Page 41 of My Hellion, My Heart
His demons, the ones she knew tortured him, were much like hers—dormant most of the time, but when they struck, they came with a vengeance. She had never fully recovered from being kidnapped by her uncle’s men. Though it took years before she was able to sleep comfortably, night terrors still came once in a while, their grip inescapable. Much like the state Henry was in right now.
“I’m here, Henry,” she whispered, brushing the heart of his palm with her thumb. “Find your way back to me. I’m not going anywhere. Listen to my voice, please.”
Irina kept distractedly stroking his hand with her fingertips, and after a while realized she’d been drawing her initials and then his, over and over, but the motion was calming. It helped her to focus on something even as she continued to repeat her whispered pleas for him to hear her voice. It seemed like hours had passed before she finally felt his fingers flex against hers.
“Irina.” His voice was a dry croak.
She looked up at him, wanting to sob in relief. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
Henry licked his lips and blinked, as if trying to get his bearings. “I’m…there was a gunshot. After…what are we doing here?” he asked, glancing at the woods around them and blinking in apparent confusion.
He didn’t remember any of it?
“Where did you go?” she asked, frowning slightly. “France again?”
Henry rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his shoulders, his lips pressed tight. Not looking at her. His body had gone rigid again, but this time it was discomfort and not some repressed memory that held him in bondage. Taking the reins of his mount, he fiddled with them a bit, as if trying to decide whether or not to trust her. She waited in silence.
“Yes,” he whispered finally.
“What do you see there?”
Irina was certain he would not reply this time. But he surprised her. “Someone I cannot help. A young girl who suffered because of me. Because I would not give in to save her.” His voice grew quiet and Irina sat still, knowing if she moved or uttered one word, he would stop. “In my mind, I hear her screaming. Begging for mercy and never receiving it. What she endured was worse than hell, and I was the one to condemn her there. Sometimes, in my memory, the girl has other faces…faces of those I—” He cut off then, his breathing ragged, his fingers convulsing on the reins. A muscle throbbed in his neck as he visibly struggled to compose himself.
“I am sorry,” Irina said gently, knowing he might pull away, but needing to comfort him nonetheless. “There is nothing I can say that will lessen the pain you both endured, but horrible things happen in times of war. You must know that it’s not your fault.”
A flare of self-disgust lit his eyes. “I know that. Logically, I know.” His expression shifted to frustration as his posture loosened a little. His stare dipped thoughtfully to their joined hands, but he made no move to pull away. “It’s just…some part of me won’t accept it. A part of me forgets.”
Irina couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d seen or the pain and suffering he’d borne. Nor could she imagine what it had taken to remain silent under the brunt of such barbaric torture. The poor girl’s suffering wasn’t on him; it was onthem. His vile captors. But Irina also understood the power of guilt all too well. There was precious little she could say that would absolve him of his demons. Instead, she defied all modesty and pretense, and pushing the leather strap of the rein out of the way, threaded her gloveless fingers between his. Sensation flooded her at the meeting of their hands, making it difficult to draw in air as his eyes met hers. The skin of his bare palm sliding against hers was warm and rough. He needed comfort and she would offer it, without giving a damn to who might see and judge her scandalous behavior. Irina simply did not care. And neither did he. Henry’s thumb grazed over the back of hers, brushing back and forth in a caress so tender it took her breath away.
“Come,” she whispered after a while, breaking the spell and retrieving her glove. She handed him his. “We should return to the house before Lord Thorndale sends out a search party, and I wouldn’t want to cause any gossip to endanger Lady Carmichael’s reputation.” His eyes shot to hers in surprise, but Irina meant it. Though she didn’t care a whit for theton’sviews of her, she didn’t want her actions to have any impact on Rose.
Oddly, Henry’s expression lightened. “Thank you,” he said.
Nodding, Irina turned her horse to travel along the path and forced a careless shrug despite the considerable lump forming in her throat. “Think nothing of it. Though you might need to convince Lords Thorndale and Marston that you hit your head upon something to make yourself so…uncommunicative when they saw you.”
He trotted alongside her. “Saw me?”
“They followed when your horse bolted. I covered for you.”
Henry’s gray caught up to Jules, bringing her knee and his into contact. “It seems I am once more in your debt.”
“You owe me nothing, my lord.” And it was true. There was nothing she wanted from him. Nothing she could now have from him without hurting another. She sucked air past the growing brick in her throat. “It is the least I could do in return for everything you’ve ever done for Lana and me.”
They rode onward, both of them quiet. Both of them, Irina suspected, suppressing words that could never be spoken.
Chapter Twelve
It wasn’t Hartstone, but Henry was glad to be back at his London residence just the same.
The day before, he had given his regrets to the Duke of Hastings and taken his leave from Peteridge in order to travel back to London early. He had not been able to endure a moment longer of the concerned and pitying glances sent his way. Inside, he knew he was being overly sensitive. Only a handful of people had actually seen his horse bolt, and that was exactly how Lord Thorndale had framed the tale…that thestallionhad reared up at the unexpected discharge of the gun, not that the Earl of Langlevit had lost his mind like a demented, pathetic fool, tortured by faceless ghosts no one else could see.
Somehow, Henry had convinced Rose to stay and return with Irina on the following day. He needed time alone to compose himself, he’d told her. Rose hadn’t needed much explanation—she was more than familiar with the devils that haunted him. But she’d seemed reticent to let him depart alone. Irina, too. They would both be headed back soon—Rose to her late husband’s London residence, which she still kept, and Irina to Bishop House with Lord and Lady Dinsmore.
An ache opened up in his chest at the thought of the princess. Besides the little he’d told Rose, he’d never spoken of the Parisian servant girl to anyone, nor his detestable apathy toward her. But he’d somehow confided in Irina. His heart clenched at the return of the visceral memory.
He’d watched as they’d tortured her. It had been surprisingly easy to cut off every emotion trying to claw its way into his heart as they had broken her, bit by agonizing bit. He’d viewed the horror as if he’d been a great distance from it, instead of sitting chained within the same cell. Reciting the Latin alphabet in his head and then memorized passages from Plato and Aristotle, Shakespeare andThe Iliad, had helped to keep that distance. It had been the only way he’d been able to cope. And it had worked.
However, he’d never been able to close that distance, not even after he’d escaped and come home and found himself among people he did not have to protect himself from. It was as if a permanent chasm had opened up inside of him that day, a chasm that had helped him stay true to his duty, stay silent and removed.
