and every time she lost a babe, I swear she lost a piece of herself, too.”
Selina’s heart clenched both for the dead woman and for the man reliving his pain.
“I didn’t want to keep trying. It didn’t matter to me. I had cousins enough to be able to pass on the title. But Charlotte – she’d been raised to believe that a lady’s job was to marry well and provide heirs. And nothing would convince her otherwise.”
Selina couldn’t move. She was frozen, trapped in Philip’s painful memories.
“She begged and pleaded with me. Said she didn’t feel like a real woman. That she felt like a failure. That…” He gulped loudly. “That she would hurt herself or —”
He jumped up from the chair suddenly and paced to the fireplace, raking a hand through his chestnut hair.
“I never could say no to her.” He smiled, but it was grim and humourless. Filled with bitterness and regret. “When she was enceinte with Timothy and stayed so past three months, it seemed like a miracle. Finally, she would have her babe. I thought it would make her happy. So I –“ He swallowed audibly before continuing. “I ignored so much of her behaviour. She wasn’t sleeping. Barely eating. And I kept telling myself that she was just worried. As soon as the baby was born and she saw that everything was fine, she would get better.”
“She didn’t,” Selina said gently, keeping any inflection from her tone.
“No.” He shook his head. “She got worse. So much worse.”
Selina couldn’t bear the raw pain in his voice. Without conscious thought, she rose from the chaise and walked toward him.
“I sought help from everywhere. Her mother came to stay. Mine thought she should be sent to Bedlam.” His fierce glower was proof enough of what he’d thought of that suggestion.
“The doctor gave her laudanum to sleep, and she began to rely so heavily on it that she was barely awake during the day. And Timothy, her longed-for child – sometimes I wasn’t sure if she was even aware of his existence.”
He heaved a sigh from the depths of his soul then turned suddenly to look at her. His blue eyes glittered intensely in the firelight.
“Eighteen months ago, the pain became too much. At least, I assume it did. I wasn’t – we didn’t share a bedchamber.”
Selina wondered at his guilty tone. It was common for Quality not to share rooms, after all.
“I was in my study. Drinking myself to a near enough stupor, I’m ashamed to say, and –“
He swallowed again, and Selina’s skin prickled.
“The first I knew of it was Timothy’s scream. I raced up the stairs, and even as I ran I could hear the chaos. More screams. Crying from servants.”
He shuddered and closed his eyes.
“Timothy had gone searching for me. Charlotte didn’t – she wasn’t able to, to care for him. When he didn’t find me in my bedchamber, he went to hers.”
Selina knew then. Knew what had happened. Knew what the boy had seen.
“She threw herself from the window, and he saw it.”
Where his voice had been filled with raw emotion before, now it was empty of it. It was flat and dead as though he’d shut off all feeling just to be able to tell his sorry tale.
“Ever since then, Timothy has had these nightmares. More than that – these terrifying incidences. Half the time he’s awake when it happens.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“I hoped coming here would help. I had such an urge to travel here. New surroundings, a house I’d been happy in as a boy.”
He grimaced slightly.
“Charlotte had never come here. She didn’t travel well. And I thought perhaps it would help. No memories. No reminders of what he’d seen.”
He shook his head despondently.
“As you can tell, it’s no use. Nothing is working. I thought perhaps I was pandering to it too much as my mother claimed.”
His mother sounded like a dragon to Selina’s way of thinking, but it wasn’t her place to say.
“That if I sent him back to a nursery, stopped letting him stay with me in my rooms, it would help. Well, you can see how well that went.”
Suddenly he spun to face her fully, his hands reaching out and clasping her upper arms in a vicelike grip.
“Please.” His eyes held the same desperation as his voice. “Please, tell me you can help him. Tell me how to fix this.”
“I don’t have all of the answers,” she began, but he cut her off.
“I’ll try anything,”