by Meara Platt
She’d believed what she’d told him initially. He was the only person who could convince himself otherwise.
He had lost members of his family at very impressionable times of his life, and the tragedies had left an emotional scar in the form of this horrific obsession. He might very well require fifty years or more before he could believe otherwise.
“It is not necessary for you to die for me to lose you, Christian. I began losing you the day we met.” Lose him? Had he, at any time, ever been hers to lose?
“I am still here. I am still very much alive,” he returned with a scowl.
He was, if possible, even more unhappy about all of this than she was.
“I am sorry.” She should not make light of his fear. It was real to him. She wanted to beg him to fight for his life. She wanted to beg him to believe that they could have a future together. She wanted him to give this marriage a chance.
Everything had changed.
“We will wait and see,” was all he offered.
She listlessly accepted his arm and allowed him to escort her out of the room.
“Will Bernadette want to return to the country?” Bernadette and Lillian discussed all manner of subjects, including fashion, and Lillian’s sisters, and what Lillian’s coming out had been like. They had not, however, discussed Christian. They had most certainly not discussed his belief that he was going to die.
“I’ll ask her tonight. There are only a few weeks left in the Season. Not having come out yet, I imaging she’s growing bored.”
Lillian dipped her head and then exhaled loudly. His sister wasn’t only bored, she was unhappy. Lillian suspected that the girl could not help but feel the tension in the house, not to mention the fear her brother lived in. Bernadette was a sensitive little soul and at her tender age, multitudes of emotions simmered within.
Bernadette sat waiting for them in the drawing room already, body slouched and with all the angst that came along with her age. “A little overdressed for dinner, don’t you think?” she teased as she rose and walked across the room to go up on her toes and place a kiss on Christian’s cheek and then on Lillian’s. Lillian dropped Christian’s arm and moved toward the window.
“We’re to attend the Fitzhuberts’ Musicale this evening. Did you forget?” Christian poured himself a splash of scotch and took a healthy sip.
The younger girl shrugged as though she didn’t care. So much pretending amongst them all. This was not how family acted with one another. Christian was frowning into his drink and Lillian wanted to cry.
Perhaps it would be best to take a break from one another.
And then Bernadette exhaled as though she was about to endure something unavoidable. “You never told me. You never tell me anything.” Lillian turned her back to the window. Something was off…
Christian’s nostrils flared. “I told you three days ago. I tell you everything.”
“You didn’t tell me you planned on getting married. You never even told me about Lillian until the day of the wedding.”
Lillian straightened. She’d thought Bernadette had come to terms with having her there. It seemed, however, that there were some unresolved issues. She took a step toward her sister-in-law. “We failed to tell my mother either, and she was none too pleased. And the rest of my family is equally out of sorts with me that there wasn’t a wedding breakfast for them to plan. In her last letter, Cora threatened to stop speaking to me indefinitely.”
Bernadette seemed almost interested at the mention of one of Lillian’s younger sisters but instead shifted her gaze back to her brother. “Most normal people might say a lengthy betrothal would be appropriate.” She glanced at Lillian.” Of course, I’m sure you’ve realized by now that my brother is anything but normal.”
At this, Lillian frowned.
“Don’t be such a bore, Bernadette, if you wish to pick a quarrel with me, I’d prefer you do so in private.”
Lillian bit her lip. She was beginning to wonder if Christian’s sister wasn’t as unaware of her brother’s concerns as he’d like to believe. “But if we are to be family…”
Bernadette gave Lillian her full attention. “You do know, don’t you, that my brother is certain he is going to die? Are you aware that he married you because he thinks I am too much of a simpleton to avoid the clutches of Cousin Livermore? That he’s desperate to provide a rightful heir so that upon his death, he can leave this earth with a clean conscience?”
By the time she came to the end of her startling tirade, Bernadette was glaring daggers at her brother. “Did you think I didn’t know?” Angry tears shone in her eyes. She didn’t wait around for an answer from him, however, but burst from the chair and ran out of the room.
“Bernadette!” Christian looked horrified and confused as he glanced down at Lillian.
“Go after her!” Lillian urged him. She hated that he had this fear, but it was possibly doing far greater harm to his sister.
He nodded. “What should I tell her?”
Oh, but men were clueless sometimes!
“Just listen to her. And then tell her the truth.”
“She… The truth?”
“All of it, Christian. She is not a child.” Lillian shooed him. “If she doesn’t open her door for you, wait her out if you must. We’ll send our apologies to the Fitzhubert’s in the morning.”
He stepped forward, squeezed her hand gratefully, and then rushed from the room.
Of course, his sister knew all of it. Of course, she did.
Lillian dropped onto the settee and slumped into the cushions. She should have thought of this sooner. She should have known a girl of such an age was far more aware than she would have been given credit for.
She was not surprised when she heard the sound of a slamming door echo from the bedchambers upstairs.
How was it possible that women could make a man feel utterly guilty for transgressions that they were utterly unaware of having committed?
