In Regency England, two brothers vie for Mabel's affections. Their passionate rivalry puts her reputation on the line and tests both her sense and sensibility to the maximum. On the verge of despair, she must cast the die: to decipher the most enigm...
Everett had been right: Lady Catherine's anxiety over Radcliffe's illness taking an unexpected turn for the worse was all-consuming. Fortunately, she had Mabel to take care of the other aspects of life. Mabel had no such help. She suffered from the cold chills of premonition and worked. When it was unbearable, she crept to the sickroom in secret to see Radcliffe's chest rise in his sleep. As inappropriate as it was, each glance she stole comforted her.
She thanked Heavens that on one such occasion, in late afternoon, he opened his eyes and their gazes crossed. Then joy fled, replaced by dread. Frozen to her spot, she lifted the book she carried as her excuse in front of her. Like an Amazon warrior of antiquity lifting her shield, though she didn't feel heroic at all.
"Your Mother wanted to know if you wished to be read to..." Not immediately prior to her sneaking in or she wouldn't fret so much, but Lady Catherine pondered out loud of Radcliffe's every want, no matter how minute. Surely, she must have mentioned reading at some point, and Mabel rushed about so much.... In short, she prayed it was understandable for her to be befuddled enough to troop into a man's bedroom.
"Aye." His eyes crinkled at the corners. This one simple word in his mouth sounded laden with more meanings than a speech by a fop. O, he looked too clever by far for his own good, even bedridden. No wonder Everett suspected him of being a villain and stealing everyone's affection for himself.
She perched at the edge of the chair, always positioned by the bedside for Lady Catherine, with Ovid balanced on her knee.
"Lord Chesterton, may I ask you a question?"
"Only if you don't expect a long answer."
"Did you..." she took a clandestine breath in. She only wanted honesty. "Did you truly value my friendship so little that you had me parrot dead language rather than hear a single word of genuine compassion?"
"I love these old tales and your voice soothes me more than anything else in the world," he was out of breath by the end of it, smiled in a bid for brief respite, then continued. "I must compliment you on your fast learning."
She took a closer look at him. Was the colour returning to his cheeks? "I would read in Ancient Greek, if it eased your pain, but—"
"In Greek? I am not completely heartless, Miss Walton."
"But, Lord Chesterton, day after day you force me to read about the wings glued with wax and devious sorceresses, when all I can think of is that you wouldn't let your own mother nurse you back to full health."
"My mother dreamed of traveling for years." His voice turned as cutting as the infirmity allowed. "The idea appalled my father, but I will not be selfish to allow her to postpone again on my account."
This didn't fit with Everett's accusations at all. Radcliffe wanted them gone, not hovering over him. Unless he wanted them to love him so much that they would sacrifice their pleasures to prove their love. But that would be too devious.
"I am terrified of what might befall you while we are on the continent." She dropped her glance on the book. The oaken leaf, peeking between the pages as a bookmark, suddenly looked dead, rather than preserved for eternity.
"I fall ill often, Miss Walton. Sometimes twice or thrice in one year. Sometimes for weeks on end; it's unpleasant, trite, and I always recover." He visibly strained to smile now. The result ended up valiant rather than merry. "By the time you return, I will be back to my usual robust self."
She wished she could ask him what his illness was and how it normally progressed. If he had often relapsed, the way his mother's fears indicated. But what good would it do her, with no knowledge of medicine? No ability to do anything? The response would only tire him more, and, perhaps, even upset him. That left her with hidden sighs and heart-ache. "I hate leaving you in such a precarious situation, not knowing if you're getting better."
"Then I promise to send you bulletins with excruciatingly boring details."
The sheen of perspiration appeared on his forehead, no doubt owing to the efforts of such a long conversation, but if she was not mistaken his colour improved while he mocked her fears. Her heart thumped with a guess that sprung in it: he mocked his own fears as well.
"I will practice my Latin all summer, so I could read you the rest of the poem properly when we return," she said, keeping treacherous quivers out of her voice. "You must wait in suspense for the ending until then."
"I know how it ends."
It ended in a tragedy as it always did with the ancient classics. Gritting her teeth, she commanded the thought to go away and found his limp hand on the blanket. "Since you've assured me that you will be hale upon our return, it puts us in the same position."
The gentle squeeze to her fingers softened the acerbity of his response. "Yes, Miss Walton, I believe we are in the exact same position."
Belatedly, she realized that she was looking for comfort from a man in the clutches of sickness. She flushed, started to apologize, but Lady Catherine's steps sounded in the library. It sent Mabel fleeing from the usurped seat, her hand slipping out of his, an incoherent sorry blabbered. Once slammed in a chair at a proper distance, she squelched her face in a plea to forgive her.
Radcliffe winked and closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep—to justify her silence—just as Lady Catherine stepped inside the sickroom.
Mabel prayed that her skipping breath didn't give away their deception, as she answered in a hushed whisper that yes, yes, their patient was resting peacefully. She repeated her lie about reading, even though Lady Catherine didn't inquire why she was here, with Radcliffe sleeping.
This deception, ironically, made her forgive the trick he had played earlier on her. Once the voice of the offended pride silenced, she understood why he loved The Metamorphoses.
Those were tales of humans turning to trees, or stone turning into humans; the bodies transforming despite all expectations of physical reality. The ancient fantasies took him away, maybe allowed him to transform himself into someone else for a fanciful moment. She even suspected whom he might have modelled himself after, if a Greek god offered him a choice.
Or, perhaps, those guesses were nothing more than her own imagination playing foul with her heart. The shadows of secret and shameful desires on the walls of the cave she was in.
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