Within minutes, he had managed to partially shove on his coat while ushering Violet down the rear servants’ stairs and to the stables where the coach was holding. He sent Mr. Druper in to fetch Clarissa, and then settled Violet into the carriage.
Her shaking had not ceased.
And a tremble of his own had started. He moved to the bench opposite her, his legs wide, capturing her between them as he leaned forward. “What the hell was that, Vee?”
“I—” She glanced out the window, her eyes landing on the rear of the manor. The full moonlight set the white stones of the building into an unearthly glow. Her head shook. “No. I cannot.”
“You damn well can.” He grabbed her knees through her skirt, his fingers digging into her skin, squeezing harder with every word. “I have just imagined a thousand different scenarios in the last five minutes, Vee. All about what happened to you in that room. Who hurt you so badly that you would react like that. What horror you endured. And now I only need to know one thing—who do I need to kill?”
She gasped, her hand clutching onto her throat, her face contorting in panic. “Me—it is me. Only me.”
“What?”
Her trembling fingers dropped from her throat, falling to her lap. “I—I am so sorry, Theo. I am mortified on so many levels it is too ridiculous to even comprehend.”
“So start.” His grip on her knees eased. “Tell me one of those levels.”
“I am a failure.” Her head shook, her eyes closing as her voice escaped small, timid like he had never heard it. “I always have been and I failed you.”
“What madness are you speaking, Vee?”
“What I offered upstairs, I could not deliver. I apologize.”
His hand instantly retightened on her knees. “I could care less about that, Vee. What I care about is the reason that you slipped into insanity on me.”
“I am not insane.” Her fingers lifted, rubbing her temples. “I am a failure. As I said. Or maybe I am insane.”
“And touching a bath told you that?”
Her eyes opened to him. “It was not just any bath, Theo. It was that copper tub. That room.”
His head dropped, bowing for a long moment as he attempted to rein in fury he had no target for. Composed once more, he lifted his look to her. “What happened in there, Vee?”
She closed her eyes as her hands dropped, her right palm flattening against her belly as though she needed to hold herself upright. Taking a deep breath, she held it for far too long before she expelled it. A tear escaped from the corner of her eye with her exhale.
Just as Theo was going to prod her for more, she shivered and then opened her mouth, her voice wispy, haunted. “That was where your sister found me two and a half years ago after Malcolm died. After I realized…everything. It was in the autumn. The cold had started to seep into the days. Not the short spurts of coolness in the summer. The cold that teased at gripping the land, holding it hostage into the bitter winds of winter.”
She opened her eyes, her head tilting backward as her look fixed on the far top corner of the coach in apparent attempt to stave off tears that welled. “I didn’t want the cold anymore. Hated it. So I had the bath filled. That copper tub. Cook and Flanders helped me fill it. They were the only two left in the manor. And the stairs—so many. Up and down. Bucket after bucket. Pity. Such pity in their eyes. They wanted to stop, but I would not let them. And I made sure it was the warmest water. I had it filled so full, that when I got in, it flowed over the top rim, flooding the floor. I can still hear it trickling down, droplets splashing.”
She paused for a long moment, another lone tear slipping down the left side of her face, traveling slowly over her cheekbone, catching a glint of moonlight through the open window of the coach.
Her fingers shaking, her hand on her stomach pressed inward as she took another long breath and her gaze dropped to Theo’s face. “That was the day I gave up.”
He knew exactly what she was telling him, but he didn’t believe it.
Not Violet. Not the one woman he knew to have a backbone of steel. To fear nothing except for dark corners deep in mines.
“Violet—”
“I gave up. There was just so much…pain. And every day I would wake up, and I would tell myself that it would get better. It would ease. Every day I did that. Every day. Every single day. Every minute. It would get better. But it never did. It only got worse. And I lost those words. I could no longer utter them. Lie to myself. Then the cold came.”
She lifted her hand, swiping at the tear crested on her cheekbone. “So I sank into the warmth of the water. And that was it. I was done. I thought I would have to fight it. Fight the water. Fight to stay down. I even put iron fireback plates on my chest. But I didn’t need to. I didn’t fight it. Didn’t at all.”
Her voice trailed, her eyes slipping closed again.
Theo gave her the moment, the space.
He waited in silence for long minutes until he caught sight of Mr. Druper and Clarissa walking down the path to the carriages.
He gently squeezed her knee. “Except that was not the end.”
She opened her eyes to him, a sad smile etching into her face. “Adalia is a remarkable friend, Theo. Did you know that?”
“I do.”
She nodded. “That was the very day she arrived at the manor. The very minute. I had gone under. Let the water into my lungs. I was in blackness. In nothing.” Her mouth closed as she swallowed hard. “And then I was naked, curled onto my side on the floor next to the tub, hacking out water, bile—everything. Adalia was above me, soaked from head to toe, slapping my back with such ferocity she would put your darkest rage to shame. She was so angry at me.”
Theo smiled. That sounded exactly like how his sister would react.