After pounding on his sister’s bedchamber door for ten minutes, with only a few grunts and curses for an answer, Christian dropped onto the floor on the opposite side of the corridor, thinking to wait her out silently. Horace had followed him upstairs, at least, so he wouldn’t have to sit vigil alone.
“You are lucky to be a canine.” Christian rubbed his hand along the top of his dear friend’s back.
Horace turned his head and tilted it questioningly. “Don’t act like you don’t know why.”
Christian winced. He’d been so caught up in his own frustrations that he’d failed to notice what he was doing to his sister. The one person he’d sworn he would protect at all costs.
If he hadn’t wanted to protect Bernadette so badly, he never would have met Lillian.
Lillian.
The first person he thought of in the morning and the last person he thought of before he fell asleep.
She was coming to care for him and he hated knowing he was going to hurt her. Already, he wondered if it was too late.
The only answer was to send her away. Allow her all of that independence she had wanted when she’d accepted his proposal. They’d known one another for little more than a fortnight. Less than that if one discounted their first meeting.
He’d rushed her headlong to the altar without the courtesy of speaking with her brother or mother.
Not even an altar. To the mantle in his study…
He’d not expected to experience such closeness as the two of them shared in bed. Nor the in-between moments. For days now, he’d analyzed the events of his life and tried to see them in a different light. He’d tried to rationalize with himself, convince himself that his beliefs were naught more than nonsense.
And yet he still could not shake the belief that a calamity awaited him any day now.
Horace yawned and, apparently sensing they could be waiting here for some time, sprawled out on the rug and fell asleep.
Was it possible that he loved her? That he’d fallen in love with her in such a shor
t time? Christian banged the back of his head against the wall he leaned against.
He required no effort at all to summon her face in his imagination. It was as though she filled every dream he’d ever had for love. Her courage, her steadiness, her comforting presence… everything. He felt as though he’d waited a lifetime to meet her.
He slammed his head harder against the wall and then winced.
“Dare the devil!” Christian remembered a voice shouting when he and his father had stopped into the local village pub. “Ha Ha! Not one, not two, but three strapping sons.”
His father had pounded him on the back proudly.
“You’ll be sorry after all of you have died!” Christian replayed the words he’d shouted in his mind… words that could never be unsaid.
“You’ll just die too then.” Ah, yes, Calvin had responded in kind as they’d driven away, the last day of their father’s life. Even pounding his head against the wall didn’t help. The words were burned on his soul. That day was burned on his soul.
This was who he was.
After waiting what felt like hours, but could have only been minutes, the door to Bernadette’s chamber squeaked open. Christian pushed his spectacles back onto his face just in time to catch eyes nearly the same blue as his peeking out. His little sister frowned when they landed on his sorry visage, but she did not retreat or slam the door again.
As Christian rose to his feet, he felt much older than his six and twenty years. Was this what marriage did to a man? No, this was what having a headstrong younger sister did to him.
And a wife. God help him, and a wife.
“You will allow me inside?” An attack of remorse came when he noticed that her face was tear-streaked. Bernadette was not a girl who cried often or easily.
In answer, she pulled the door wide, allowing both he and Horace to enter.
Before Christian could sit down, or even ask, she flung herself at him, sobbing. Instinctively he wound his arms around her and squeezed.
How had Lillian known that Bernadette would need him? He wasn’t even sure himself what he had done.
“You are going to die!” Bernadette muttered against the fabric of his cravat. “You are going to leave me alone, and you won’t even talk to me about it! How could you, Christian? You are all I have left!”
He stilled but then hugged her even more tightly against him.
This was what he’d done wrong.
He could not explain to her that he had no control over the future. There was nothing he could do to escape his fate. The fact that he was attempting to sire a son seemed even more ridiculous. What would he have said to Calvin, or to Abron, or his father or mother for that matter, if he’d known they would die soon?
He’d have begged them not to. He would have held onto them tightly and not allowed them to sail, or duel, or… do much of anything.
Wasn’t that exactly what he’d been doing to himself?
“You cannot leave me, Christian.” She sniffled as her sobs finally began to subside. “You cannot.”
“I won’t.” His voice caught as he made a promise he could not keep. “I’m sorry, Bernie.” He kissed her atop the head. “I didn’t realize you knew.”
“Of course, I knew! I heard the first night you brought it up, with Cornelius and Lord Middleton, the night of Calvin’s funeral.”
She had known for that long? “But how…?”
“I’m not a child,” she reminded him. And then more ruefully, “I was hiding in the secret room, behind the bookshelf.”
Christian nodded. Of course, as children, he and Bernadette had spied on their older brothers on more than one occasion.
In his own despair, he had left her in the care of her governess and to her own devices for too long. He’d greatly underestimated the ingenuity of his sister.
“If you die, Christian, then I must die too! I don’t want either of us to die! I want to have a Season next year. I want to marry one day. I want… so much more. Don’t you?”
