Page 22 of Lover
When the time came to meet the prominent physician and discuss Millie’s case, I was reluctant to leave. We’d found a semisolid footing, and I was uneasy to interrupt anything, especially being required to spend the night away. Ms. Dillard assured me she’d keep an eye on things now that Felicity was well enough again to mind herself.
The drive and distance from my wife were a waste, as the physician turned out to be a stiff man with an arrogant air and no end of cigars. I had very little patience with doctors like this, the kind whose humanity and compassion had been run out by their pride, prominence, and self-importance. He told me with considerably less empathy what Hannigan had already relayed.
“You’re correct—there’s a chance telling her the whole thing will make it right. A chance. But there’s an equal likelihood it will shock her to such a degree that she becomes a vegetable and a permanent resident of our Boston asylum. In my professional opinion, my boy, there’s no option but to wait. If you decide to tell her, you must let me or Hannigan know so we can be prepared for the worst. I can have a room waiting at Our Lady of Grace in mere hours if necessary.”
I returned to Willowfield forlorn, my crestfallen mood not lost on Millie, who, after a long moment of silence during our routine work, prodded me from my brooding with kindness that broke my heart all the more.
“Professor Hughes,” she began, “I’m ignorant when it comes to your business, but I can tell you’re troubled, and it would be bad of me not to ask after you. If there’s anything I can do to help, please tell me.”
I didn’t dare look at her. Instead, I kept my gaze trained upon the firelight and answered as honestly as I believed safe.
“All that burdens me could be solved with one decision, but it’s a decision I can’t make in good conscience as it could either repair the problems at hand or destroy everything.”
She was silent, having no way to respond to my cryptic explanation other than to accept it as a rejection of her care.
“Miss Foxboro?” I said, regrettably unable to keep some of the more brutal emotions from my tone.
“Yes?” she asked, pretending poorly to be distracted.
“If you were given an opportunity with equal power to heal all ills or irrevocably maim at its pleasure, would you risk taking it?”
“I wouldn’t have, once,” she admitted, “but I’m afraid I’ve become a person who wouldn’t miss an opportunity for good even if the chances of evil were equal. I’d rather know I’d opted to give myself happiness and failed than live always guessing what might have been.”
A beautiful answer, filled with all the courage I’d come to learn she possessed, and more besides.
“And so here you are at Willowfield,” I said softly.
“Yes. Here I am,” she replied.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and finally found the will to look at her.
“Have you found it for good or evil, Millie?”
She took a small breath, then hesitated, looking up at the bookcases lining the room, and then sweeping her gaze toward the ceiling, searching for the answer there.
“Have I asked the wrong question?”
She turned her eyes to me. “It’s been trying. The house is beautiful, but unusual and lonely,” she replied carefully. “But if I could go back, I believe I would choose to come again.”
My throat grew tight. I wouldn’t be able to stay in her company much longer, not in my current state, not without risking emotions that would endanger the tentative, comfortable new relationship we’d developed.
I stood, taking up the sheaf of papers I’d been mindlessly shuffling through and using them as an excuse to move closer to her, just for a moment. As I approached and bent to place the papers on the table where she leaned, she remained perfectly still, neither turning away nor standing to give me room. I prayed there was something still calling her to me, some unconscious remembrance that I was a safe haven, not a peril.
As we looked at each other, I implored her to see in my face what I could not tell her with my voice. A sheen of tears appeared in her eyes, and I couldn’t decipher them.
“You shine a light in this dark house, Miss Foxboro,” I said quietly, unwilling to put her through any more of whatever suffering my nearness caused her. “I pray you let nothing extinguish it.”
Our hands touched on accident, ever so slightly, causing my own eyes to grow red. I was glad my back was to her.
“Good night, Professor,” she said, her voice a whisper.
“Good night,” I replied, stepping out into the cold, empty hall.
CHAPTER 13
REST HAD BEEN hard fought for, though as soon as I’d finally sunk into its deep silence, an unusual sound roused me. I opened my eyes in the gloom, listening intently. At first I heard nothing, and then again the long, low wailing of a woman who had lost everything.
The noise chilled me, and I imagined first a fae spirit wandering through the halls of Willowfield, keening for a loss not yet come. Then I was fully aware.
