Page 55 of His Haunted Duchess
“Repeat these numbers: seven five four.”
“S—seven,” she gasped. Her vision started to clear. “F-five. Four.”
“Good. Keep breathing. Now, these numbers: eight three nine.”
“Eight.” The darkness in her vision started to fade. “Three. Nine.”
Frederic stroked her hair. He was so warm—so deliciously warm. She cuddled gratefully into his smoking jacket.
He waited until her breathing was stable again.
“Do you remember anything else? About the night of the tragedy?”
She squinted, trying to swim through the fog and haze of her memory.
“Perhaps,” he said softly, “perhaps I can help.”
He sat her up a little, so she could see his face. His eyes were sharp but caring and full of concern.
“Many years ago, I set out on a stormy night in search of my father. He had been—” He heaved a heavy breath and looked away. “He had been gambling. Our family was deeply in debt due to his—habits.” Frederic winced at the memory. Caroline stroked his wrist.
“I am so deeply sorry,” she said. “I thought your father died of heart disease?”
“He did,” Frederic admitted. “But the drink and gambling brought it about much sooner than anyone had expected. In any case, that night I went looking for him, to try to bring him to his senses.”
He looked at Caroline as if steeling himself to climb a cliff.
“I rode into a fierce storm and came upon a bridge, washed out. A carriage was just sinking into the water.”
Caroline gasped. He held a finger to her lips.
“In an act of folly or heroism, you shall judge which, I jumped into the swollen river. I found no one—save one girl.”
He caressed the scar on Caroline’s face with the back of his hand.
“I had to find my father and couldn’t stay to see to her care, so I called to others who were taking shelter near the storm nearby and continued on my quest.”
His eyes found hers. Her heart beat faster and deeper in her chest, throbbing like a drum.
“Perhaps—and it seems too much a coincidence to be otherwise—your nightmares are memories, Caroline, and I?—”
“You’re the dark figure.” She sat up. “You’re the man who rescued me.”
“It would seem that way.”
“Why—Why didn’t you say anything before? How long have you known?”
“I had a feeling when we had just met and several other times that I had seen you or made your acquaintance somewhere before, but I could not fathom where.”
Caroline slumped against him, numb with shock. She stared at him. What a bizarre twist of half-spiteful fate! She wrapped her arms around her torso, trying to squeeze out the encroaching cold.
“I wished— There were times when I wished—” The years pressed on her in a rush—dark, blank nights crying under cold and heartless stars. Long, empty mornings wishing for a sister, abrother, a mother’s voice to break the silence. She blinked back tears. “I wanted to have died with them.”
He looked at her, and for the first time since she had known him, he looked truly weary. The lines in his eyes dug like graves into his skin. She buried her face in her hands.
Why had she lived? Why hadn’t she joined her family in peaceful, watery slumber? She lived and married the stranger who haunted her dreams.
The familiar panic started again in her chest, chasing her breathing like waves to a beach. Frederic put his hand over her mouth again and whispered into her ear.