Suddenly, his heart raced, and a thin sheen of perspiration broke out on his forehead and upper lip. The urge to tap his foot was strong but he abstained, knowing how much Bernadette hated it.
“You will not die if I die.” He struggled to form the words, almost as though cotton filled his mouth. “That’s preposterous.”
He could not imagine his beautiful sister meeting the same fate the rest of their family had. He would not imagine it. In fact, he’d never allow such a thing.
“But it is not! If you die, then I know that I shall too.”
Could love be stronger than the curse he’d been living under all his life? Because he knew, with every fiber of his being, that he would not allow his sister to die.
“I won’t let you die, Christian.”
Could her love do the same for him? Was love enough? He wasn’t sure of anything anymore but for the first time since he’d identified his brother’s lifeless body, he began to feel a glimmer of hope.
Was it possible that Lillian could come to love him? Surely, he had not been alone in his feelings. She’d felt a similar magic. In fact, he’d wager…
…his life?
He wondered how powerful love could be… and for some reason, he remembered words from long ago, words from the bible? Words his mother had recited… Words about the power of love.
Love hoped in all things, it believed in all things, it never failed… He frowned. What had Lillian told him the day they’d broken the news of their marriage to her mother?
“I am relieved to know that my husband did not lie to me. Even more importantly, I am greatly relieved to know that you are not suffering. Physically. It broke my heart to think of you in pain.”
She had trusted him.
Is love enough?
“I won’t die, Bernadette. I’m not going anywhere.” Saying the words out loud, he swore to himself he’d do everything he could to make good on his promise.
Bernadette nodded against his jacket and sniffed before pushing herself away and wiping her face with a handkerchief. The two of them hadn’t demonstrated any outward sign of emotion to one another since becoming adults. They should have. He ought to have turned to her when Calvin was killed. He ought to have made it so that she was comfortable turning to him.
All sorts of awkwardness settled between them and all he could think was that he needed to tell Lillian she had been right. And he needed to tell her it was possible he was wrong.
That flicker of hope flared into a small flame.
“Shall we join my wife for dinner, then?”
Bernadette bit her lip and then shook her head. “I will apologize to Lillian tomorrow, if that’s all right. I promise I will apologize, but I am… embarrassed.”
Already they had talked to one another more in one night than they had in months. They had communicated anyhow.
He needed to do the same with Lillian!
He nodded. “Shall I have a meal sent up for you?” He was already backing out the door.
Bernadette nodded. “That would be lovely, Christian. Go to your wife and explain to her that she is going to be stuck with you much longer than originally planned.”
It was exactly what Christian wanted to hear. He flew out the door and down the stairs.
But he was to be disappointed when he arrived there. Lillian was not in the withdrawing room nor the library.
“She’s gone to her mother’s,” his butler informed him. “She received a missive from the Duchess of Crawford. A small emergency, she said, but ordered that you and Lady Bernadette not be disturbed.”
Not caring that his jacket was wet with his sister’s tears, nor that they were going to miss a blasted performance by a few amateur musicians, Christian pivoted and strode out the front door. He didn’t want to wait. Now that he had hope, he wanted to share it with Lillian as soon as possible.
His ears perked at the ominous sound of drums beating a call to arms—and bells. Shouting and the sounds of hooves echoed in the di
stance, growing louder, before one of the fire brigades and its fire engine went tearing down the street.
A cold chill stole down his spine when it turned in the direction of Lady Crawford’s house. Spying an orange glow in the sky, Christian took off at a sprint.
Chapter Ten
A New Point of View
When Christian finally tore around the corner heat from the inferno met him from over one hundred feet away. Not only was Lady Crawford’s house aflame but practically the entire block.
Fire brigades had been organized with volunteers handing buckets off, and a man stood atop a fire engine with a hose spraying water into one of the homes. It was more than apparent, however, that all they could hope for was containment.
Where was Lillian?
Christian rushed around one of the fire wagons, stepping heedlessly through random puddles of water, all the while his eyes frantically searching for the one small blonde woman he was not prepared to lose.
He would never be prepared to lose her.
“Lillian!” he shouted as he pushed his way through a crowd of onlookers.
Growing more panicked with each step, he checked the huddled clusters of evacuated residents, some wrapped in blankets, others dressed for dinner but all of them staring in horror at the destruction of their homes.
Where was she?
A grumbling thunder sounded, but it did not herald rain. One of the houses collapsed on itself.
Lady Crawford’s house was fully engulfed but remained standing. If she was inside…
He ran toward it.
“Hey, Mister! Stay away from there! No one will be going in to save you!” one of the firemen called out in warning, but Christian ignored him.
“My wife…” The temperature of the air grew even hotter as he moved closer and then climbed the steps to enter.
“Get away from there, Mister!”
“My wife’s inside!” he shouted over his shoulder.
When he turned the decorative silver lever and then pulled the door open, waves of smoke billowed out. His eyes stung and after only a few breaths, his lungs burned.