Paradox (The Thornfield Affair #2)

by Amity Cross

  It felt as if something dark and sinister conspired to thwart my attempts to leave Thornfield. My path was scrambled and confused, and every time I made a decision, another event transpired to change my mind. Whether it was the strange laughter, fire, the arrival of Blanche Ingram, my cousin Georgiana, and Aunt Sarah, or Edward himself, all of these things forced me to linger when all I wanted to do was start afresh.

  Still, I could only ask the doctor about the one thing he knew of, and I wasn’t about to let this chance slip through my fingers.

  “What do you know of Mason?” I asked.

  “Mason?” Dr. Carter frowned, looking confused.

  “The man who was attacked here a few months ago,” I explained. “What do you know of him?”

  His lips thinned. “I cared for him as best I could, and he went away the following day. As far as I know, he is well, although he has a few new scars. Of more, I am uncertain.”

  “Did he say anything of how he received his injuries?”

  Dr. Carter shook his head and rose to his feet, collecting his bag. He looked out the window at the sky beyond for an age before he turned back to me.

  “It’s curious,” he replied after a moment. “The times I’ve been called here for various things.”

  I stared at him, attempting to puzzle out his words. “This hasn’t been the first or second time you’ve come to Thornfield like this?”

  He opened his mouth, but whatever he wanted to say was abruptly silenced as the door opened, and Bessie came scurrying in wheeling a tray.

  “Oh, hello, Dr. Carter,” she said, positioning the tray beside the bed. “I didn’t know you were still here. Shall I come back?”

  He glanced at me, and then shook his head. “I’m quite finished, thank you. I must speak to Mr. Rochester before I depart. Do you know where he is?”

  “I think he is in his study. If you give me a moment, I shall take you there.”

  She busied herself with the tray, placing it on the bed beside me. Once she was finished, she led the doctor from the room, and that was that. It was as if I’d been the one to be dismissed, all my questions and longings not important enough to warrant simple answers. It was the story of my life.

  I stared at the back of the door for a long moment, lamenting at the frustration my life had become, before turning to the tray Bessie had left. Opening the little box of ibuprofen that sat beside a plate of food, I took two of the white tablets and closed my eyes.

  I was much too tired to ponder the awful day’s events further, and despite my best attempts to remain alert, I fell into a fitful sleep.

  When I awoke, the tray was gone.

  Glancing at the clock on the bedside table, I saw only a few hours had passed since Dr. Carter had departed. I lay prone for a moment, my limbs protesting with every tiny movement, and when I could bear it enough, I rose to my feet.

  I seemed to be wearing a different set of clothes, and I felt myself flush at the thought of being handled like a child. The jumper and long-sleeve T-shirt I’d donned that morning were gone, replaced with soft woolen fabric that pressed against my tender flesh. I didn’t recognize it, but from the feminine cut, I assumed it belonged to either Alice or Bessie. Rolling up the sleeves, I saw my skin was already dark with some impressive bruises from my tumble down the stairs.

  Desperate to know what was going on, I shuffled toward the door. I didn’t like being apart, not in this, so I took it upon myself to investigate. I wouldn’t be lied to anymore.

  Opening the door, I felt like an escapee from a prison, and a thrill shuddered through my body. Peering into the empty hallway beyond, I recognized the furnishings and realized I had been placed in a suite in the upper west wing of the hotel, the closest room to Edward’s in the whole of Thornfield.

  So much for not being caged.

  The stairs were hard work for my aching legs, so it took some time to reach the balcony above the main gallery. When I finally reached it, I found the most unexpected sight, and my mouth fell open in shock.

  “You attempted grievous bodily harm against her!” Edward’s voice boomed, seeming to echo into infinity.

  I lingered at the top of the stairs, unable to comprehend the scene unfolding below me.

  Edward and Blanche stood in the center of the gallery, her suitcases piled around them. Alice was in the doorway of the office, and many sets of eyes were peeking through a gap in the sitting room doors, spying on the unfolding spectacle.

