Chapter Fourteen

Talia woke up with one thought in her mind.

One thought that did not falter even as she noticed the neatly folded letter on the pillow next to her. One thought that did not falter even as she realized what would be inside the letter.

One thought.

She was in love with her husband.

She had spent the night pacing her room, tossing and turning in bed, trying to talk herself out of that very fact. But it was no use. She was in love with Fletch, and his leaving had only made that fact painfully clear to her.

Her husband had made her fall in love with him.

And now he intended to die.

Without lifting her head from the pillow, Talia reached out, ignoring how her fingers trembled as she opened the note. She rolled onto her back, holding the crisp vellum above her face.

Talia,

I cannot do this to you. Cannot let us go further. Hope is not the salvation you think it is. Hope, in this instance, is only cruel. I refuse to encourage it.

So I must leave. This home, all of my homes and land that will not return to the crown, are now yours. You can visit my solicitor, Mr. Gleeson, for details, as he is steward of all the holdings.

Know that, above all, I wish I could offer you all of the things you want from me, Talia. A child. Hope. A lifetime together.

But I cannot give you those things. While at the very same time, I have discovered that I cannot deny you, Talia. So I must remove myself from you. There is not another option. We cannot move forth in ways one, or both of us, will regret. I cannot do that to you—create more pain in your life only to appease my own selfish desires.

I wish you nothing but a long life filled with happiness, Talia.

—Fletch

Tears slid down her face, rivers along her temples that pooled in her ears. Damn him. She had known exactly what she would read in the note, but the reality of the words written in Fletch's own hand stung her chest, constricted her air.

She loved him. Yet he was gone.

She crumpled the note, pride hardening her. Bastard. He was not going to let her love him. No matter what she wanted.

Pride sent her spine straight, stretching in her bed.

She needed to break from this as well. Not love him.

He was going to die soon, be lost to her forever. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was better for them to part ways before the pain would become too unbearable at his passing.

Except what if he didn't pass? What if his death wasn't imminent? What if the curse was just a string of unfortunate accidents that spanned generations? What if they both lived until eighty, bitter and alone for decades because of this very moment?

Her hope could not be squelched.

Fletch had shown her how to live with hope again, and she was finding it very hard to now curb the hope he had kindled.

But he had rejected her.

And he would again. And again. And again.

The raw humiliation of that one moment—naked, the door slamming in her face—swept her, curdling her stomach. Her pride could not stomach that again.

Wiping the wetness from her face, she sat up and smoothed the note to flatness on the bed next to her. She didn't care for the crumples she had put in his words. Words she would have to read again and again in order to believe the truth of them.

Fletch wished her happiness.

Now she just needed to find out how to achieve that without him.

***

Four days later, Talia walked in the front door of the townhouse only to be greeted by a din escaping from the very active lower drawing room off the foyer. Without stopping to remove her cloak, she rushed forward, her heart speeding, palpitating out of control before she turned the corner into the drawing room.

A blur of faces turned to her. Chattering stopped.

"Talia, come in." Her mother stood, waving Talia into the room. "Had I known you were stepping out, I would have set the time for our guests to be later."

Talia's eyes swung about the room. Six—seven of her mother's old acquaintances sat around the room. Friends—friends that had denied them help years ago. Cut her mother when they had been in the position to help. Friends that had deemed her mother tainted with poverty. Deemed Talia and Louise unmarriageable.

No. Not in her home.

Her breathing sped, her chest hurting with the pounding of her heart. Talia gulped air through clenched lips—air that refused to stay in her lungs, every quick exhale forcing the next gasp.

Just when Talia was about to spin to run from the room, she spied Louise sitting on a side chair, partly hidden behind two plump ladies that had angled their chairs right in front of her.

In the richest dress Talia had seen in the past five years, Louise shook, her face ashen as tears brimmed in her eyes. The dress could withstand the busybodies. Louise could not.

Talia's panic twisted, spiraling into rage. Across the room in an instant, she wedged herself between the two ladies that held Louise captive and grabbed her sister's wrist, pulling her to her feet.

Without a word, she dragged Louise out of the drawing room, not stopping until she had her sister up the stairs and into her room. She sent a passing maid to fetch the nurse and Mr. Flemstone.

The door closing, Louise crumpled onto her bed, her tears streaming. Talia rushed across the room, drew her into her arms, holding her sister as Louise both shook in sobs and tried to jerk from Talia's touch.

"She made me go down and I could not fight her, Talia." Hiccups sent Louise's words wobbling as she stopped trying to escape and leaned into Talia. "I could not be in there and I did not know what to do or say and I just sat there and tried not to cry. I could not speak and Mama is so mad."

"Shhhh. Do not think on that. Mother should not have put you in that situation below." Talia stroked her back, noting the elaborate upsweep in her sister's hair that must have taken an hour to concoct. A fresh wave of fury scurried down her spine at how long her sister had been forced to sit, preparing for the event below. "Come. Let us strip you out of this dress and get you into bed."

Louise had only just pulled the bed covers over her legs when the door flung open, their mother bursting into the room with the rabid anger of a bull defending its territory.

"Unacceptable, Natalia. Completely unacceptable." Her mother went straight to Talia, hand waving hysterically. "Do you know how much cajoling and begging I had to do to get the lot of those ladies gathered down below? It has been impossible and you have ruined it beyond compare. Right now they are teetering with gossip."

Talia returned her mother's glare with full force. "I do not care in the slightest what those women down below think on me. Or you."

"You need to change your attitude, Natalia."