“Adalia knew what I did. But she never said so. Never betrayed her thoughts on the matter beyond her initial anger. And she has never spoken a word of it. Never admonished me for it. She just helped me step forward. She collected up Cass and together they became my fortress against the world. My cornerstones. They made me move on from this place—on from everything.”
He heaved a sigh. “And I was the one to encourage you to come back here.”
A sharp rap came through the carriage door. They both looked out the open window.
His eyes averted to the side, Mr. Druper stood outside the carriage. “Clarissa has been retrieved. She would prefer to ride on the outside again, my lady, unless it is necessary for her to ride inside with you.”
Theo moved his hands from her knees, sitting straight on the bench cushions as he looked to Violet. She shook her head.
He glanced out the carriage window. “She is not needed, Mr. Druper. We are ready.”
A quick nod, and Mr. Druper moved to the front of the carriage. The horses started forward at a crisp pace, curving along the long path around Vandestile manor. Theo watched the building aglow with moonlight and mirth retreat as the reality of what Violet had done sank in.
“I thought I was ready to come back here, Theo.” Violet’s sudden words surprised him, drawing his gaze to her. “It is not your fault for encouraging me to come—you could not have known how I would react. I did not know how I would react. I believed I would be fine. I thought all of this was in the past—I knew it was in the past. And I was fine, until…”
“Until you touched that copper tub.”
She nodded. Her hand on her stomach balled into a fist, dropping to her lap. “I knew which room I was in and I thought I could handle it. I just didn’t anticipate touching the tub—gripping the edge of it.” Her cheeks flushed, her hand starting to shake. “And it came at the exact time—what we were doing and what I was feeling and then I was touching the tub and it was all—it was all just crashing down around me again.”
A violent tremble spread through her body. Theo’s chest clenched, his heart fracturing for her, for what she suffered. It cut deep in his body—the oddest feeling he almost didn’t recognize, for he
had long since hardened himself against feeling anything when witnessing pain.
But her pain—what she had been driven to. Hell. He could not watch her face—see her memory of the horror—and stay stoic.
Nor could he make anyone pay for it.
Anyone that needed to suffer for this was long past dead.
So he did the only thing left to him.
He moved across the carriage, sitting down next to her, and drew her into his arms.
She resisted for the merest second, and then collapsed against him.
Every tremble, every quake from her body ran into his chest—solid—a rock quelling the onslaught of waves rolling off her body.
This, he could do for her.
Take the remnants of her pain. Be her sanctuary.
He could take all of it as his own if it could free her.
{ Chapter 11 }
Violet looked down, poking with the toe of her slipper at a weed between two bricks in the pathway of Glenhaven’s east garden. It was an early spring weed, trying to establish itself before any other plant could get to the business of growing. The light of the full moon, now low in the sky, reflected off the bright green tip, offering the weed no place to hide.
She considered bending over to pluck it, but after tossing about in bed for an hour, her body was still too tense to sleep, much less bend with ease. Her muscles screamed, aching from the force in which she held them rigid, battling the trembles in an attempt to keep them at bay.
Her memories would never be kind to her.
Punishment for what she had done.
She had been a fool to think she could sleep after arriving back at Glenhaven.
She stared at the weed. Only two more hours of darkness and then she could put the whole of the disastrous night behind her.
“Are you not cold?”
Theo’s voice came quietly from the darkness and Violet turned, her arms tightening around her waist, pulling closed the slight gape in the front of her robe.
Theo stepped to her from the shadows of the pathway lined with hollyhocks. He had either tossed on clothes haphazardly, or he had never undressed from the night. He was still wearing trousers and his linen shirt, the white cloth opened into a deep V cut in the center of his chest.
Clear of the shadows, he stopped with a healthy space between them—neither pressuring her with proximity, nor far enough away to suggest nonchalance.
She waved her hand in the air. “The cold—the cool of the night… it is a reminder. I don’t mind chill now—truthfully, I seek it out when I can. It cleans my mind.”
He nodded. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” His finger lifted, pointing at the windows along the third level of the house. “From my chambers I saw you come into the garden and I wanted to make sure you were well.”
“You thought I was to do something stupid again?” she snapped.
“No.” He stilled, his look searing into her. “That never entered my mind. Should I be worried, Vee?”
“I have been to that hell once, Theo. I don’t intend to ever go back.”
His eyebrows cocked.
She forced her shoulders to relax, to quell her defensive hackles. Theo had been nothing but a gentleman, offering only compassion and understanding after what she had confessed to him in the carriage. There hadn’t been the slightest sliver of condemnation in his eyes. He was the last person that deserved her ire.
She took a deep breath to get her voice under control. “No, you don’t need to worry. I…I just have never told another soul about what happened. I do not wish you to think me a candidate for Bedlam. Or to think that a silly party at my old home would bring me to my knees. I am not that person anymore.”
He nodded, his clear blue eyes catching the moonlight, making them glow in the shadows as his gaze centered on her. “I understand, Vee. I do. Everything changes. Everyone changes.”
From anybody else, she would have found his words suspect. She would have feared being patronized, of being watched like a hawk in wait of her breaking. But from Theo—she believed him. The way his eyes had closed slightly—his own pain allowing him to recognize hers.