  “But, Edward!” Blanche cried, a hair’s breadth away from stamping her foot in a tantrum.

  “Do not think me a fool,” he snapped. “You think I was marrying you for love? Do you think that any of this was genuine?”

  “What?” She looked genuinely shocked at his words.

  “Why do the rich marry anyone,” he roared, echoing the very words he’d used in conversation with me to justify his engagement.

  “Is everything a game to you Rochesters?” she cried, her shock changing to anger as she lashed out. “Screwing the staff, embezzling money at every turn, ruining lives, gambling with affection! Your brother deserved what he got, and so did Jane Doe.”

  My breath caught, and I clutched the balustrade, my blood whooshing through my veins. He’d never spoken to me about his brother, and I wondered what she meant. My gaze flickered to Edward, and another rush of emotion pulsed through my body. I’d seen anger on his handsome and terrible face before, but it was nothing like the rage marring it now.

  “Never forget I have the power to ruin you and your entire family.” He snarled, his tone frightening even me. “Do not think to test me.”

  She stared at him, her nostrils flaring as he clicked his fingers, his gaze trapped with hers in a battle of wills. Two male housekeeping attendants appeared and began gathering up the luggage and ferrying it outside to a waiting car.

  Blanche didn’t utter another complaint, seeming to have accepted Edward’s word as final. She was done, and she knew it.

  Turning, her gaze found mine as if she knew I’d been standing there, witness to her downfall all along. Her blue eyes lingered, and a smile crept onto her face. It was so serene after such a public shaming that it chilled my already icy bones.

  Another omen? I thought so. Somehow, I knew this wouldn’t be the last time either of us would be hearing the name Blanche Ingram.

  Edward seemed to notice something was amiss and turned to follow her stare. When he saw me lingering at the top of the stairs, he strode forth. He didn’t even wait to make sure Blanche had left before he showed his interest, and it bothered me. Taking the stairs two at a time, he was before me, moving so fast I began to believe he was the spirit he so often claimed I was.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” he asked, his voice so gentle it shocked and warmed me all at once. Such a stark contrast to his display of power downstairs.

  “I am fine,” I replied, my gaze avoiding his. The front door closed, signaling Blanche had gone, but I still felt on edge.

  “She won’t be coming back, Jane,” he said, frowning. “What she did was unforgivable.”

  “So she admitted to it?” I focused on his dark features and wished he wouldn’t champion me so.

  “Willingly, though I will never understand why you wouldn’t name her.” My hand tightened around the banister, and the motion didn’t go undetected. “Jane, you must go back to bed.”

  “I’m fine,” I argued, but he wouldn’t hear it.

  Winding his arm through mine, he led me back to the suite. His was touch uncharacteristically gentle, and his attention, after so much trouble and anguish, was perplexing. Had he suffered a change of heart? I’d been hoodwinked so many times I didn’t dare believe he had.

  I had neither the strength nor conviction to pull away, so I allowed him to escort me back to the suite. Once inside, he lowered me gently onto the bed, grasping my limbs and arranging my body just so on the soft mattress.

  “There,” he said, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Isn’t tha
t much better?”

  He lingered, sitting beside me on the bed, obviously wanting to talk more, and his hesitation only added to my worries.

  “What of your aunt?” he finally asked.

  “Dead,” I replied.

  “That is very forthright.”

  “I do not harbor any good or bad feelings toward her, so how else am I meant to say it?”

  “You could be more pleasant about it,” he said. “You could have said she has passed on, but why should Jane Doe be polite when she can call a spade a spade?”

  “You know how I feel about my aunt,” I said, not wanting to get into yet another argument, not when everything ached so. “And you know how I felt about Blanche. I never wanted this to happen. I didn’t want to be in this position, and I didn’t want to… You know.” I gestured to the scrape on my temple.

  “Of course, you didn’t, Jane,” he declared. “Who asks to be attacked? No one.”

