side, help me through this, take what's bad and make it good? He shook his head, feeling as though the storm clouds that had been hanging over his head and future this past year were finally clearing away, allowing the first brilliant rays of sunlight to touch him from above.

And Celsie was that sunlight.

He reached out, slid an arm around her waist, and pulled her close, needing her strength, her optimism, her new way of looking at things — and the solid, living warmth of her that was his only comfort in the strange and confusing world his life had become.

"What a fool I've been for not telling you earlier," he murmured, feeling humbled and ashamed. "I was so afraid that you'd reject me if you knew the truth, that your admiration would turn to pity, and, well . . . I guess I found the idea faintly unbearable."

"The idea that I'd reject you, or that my admiration would turn to pity?"

"The former, of course."

She smiled. "Well, Andrew, if you were afraid of that, then I'd say you weren't as loathe to marry me as you might have thought."

"It's the madness," he said despairingly. "As much as I think I'd like to be someone's husband, I shouldn't be married to anyone. It's not fair to her. Not fair to start something that's only going to end in heartbreak. I'm a doomed man."

"Oh, no, Andrew. You're not a doomed man. You're a very gifted one, I think, blessed in a very special way, and you probably have more to offer this world than you can ever know — and more than any ordinary man of science could ever give." She pulled him close, gazing deeply into his eyes. "I don't know what ails you, and I'm not even going to try to guess, but I know one thing: Together, you and I are going to turn this little affliction of yours from the negative into the positive. And we're going to start right now."