Page 4 of Adoringly, Edward
“Oh, it most certainly is haunted,” she replied as she loosened his cravat with desperate, eager fingers. “No doubt about it.”
With a mischievous smile on her face and a wicked glint in her eye, she untied the curtains so they fell over the windows. And then shut the rest of the world out with a simple turn of a lock.
“KEEP THIS SAFE for me,”the beautiful masked woman had said as she’d cut a lock of her hair from her head and folded it within the safety of a handkerchief. And then she’d kissed him after tucking the handkerchief into his pocket.“Until we find each other in the real world.”
Edward Beaumont sighed as he carefully opened the soft white fabric to reveal a lock of her brown hair, perfectly preserved within her offering, a declaration of…something more.
It was all he dared to call it. The feeling felt like love. Like the first blossoms on a beautiful spring morning. But he knew better. Because the Edward who had fought off her ghosts and kissed her senseless? That man was strong and fearless, and he only existed rather infrequently, much to his dismay.
The reality of his life was much more…dismal.
Unable to part with the small piece of his mystery woman, he tucked the handkerchief into his pocket and attempted to sit up after nearly an entire week of being bedridden.
His head spun. His heart beat too fast. Dizziness all too quickly tried to claim him. He took several moments to breathe deeply to dispel the dizziness shrouding his mind and the weakness plaguing his body. The world finally stilled. But it was little comfort when all he wanted was to scour the entire city of Edilann to find the woman whose name he didn’t even know.
The lock on the outside of his bedroom door jangled, keys clinking together on the opposite side, before the door opened, and his personal servant Cedric—or nanny as Edward liked to call him—barged inside with a bowl of hot broth resting on top of a silver platter. And beside the bowl…
Cedric’s thick brown brows furrowed as he shook up the vial filled with yellow, translucent liquid and handed it to him. Edward didn’t reach for it. He hated it. It did nothing to help the episodes.
“You must take your tonic,” Cedric insisted. “It’s for your own good.”
“As is locking me up in this infuriating tower?”
The other man heaved a sigh as he sat at the foot of the bed, still holding out the tonic with a patient hand. “You snuck outlessthan a fortnight ago, and you are still recovering from its ill-effects. Of course, your sister would lock you in until you fully recover.”
Edward smacked Cedric’s hand. The vial flew out of his fingers and smashed into the ground in a puddle of glass and yellowish liquid. But hisnannyonly shook his head and produced another from inside his coat pocket.
“Iam the lord of this house!” Edward bellowed, fighting through the dizziness in his head as he pushed himself to his feet. “I will not be caged in like some sort of…animal!”
But then his body swayed as he fought against the dizziness. Cedric patiently helped him sit back on the bed and squeezed his shoulders.
“Of course you are, Your Lordship.” Cedric dipped his head in respect. “And your subjects need you to be well. Your sister is only trying to help.”
Unable to help himself, he snorted as he finally resigned himself to throwing back the tonic, grimacing at the bitter flavor. “She’s only trying to help herself. If she can keep me away from society, then I have no chance to marry. If I don’t marry, I won’t produce an heir. If I don’t produce an heir, her son will take my place after I die.”
Cedric frowned as he placed the bowl of broth at his bedside table. “You are able to go out plenty often enough.”
“To see my friends,” Edward pointed out dryly. “Who are allmale.”
“What is this really about?”
A despondent sigh escaped him as his gaze traveled toward the window, the first rays of morning filtering through the warped glass. Even the glass caged him in, keeping him from the real world when he so desperately wanted to be a part of it.
“I met a woman. And I can’t stay in here, wasting away when I need to find her.” He quirked his mouth to the side as he returned his attention to Cedric. “I apologize for smacking you. I am frustrated with Clara. You are not to blame.”
“I know how much you dislike the tonic. But the physician said it should help.”
“Yet, it doesn’t.”
“It just needs time.”
“It’s been years, Cedric. If it hasn’t gotten better by now, it never will.”
The man didn’t refute him.
“Where is Clara this morning?” he asked, allowing Cedric to help get him dressed. He most often did the task himself, but some days it proved difficult.
“Calling on a few friends, Your Lordship.”