  “Like Mason,” I challenged. “Do you remember him?” He looked aghast, and I rolled my eyes in exasperation. “From the look on your face, I’m sure you expected me to have let it go by now. Well, you almost succeeded in distracting me from all the queer happenings in this house, but I fear the blow to my head has dislodged them once more.”

  He remained stoic, refusing to answer my accusation with words or emotion. He didn’t move at all.

  “Your bag was packed,” he said with a frown.

  “I have been attempting to leave this accursed place since last September,” I said sullenly. “After your behavior last night, I intended to leave this morning. But…”

  “I see. You were just going to disappear, I suppose.” Edward’s eyes narrowed, but it was all the emotion he showed.

  “You delight in my torment.”

  “That is false.” He shifted on the bed, tucking his left leg under his right, and faced me fully. “If I had intended to be as spiteful a man as I once was, perhaps I would have delighted in it. You were the one to cast me away, after all. I’ve learned a great many things since I stumbled upon you, Jane. A great many…” He trailed off, not seeming to know how to articulate his thoughts.

  “You frightened me, Edward. I don’t know how to take you,” I said. “You are the ultimate paradox. Danger surrounds you, yet…”

  “Yet?” he prodded.

  I turned away, my palm resting against my forehead.

  “You must stay until you are healed,” he went on, granting me a brief reprieve from the insanity that was out relationship. “I couldn’t bear it knowing you left feeling so poorly.”

  I shook my head, returning my gaze to his so he would understand I meant what I was about to say. “It is yet another excuse to force me to linger. There have been too many.”

  “She attacked you, but I was the cause.”

  I turned away from him, the force of his gaze too heavy to bear. “So it is your guilt which drives you to imprison me.”

  “Jane.”

  “Do you think because she is gone and you are now free of the burden of marriage, I will fall into your arms and plead for you to take me back? Nothing has changed, Edward. You are still as closed to me as that day on the moor, and I still want nothing less than your full and complete love!”

  “I see it now,” he murmured, his gaze drinking in my features. “What could have been wrested from me with such finality. You say it so plainly, and I wonder why I could never see it so. You have used the word paradox several times now—yes, I have remembered every word from your precious lips, Jane—and I am guilty. I am tormented beyond compare.”

  I was powerless under his scrutiny, and I bore it as he mused his deepest thoughts. Hardly understanding what was happening, I listened. Not just to his words, but to the meaning.

  “I’ve attempted to trick you, but your mind is too sharp,” he went on. “I fancy you deserve a much better man than I, but I am unable to let you go. It is a curious thing, you know. What drives a man to want the things he does.”

  “But the barrier remains,” I returned. “You are the one who has to remove it, Edward. I cannot continue on this path. It’s too much to take. The lies, the secrets, the pain…”

  He lowered his gaze and wetted his lips, his shoulders tensing. Then he stood, removed my boots, and fixed the blankets around me, frowning at the darkening bruises on my exposed arms.

  I hardly knew if my words had made a dent in his hard exterior, and I wanted to question him further—to talk and expose the things which kept us close yet drove us apart—but it was never meant to be. Would I ever know? It was unlikely, and I wondered if I would ever be able to escape Thornfield without some unexpected drama to ensnare me.

  “Rest,” Edward said, then he left me to my solitude like the phantom he was.

  15

  I thought long and hard over Edward’s parting words that day.

  He’d admitted to tricking me with his wicked ways, and in all honesty, I was unsure how to take it. Especially when he admitted to still caring for me even though he’d turned to Blanche in my absence. Any sane person would have called it quits long before now.

  For three days after this bizarre display of affection, I was forced to linger in bed. I only granted Bessie and Alice audience, too distraught at the events of the past few days to face more of the same.

  Alice would sit on the bed next to me, keeping me entertained with the comings and goings since the attack. I welcomed her chatter as it distracted me from my aches and pains, but I didn’t share her outrage in quite the same way.

