Duke of Camellias

THIRTY

For three days the Duke did not come down to eat, and on the fourth, he came down for breakfast.

His hair was in a mess, and he was wearing a loosely buttoned shirt, and black trousers. He didn't touch the newspaper laid out, and only drank his tea. He looked grave. Even Flemings knew not to say anything during breakfast.

Once the two men finished, Emmanuel looked up and smiled at Blair.

"Do you want to listen to the continuation of my story?" Blair had dreaded the words. He tried to smile.

"You wanted a rest, didn't you? I can wait."

"No. I've realized, it's time to stop running away." Emmanuel stood up. "Come to my room. You don't need to bring anything."

Emmanuel gave him one last look before he spun on his heels and left.

Blair had never seen him with such a grave, such an expression. It chilled him to the bones. It made the room feel all the more colder.

The sky outside was still white, blending into the white landscape. The wind howled and rattled the windows as Blair made his way to the Duke's room. It didn't feel like morning at all. It felt timeless, and it wasn't like late February at all. There was no trace of spring, but the camellias had began falling. Red heads dotted the garden the Duke looked down at. Instead of feeling relived, as he always imagined he would while telling his story, he felt like a storm. He felt like tearing down the walls and the trees and even his own camellias.

The door opened and there was Blair. Emmanuel turned to him with a small smile.

"You want to know, don't you, about my dreadful history?

"I—I don't."

"You don't have to be so kind. I shall tell you—but I will tell you this beforehand, Blair. I'm no saint, and I never said I wasn't. I am a human, a terrible, real, human. I get mad, and sad, and I feel—I feel."

"Of course you do. I know you are human, better than anyone." Emmanuel only looked coldly at Blair as he said it.

"I suppose you do know. I felt everything they did to me, the things that I always accepted and never protested against. But the moment I heard of my brother's death, I could no longer accept it. He had never been in France, no, he had been sent to an asylum, and he had killed himself."

"No." Blair looked at him, dazed. Flemings was right.

"Yes, he had not died in France. No, he had been locked up in a different asylum from the one my mother was in the whole time. I had thought it was strange, for I never got his letters. I had simply thought the Duke and Duchess took away the letters, or even tried to believe Charles was too happy in France to pay me any mind.

"But no, that wasn't the worst of it. The whole time, did you know, he had been shot up with morphine, slowly, until he went insane, and finally killed himself, all alone, in the asylum? Did you know?"

"No," Blair whispered.

"Yes, I didn't either." The Duke was crying, for the first time. He did not look any different, for the tears only dripped out of his eyes, and then he looked away. He wouldn't show his vulnerability. "I was not by his side, as all of this happened."

"It's not your fault," Blair said, but his words were cheap. They didn't mean a thing, not after what happened that night.

"Everything I ever loved had disappeared, so quickly, so easily," Emmanuel mused. "And after his death, I was going to be heir, and they tortured me even more. The Duke administered all these terrible poisons for me to take, against my will. For the first time one night I fought against him, shoving away the Laudanum and Godfrey's Cordial—everything!"