Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94964 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94964 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
* * *
This was a man who would apparently not hesitate to strip himself in public for her benefit but would not say a word to her the entire time she’d been awake. Not even to express his relief that she’d awoken. Yet he looked severely worried for her.
* * *
Anne came back and sat down on her other side with a tired sigh.
* * *
“What did he say?” she asked at once.
* * *
Anne looked at her warily.
* * *
“Do not lie to me. Tell me what he said.”
* * *
Anne shook her head. “He blames himself for all your misfortunes. He wonders how we can even talk civilly to him. I think he was hoping to be banished from the premises by father or some other dramatic thing that would make him feel as if he got punished. He is tortured, Janice.” Anne frowned with concern.
* * *
Janice leaned back with care, breath leaving her body slowly, her back still delicate and prone to seize up if she made any sudden movements. “Is that why he would not speak to me?”
* * *
“I fear so. This thing is such a bumble broth.”
* * *
Janice started to nod and then stopped abruptly as her neck twinged warningly. “I agree. I wish I knew what to do…but I don’t.”
* * *
Anne reached out and squeezed her hand. “You’ll sort it all out…eventually. Have faith.”
* * *
Janice sighed, closing her eyes. “I hope you’re right.”
He hardly recalled how he got home. All he could see in his mind’s eye was Janice, lying prone on the daybed, her face pale, eyes shadowed. Having taken a good look at her, he felt as if she was thinner. Those shadows under her eyes were not caused by a fall. He had made her miserable.
* * *
He paced in his study, wondering if he should collect his mother’s ring from her jewelry box and present it to Janice.
* * *
A consolation prize.
* * *
But if I do, what then? Where will we live? What will we do once I have gambled it all away?
* * *
Aside from the twenty thousand pounds annually that he received as inheritance from his maternal grandfather, he would have no other source of income, no properties, and his name would be despoiled beyond repair. He could not expect her to live with that.
* * *
And what if I become like my father? What if I drive her mad with cruelty and neglect?
* * *
The very thought had him feeling nauseous. He could not trust his own instincts; his own mind. All he knew for sure was that his father’s curse would rain down upon them both. Janice was such a naturally happy person. She deserved to keep that.
* * *
She will be fine. She will meet somebody else soon and all this will be a terrible nightmare she need never remember ever again.
* * *
His heart broke even to think about it and he reveled in the pain.
* * *
He deserved it.
Having to rest in her bed and recuperate gave her too much time to think. She tried reading but it gave her a headache. Emily, Anne, and even aunt Leticia were all too happy to read to her, but it wasn’t the same. The rolling cadences of their voices put her to sleep, where she dreamed.
* * *
She was always either running from something or chasing something. She had no idea. All she knew was whatever she was chasing stayed out of reach and she never caught up to it. While whatever was chasing her was always hot on her heels. Whichever one it was, she was always filled with a sense of abject terror and hopelessness. She would never escape, never reach her goal, never be free.
* * *
She woke up heaving and tired, her heart racing as if she had really been running and her breath coming short. Nothing helped. She’d refused to take Mrs. Campbell’s tincture of laudanum because it only worsened the dreams – and then she could not wake up from them.
* * *
She knew she was worrying everybody, including herself, but had no idea what to do about it.
* * *
Emily brought Hubert to visit. He loved to jump about on her bed and having him there definitely lightened her mood as she laughed along with his antics. When he was done, he would rise up on two legs so he could lick her face, his tail wagging enthusiastically. She rubbed his fur, smiling from ear to ear, and for a time, forgot her misery.
* * *
“I feel the need to get up and walk about a bit,” she told Emily the next morning, having woken up to a sick feeling in her stomach and having almost cast up her accounts. “I am tired of lying here. I shall go mad if I don’t see the outside of these chambers.”