Page 29 of Loving Graystoke's Heir

“Like you worried about me too.”

Tamsin sounded like she used to. Her voice had softened and taken on the qualities that he remembered.

It was a beautiful reminder of what they had once been to each other, but he also heard a hesitation in her voice that hadn’t been there before.

A wounded pain that he’d put there.

Something he needed to atone for.

“I’ve always worried about you, Tam. Since the day your father brought you to the estate for the Board Meeting.” At the mention of her father, he felt the muscles in her hand twitch. He felt the slight pull of her hand as she leaned away from him.

“Your uncle was so mad at him.”

Donal could almost see her emotions play across her face as if the firelight was a movie projector, showing washed out old films of the distant past on her delicate skin.

“But my father wasn’t. You remember what he did?”

Her hand softened within his hold, and her smile fought back against the memories of his uncle. He’d given her something to hold onto like he was holding onto her hand.

“Your father took one look at me and pronounced me ‘Princess of the House.’” She turned her head and looked at him, her dark eyes almost amber in the light from the fire. “And you, Donal. You took my hand and said you were going to be my prince.”

“My father was only too happy to agree. He told me later that a prince has a duty to be a man of his word. To follow through with the words that he says. My father was dedicated to the family, but he was dedicated to his father’s duty and his father before him.”

“And you’re continuing that duty here, Donal. I knew when you stayed here that it was because you were doing what you knew was right.” She sighed, and the wood in the pile snapped and broke into a shower of sparks. “It worried me when you stopped communicating with us, but I knew you were alive. Somewhere. Doing something that was important.”

He could see the courage in her. The way she squared her shoulders and fought to keep a smile on her lips, but he was sad that it took so much of an effort… around him.

“That’s where I went wrong years ago,” he confessed, “I thought I was taking care of you by going away. I told myself that over and over, but-”

“What did you mean by that?” She shook herself as if she had to clear her thoughts. “How did you think it was better if you went away?”

Afraid that she might walk away at any moment, Donal drew the hand he held closer. He moved along the bench to bring himself closer to her before he set their joined hands down on his thigh.

“I was fighting for control back then. I was fighting myself at the same time that I was fighting my uncle.”

Donal could see the effort it took her to remain quiet and let him speak. It was one of the things that she’d learned over the years and one of the things he wished that she hadn’t.

“I wanted to come to Africa to find out if I could be saved, Tam.” His gaze traveled over her beautiful face, realizing again how much time he’d lost with her. “When I was twenty, I started to have… episodes. I’d have trouble controlling my emotions mostly. Anger was the easiest to manifest itself. I found myself having fits of rage. You can’t even begin to understand how many lamps and chairs and windows that I managed to destroy while I was fighting a growing panic inside.”

He saw her concern displayed across her face, and he felt her squeeze his hand as if she was afraid that he’d slip away.

“I don’t understand.” Her thumb smoothed over the back of his hand. “I was helping with the books by then, the household accounts. If you were breaking furniture, how was it that I didn’t see receipts for new things or repairs?”

Donal heard the hope in her tone, but it bled away when he answered her.

“My father knew how much I cared for you, and he knew how much you worried over me so he made someone forge receipts for plants and flowers for the gardens on some of the remote properties. He knew you didn’t go to any of them with any frequency so he didn’t think you’d notice.

“It was a plan that worked while we were figuring things out.”

“What did your doctors say?”

It was his turn to hide a smile. “They laughed about it mostly. Hypochondriac was a favorite one. Another said I was eccentric and then that was it, they could never find any evidence of the symptoms that I was reporting.

“Even when I told them I heard voices in my head, the only thing they did was prescribe anti-psychotics and that only made the voice coalesce in my thoughts. Instead of dimming the sound of it, it felt like they’d managed to shake out the dust or cobwebs in the attic, and suddenly I heard the voice.

“His voice, in my head.”

Donal could see her expression had unique personalities of its own. The deep line between her brows and the wide-eyed shock, but it was the tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes that threatened to rend him in two.

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