  It felt strange to say I’d been harmed in that way even though it was exactly what had transpired at the top of those garden stairs. I wasn’t sure of Blanche’s ultimate intentions with that knife—if she’d intended to scare, wound, or kill—but it still ended badly.

  Alice told me a rather embellished account of all the pieces of Edward’s dismissal of Blanche I’d missed. Apparently, he’d begun carrying out her luggage himself when she kept hindering the staff from taking them. He’d practically thrown her trunks down the stairs he was so angry. It must have been a sight to behold, and I was sorry to have missed the excitement. Although Blanche and the things she was capable of now frightened me, a small part of me wanted to see the look on her face.

  “I don’t even know why he wanted to marry her at all,” Alice declared with a humph.

  “Are you forgetting the things you said to me before you knew of Edward and me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Oh, shush,” she said, waving her hand at me. “That was before.”

  “Before?”

  “Oh, Jane, stop tormenting me! I never thought of it because I never thought it was possible. I can see it clearly in hindsight, and his reaction to your…” She paused with a frown. “Well, his reaction says it all, doesn’t it?”

  “His reaction?” I knew what she was getting at, but I didn’t want to hold out hope Edward had finally come around.

  “When he came into the gallery with you in his arms, he was such a mess,” she told me. “He looked thoroughly terrified you were gravely hurt. I almost had a heart attack myself! I can see it, Jane, how he feels about you. I never thought I’d see the day!”

  “I’ve never been shown such affection,” I said quietly. “I never wanted to cause a scene. Honestly, I feel terrible I’m even in this position.”

  “Don’t even think that again,” Alice said intently. “She showed her true colors, Jane. Everyone always knew she was shallow and haughty, but to attack you?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Jealousy is an ugly emotion, and it ran deep in her. She knew she never had Edward, and the fact you did only showed her flaws. It takes a certain kind of darkness to strike as she did. He was right to turn her out.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t you dare blame yourself. Why would you even think it was your fault their engagement was ended? As I said, she showed her true skin, and I know Rocky would never stoop to marry someone like her. When she was nothing but a shallow, flash
y figurehead perhaps, but now? No way. I sincerely doubt his choice would have been different if she’d attacked someone else.”

  I glanced away, ashamed at my lack of confidence.

  Alice continued her pep talk. “Rocky’s a complicated man, but he will do whatever it takes to protect those he cares for. Perhaps he goes a little overboard, but it comes from a place of love.”

  I sighed. “Do you think he keeps me from his secrets for this reason? To protect me?”

  “Of course.”

  “I wished to help him,” I whispered. “I wanted… I couldn’t allow myself to love him without having it returned fully. All my life, I’ve wanted it and been denied it in the cruelest ways. What is love without trust?”

  “You’re right that’s for sure.” Alice smiled softly and adjusted the blanket around my waist. “But what is love without faith?”

  I stared at her, shocked. She was absolutely right. In holding so strictly to my morals, had I given up on complete happiness too soon? Was this torment all my doing?

  Humanity was a strange and cruel thing. Wherever our kind congregated, there were inevitable disagreements and jealousies, and when one perceived an injustice against their person, nothing could change their mind once they were set on their course for revenge. Stubbornness would see that their intent stayed on task with only their ultimate goal in their sights. Destruction.

  Through my stubbornness, that was what I feared Blanche Ingram would exact upon all who lived at Thornfield, including Edward and myself. I feared she would return and finish what she had begun, and by giving her time and distance, the resulting scheme would be greater, its punishment more extreme.

  “Don’t fret, Jane,” Alice said. “Things will right themselves in time.”

  I really hoped she was right.

  A few days after the attack, I discharged myself from the suite and returned to work. My bruises would remain for a while yet, and so would my aches and pains, but I couldn’t remain confined in that bed a moment longer. Movement and assigned tasks held pleasure for me, and being idle had only served to darken my thoughts.