“Thank you.”
He gave her one nod and then motioned to the pathway through the beds of hyacinths, the florets sending wafts of their heady fragrance up into the air. “Walk with me?”
“Yes.”
He stepped next to her, his hands clutched behind his back as they started to stroll slowly through the garden beds.
Fifteen steps in silence, and Theo’s voice cut into the crisp air. “My sister, what she did for you.”
“Adalia saved my life.”
“Yes.” His steps stayed even, but his words paused as he looked at her. “Are you here to save me, Vee? To repay my sister?”
She turned her face toward him, meeting his look. “Yes.”
“Hmm.” The sound came out in a grunt. “I didn’t think you would be entirely honest about it. Nor answer so quickly.”
Her gaze swung forward, watching the line of far-off oaks along the edge of the woods rustle in the breeze. “It is the truth. That is exactly why I agreed to come to Glenhaven with you. Though gaining the mine as a guarantee makes my life easier, of course. I thought to save you—or at least get you to take some sort of responsibility for your life. Responsibility for the havoc you create.”
“Such as ruining your bank?”
“Yes. Adalia has been fraught with worry over the state you have been in the past two years. And your latest foray into London didn’t help matters at all.”
“I see.”
She stole a glance at his profile. He was looking down, staring at the herringbone pattern of the brick pathway before them. His jawline had tensed, his mouth tight.
She stopped, grabbing his arm to halt his motion. “That is why I came to Glenhaven, Theo, to have you take responsibility for what you did at the Revelry’s Tempest. But it is not why I stayed here past our visit to the mine. I could have easily left to reside at Vandestile Manor until the ball.”
She turned fully to him, staring at him until he met her eyes. “I stayed here at Glenhaven because of you, Theo.”
“I was worse off than you imagined?”
“No. You were you. Just you. Not the London imbecilic drunk lying on my floor. Here at Glenhaven, you are you. Scarred, yes. Weary, yes. I didn’t expect to find it, but you are still that man that I once thought to hang the moon and stars upon. You still have a fire burning inside of you. Hope inside of you. I didn’t see that in London. But I do here.”
“Do not think me more than that drunken louse in London, Vee, lest you be disappointed.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I know you. I know you can do this, move on, rebuild the estate—do anything you want.”
He sighed, his eyes darting away from her gaze, his look fixating past her shoulder. The blue of his eyes darkened for a heartbeat, and then suddenly lit up, a crooked smile lifting the right side of his face. “This. Do you remember this spot, Vee? It is the first place we kissed.”
Her head swiveled around and she spotted the wrought iron bench his look had landed on. A slight gasp and a wicked smile came to her lips. “No, it wasn’t the first—it was the second.”
“The second—no, I distinctly remember it. We were on that bench. You were wearing a peach gauzy dress that your chaperone would have berated you mercilessly for wearing had she seen it.”
“Miss Lipstein.”
“Yes, she was the one. Oh, how she hated when she lost sight of you when I was around.”
“The poor woman.” Violet chuckled. “She was just doing her duty. She was scared to Hades she would have to report to my uncle that her charge was in dire need of a trip to Gretna Green due to a swollen belly.”
“So yes, you were wearing that flimsy dress and you enticed me into the garden.”
“I enticed?” Her eyebrows arched. “Your memory does not serve you correctly.”
“No, it was you d
oing the enticement. I am sure of it. And I kissed you. Our first one.”
A smirk came over her face. “Did I never tell you I actually stole our first one?”
“What?”
“I kissed you when you were asleep in the library one evening. You had been out all day riding with your brothers. You were a mess. Hot, sticky, dirty, completely disheveled. Lying on the settee with one leg slung over the side rail, the other long onto the floor. I stumbled upon you and I could not resist. I snuck up upon you and kissed you.”
He laughed, a devil grin overtaking his face. “And did I never tell you I was feigning sleep in the library? But I couldn’t move and make it be known once I realized what you were doing.”
“What?” She thwapped him in the chest. “You rascal.”
“You temptress.” He caught her hand in midair as she started to swat him again. He stopped it, holding it in the air just above his chest as his look pinned her, his eyes heated. “That one in the library was yours, Vee. Mine—mine was on that bench. That first kiss with you and I was never the same.”
“You weren’t?”
“No. Never.” His eyes clouded. “For good or for bad, I have thought about it thousands of times. How moments of desire—of perfection—such as that, so small, so short, define us. How they set us down unimagined paths. How years later, the draw to them—those small moments—is still ruthlessly hard to deny.”
“So why do we try?”
“To deny their existence or to make more?”
“Both.”
Theo shrugged. “Society? Propriety? Scandal?”
Her lips pulled to the side in a crooked frown. “That—the excuse of respectability—is a pretense that no longer holds weight on my reputation. At one time propriety was everything to me. My world. But no more. I lost it the second I took over the Revelry’s Tempest. As much as I have fought for it, pretend I still have it—I am a widow that runs a gaming house. Propriety is gone, lost to another time that I will never have again. And the odd thing about it…”
“Yes?”
Of Sin & Sanctuary: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 11