warm animation stripped away, lost to any farewells he might have made. Desolation ripped at him and pulled him down.
Randolph struggled awake with a gasp, sweating and wild. He panted. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was or when it was. Then reality seeped back to him. His mother was dying. No, she was only ill. She would not die!
He shoved back the twisted bedclothes, stood, and jerked on his dressing gown. Barefoot, he lurched down the hall to his mother’s room, still half in the dream. There, by a dim light, he saw his mother, pale and breathing with some difficulty, but not still and dead. He picked up her hand from the coverlet. It was clammy but not cold.
“Randolph?” His father sat on the other side of the bed, shadowed, holding her other hand.
“How is she?” Randolph asked.
“The same.”
Tragedy couldn’t happen with his father present, or so some young part of Randolph had always thought. Papa’s face said that might not be true. An unbearable idea. He backed away from it.
Randolph heard music. He went toward the music. Still disoriented, trying to shake off the dream, he entered the room where Verity played the pianoforte. She looked up, startled, then stiffened and half rose. “What’s happened? You look dreadful. Is the duchess…?”
He’d reached a place of refuge; in his dazed state, that was all Randolph knew. “I dreamed she died,” he murmured. “Just like Rosalie. I dreamed Mama was dying, and I couldn’t get to her room. They wouldn’t let me see her, speak to her, tell her I loved her. They kept me out.”
“Who are they? Who is Rosalie?”
Randolph scarcely heard her. “A simple inflammation of the lungs, that’s what all the doctors said. But it got worse and worse. And they wouldn’t let me in her room. We hadn’t even had time to announce our engagement, and that foul disease came along and killed her.” His fists clenched at his sides.
“Killed who?” Verity asked.
“Rosalie.” Randolph felt a reminiscent brush of crushing grief. He began to pace. How small this room was! “Her parents thought it improper for me to be in her bedchamber. Improper! As if I would…as if it mattered by that time. We were to be married, and I wasn’t allowed to sit with her! I should have been by her side as she faded out of the world. They were cruel, barbarous! I wouldn’t stand for it now. I wouldn’t be some obedient boy, subsisting on secondhand news and relayed messages. She died without me.” And there was the agony again. “If Mama slipped away, and I couldn’t reach her…” He put his hands to his head.
“Didn’t you look in on your mother just now?” Verity said.
“Yes.”
“And she’s alive.”
“Yes. Yes, she is.”
“And no one stopped you.”
Letting his hands drop, Randolph shook his head.
“She was a bit better today. Flora said so.”
“Did she? Was she?” Randolph blinked and finally came more fully awake.
“The doctor agreed. The duchess took a whole bowl of broth, and she spoke to your papa. She knew him.”
Randolph took a deep breath.
“And you can sit with her whenever you like,” Verity added. “No one will keep you from her.”
“No.” Randolph relaxed into a combination of relief and gratitude. How comforting she was. “I shouldn’t have come rushing in here half awake. I beg your pardon. Sometimes a nightmare can seem more real than life.”
Verity nodded. She sat on the bench before the pianoforte, looking at him. Her blue-green eyes seemed doubtful. Well, of course she was shaken. It was the middle of the night, and he’d burst in on her practically raving. What exactly had he said? The whole incident was fading now, as dreams did on waking. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
“You were very upset.” It seemed half a question.
“I was.” He gave her a rueful smile. “Thank you for listening to me. I don’t normally have nightmares.”
“These are difficult circumstances.”
Randolph only nodded. He didn’t want to speak of his mother’s illness again. And he wanted to forget the dream. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Walking back to his bedchamber, he decided he wouldn’t try to sleep any more. Sleep was treacherous. He’d get out the lute.
Verity sat on after Randolph was gone, puzzling over his disjointed confidences. Randolph had been engaged before. Why had he never mentioned this? Why had no one else told her? There was never any shortage of busybodies to share such information. People couldn’t resist. “Rosalie,” she murmured. Who was this Rosalie