here to fight for Annis and for James, there would have been two tragedies instead of one. Two lives destroyed instead of one.
There had been nothing else she could do. She understood that, but still grieved that it had to be so.
She rose to get into her nightdress and to lay out her things to pack. Tomorrow she would go back to London, book passage to New York, return home as soon as possible. It would be good to see dear Grace, to be back in her herbarium, to walk again in her beloved park. She folded herself into bed, closed her eyes, and welcomed the deep sleep of exhaustion.
She suffered no nightmares, despite her sadness. She slept soundly, comforted by a dream of Alexander, who touched her cheek with his big, gentle hand. She found no judgment in his eyes, no criticism for anything she had done. She saw only love, the kind of love that comes once in a lifetime, the kind that can never die.
She woke with more tears on her cheeks, but these were tears of nostalgia and of longing for the life she could not have.
36
James
James was confined to his bed for a full week before he felt strong enough to sit up in the armchair, his feet on a hassock. He had Perry pull the drapes so he could gaze out over the gardens and catch a glimpse of the summer-blue sea. His bedroom faced east and south, with a view of the Seabeck farms. The rain of a few days ago had revived the browning fields. White sheep grazed along the hillsides, and a herd of red dairy cows browsed in their pasture.
The doctor had said it could be weeks before he would be well enough to ride out on the estate. James had to settle for the view and for the scents of summer-blooming flowers and shrubs borne to him on the sea breeze.
The doctor had not been able to identify the illness that had come over him so suddenly. The same ailment had evidently struck Mrs. Allington, and that troubled James. He worried that it might attack some other resident of Rosefield Hall. Most especially he worried that it might strike Annis.
It had been a bizarre sort of sickness. He couldn’t remember anything about the night he fell ill except for a strange sequence of nightmares. They still haunted him, though he couldn’t bring himself to speak of them, either to Perry or to the doctor. They had been violent, disgusting, lurid as passages from the penny dreadfuls sold on railway station racks. He would never want anyone to know the inventions his fevered mind had been capable of. He could only hope the nightmares would eventually fade from his memory, the way normal dreams did.
Perry had just removed his luncheon tray, leaving the door open so the air could circulate. James dropped his head against the back of his chair and contemplated a pair of bullfinches darting from tree to shrub at the edge of the garden, their plumage glowing rose and silver in the bright sun. He envied their freedom and their energy, while he sat here, weak as a newborn lamb. As an infant. The doctor said he would recover, but since the same doctor had no idea what was the matter with him, it was difficult to place confidence in his prediction.
A light knock on the open door roused him. He lifted his head and twisted in his chair. It was Annis.
She was dressed in her riding habit and offering him a tentative smile. “James,” she said. “I’m delighted to see you out of bed.”
“Yes, at last,” he said. His voice, hoarse from disuse, creaked like an unoiled hinge. He cleared his throat. “Do come in, Miss Allington.”
“Annis, please.” She crossed the room and came to sit on a straight chair beside the hassock. She looked as bright and glowing as the bullfinches, the opposite of his own condition. He was infinitely glad she could never guess at the role she had played in his nightmares.
He tried to sit up a bit straighter, distressed at looking feeble. “Tell me,” he said. “How is your stepmother?”
“I’m sorry to say she is still in her bed. Her eyes are open, and she takes a bit of nourishment. My maid, Velma, is particularly good with her, persuading her to swallow some soup and sometimes a little toast. She hasn’t spoken a word since she fell ill, though. The doctor doesn’t