"I cannot believe you would have the gall to invite these women into Fletch's home, Mother." Talia's voice hissed. "Women who turned their backs upon us the instant we were tossed from Rosevin. Have you no pride?"

"No. I cannot afford pride, daughter. Pride disappeared as an option for me long ago. Pride rarely delivers results. Pride has no place when happiness is at stake. Pride does not find a suitable husband for my youngest daughter. So do not dare to be high-handed about the matter, Natalia." Her mother's hands went to her hips. "You may not care about yourself, or me, but you do need to care about what those women below think of your sister, Natalia. She is unmarried and she has already lost precious years in the marriage mart. We have no time to waste if she is to find a suitable husband."

Momentarily dumbstruck by her mother's unapologetic gall, Talia's eyes went to slits as she stepped to her. "Does it matter if Louise is married? Does it matter to anyone but you? Do you hear yourself Mother? This is madness. Louise is not in a position right now to be courted. To be married. To be with society. It has only been days—"

"Do not say it." Both of her mother's hands flew up, stopping Talia's words. "Do not even utter it, Natalia. We will speak of what happened no more."

"Yet it happened, Mother."

"No, it did not." Her mother glanced over to Louise in the bed. Tears still streamed down her face. "It did not happen if Louise is to make a proper match. Move on with her life. Move on with a husband."

Talia's voice dropped low, and she turned slightly away from Louise. "You are assuming she can move on with her life. There are certain things Louise will never be able to hide from a husband."

"She will. I will school her on what she will need to do."

Talia's head shook. "Louise jumps every time someone touches her, Mother. This is far too soon to force her into society. What sort of match do you expect her to make?"

"She will improve at this, Natalia. We need only work at it." Her mother's arm swung in a wide arc. "We do not have time to waste. We have to keep up appearances, now that fortunes have changed for us. We need to salvage what we can of Louise's prospects for marriage—if only she could have entered the marriage mart years ago. As it is now, we do not have the luxury of time, and every single one of those ladies below is crucial to that end—to Louise making a match."

Growling, Talia rubbed her forehead. "Mother—"

A sharp knock on the door cut Talia's words. She went to open it.

"Mr. Flemstone." Talia stepped aside to let the doctor and the nurse into the room before closing the door. "Thank you for coming so quickly."

Mr. Flemstone was already to the side of the bed, looking down at Louise with worried eyes.

Talia looked to her mother, her voice shaking, just barely under control. "Mother, please, you need to go below and finish whatever it is you are trying to accomplish with those ladies, and then rid them from this house."

Her final glare evident, her mother moved past Talia without a word, anger in every step. Talia opened the door for her, and she exited Louise's chamber.

Closing the door, Talia ducked her head as she took a deep sigh, attempting to control her right hand that wanted to grab the vase within reach on the bureau and heave it across the room.

She looked up only to see Mr. Flemstone reach down and gently pick up Louise's hand. Her sister didn't jump. Didn't cower.

Louise jerked away when anyone—even Talia—tried to touch her. But with Mr. Flemstone, nothing. Louise was as solid as a rock.

Her tears, in fact, had dried.

Talia looked from her sister to Mr. Flemstone, curiosity squinting her eyes. He continued to whisper to Louise in a low rumble, his look never veering from Louise's eyes.

And then it happened. The slightest curl to Louise's lips. A smile. Tiny. But it was a smile. Talia had thought to never see her sister smile again.

She approached the bed, stepping behind the physician. "What did you give her?"

His hand not releasing Louise's fingers, he glanced over his shoulder at Talia. "Actually, nothing. I weaned her off of the laudanum days ago."

"You did?" Panic clutched Talia's heart. "But that was the only thing calming her—that is cruel."

Talia recognized the instant look Mr. Flemstone gave her as patience for the ignorant.

"It would be crueler to keep her on it, Lady Lockston. I do not intend to have her harmed, and I have seen too many become harshly dependent upon the substance." He looked back to Louise. "I am not about to allow that to happen to your sister."

Talia shook her head slowly, staring at the profile of the physician. "No, I do not suppose you are, Mr. Flemstone."

She looked down to her sister, recognizing for the first time the obvious adoration—but more importantly, trust—in Louise's eyes as she looked up at the doctor.

Talia backed away from the bed, nodding at the nurse by the door as she passed her. Talia left the room.

Thoughts firing, saturating her mind, Talia's feet moved down the hall and stairs on their own accord.

When she looked up, Talia realized her feet had brought her to the center of the rear gardens. She stood in the middle of the neat rows of the dormant gardens, her boots crunching the cold gravel of the path.

Having never taken off her cloak, she tightened the heavy wool around her waist. The cool air wrapped around her head, chilling her flushed cheeks.

She stood for minutes, unable to lift her feet from that spot.

Glancing upward, she found her sister's window in the back of the townhouse. The peach curtains were drawn, an extra layer against the chill.

A deep inhale and the cold air went sharp into her nostrils, stinging. She exhaled, her eyes not veering from the window.

All of her problems were solved. Louise saved. Her mother already working to rebuild their social status—whether Talia wanted it or not. A beautiful house to live in. Food more than plentiful. More money than she could ever imagine spending in five lifetimes.

Every single thing wrong had been righted.

Everything.

Yet here she stood, lost, in the middle of long-dead plants. Hollow.

A hollow hole gaping in her chest that only grew larger each day.

She had tried to ignore it. Hoped it would ease. But it remained, casting a shadow over everything she had thought she needed.

Maybe her mother was right. Pride had no place when happiness was at stake.

She did not want this life.

She wanted Fletch.

And she wanted him alive.