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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

S moke slithered down Cyrus’ throat, so thick and acrid it felt liquid, choking him. His eyes streamed, blurred by the heat and the smoke, his arms reaching out hopelessly for something solid, something familiar to guide his path to freedom.

“Is anyone there?” a voice cried out.

It took Cyrus a second to realize that the voice had come from his own throat, rasping out in desperation, praying for salvation from the flames.

“You deserve to burn,” a monster’s growl echoed back, distorted by the hellfire all around him. “All devils, all sinners, must burn.”

There were hands on him then, snaking through the smoke to ensnare him, wrapping tight around his arms and legs, pinning him where he stood. All the while, the fire grew hotter, the flames rising higher, the smoke thickening until everything was black and there was no way out.

He had been here a thousand times before, the outcome always the same.

As an unseen hand closed over his mouth, blocking what little chance he had of drawing air into his lungs, he gave the last of his breath to an almighty, hopeless scream.

Teresa sat bolt upright in her bed. She had not yet managed to fall asleep, having just finished her chapter, her mind staying awake to imagine every possibility for her favorite fictional pair, but the castle had been silent until a second ago.

The scream came again, sending a splintering rush of nerves up her spine. Darnley Castle could be eerie enough without the addition of unknown screams.

But it is close by… Very close, in truth.

Every instinct told her to stay in bed and pull the covers over her head, certain that the sound would go away on its own, but one soft, nagging voice made it through the wave of fear: What if someone needs your help?

A quieter, mournful cry shivered through the hallways to her door—such a pitiful noise that no one with a heart could have ignored it.

Against her body’s wishes, Teresa threw back the coverlets and shuffled out of bed, not bothering to don her slippers or housecoat as she crept to the door. The sound echoed again, even sadder than before.

In the hallway outside, she followed that sound like a bloodhound on the scent of an animal, swallowing her astonishment as she ended up at Cyrus’ door.

Surely, there was some mistake. Maybe, it was the labyrinth of the halls and corridors, disorienting her, making it sound like the woeful noise was closer than it really was.

“I do not want to die,” Cyrus’ voice croaked, as if there was someone else in the room with him, and he was pleading for his life.

Without stopping to think of her own safety, Teresa barged into the bedchamber. The room was empty, save for the figure in the bed, who lay tangled in the coverlets. They twisted around him like serpents, revealing more of him than she had ever expected to see, considering their arrangement.

A bare chest, slicked with sweat; the ridges of a honed abdomen; the contours of strong arms and the immense muscle of powerful thighs, all intersected by the coiling diagonals of his bedlinens.

It answered a question she had never dared to ask, of what he wore to bed, and it took her a second longer than she liked to admit to remember why she was there.

“Cyrus?” she gasped, running to his side.

He writhed in his sleep, breathing hard, his face scrunched as if in extraordinary pain. “I do not want to die,” he managed to hiss through a clenched jaw.

“You are not going to die,” she told him, grasping hold of his hand. “I am here, Cyrus. You are not going to die. You are safe. You are safe—all you have to do is wake up.”

She knew a nightmare when she saw one; she had tended to Prudence often enough, who had suffered awfully with night terrors in her younger years.

His eyelids fluttered open, his dark blue eyes staring at her like he did not know her at all.

“I am here, Cyrus,” she said softly. “You were having a nightmare, I think.”

Recognition finally settled across his face and, with it, a coldness that she had not encountered since her first days at Darnley Castle.

“You may leave,” he said gruffly, sitting up. “You should not have troubled yourself.”

She stayed where she was, her hand refusing to relinquish his. “You sounded like you were in pain, Cyrus. I could not ignore it, and I will not be sent away now. When my sister used to have nightmares, I would stay beside her until she fell asleep again, so she could sleep soundly.”

“Yes, well, I am not your sister,” he replied, his tone short. “I do not need your assistance. I need no one’s assistance. So, do as I ask and go.”

She shrugged, shuffling further onto the edge of the bed. “No, I will not.”

“I am perfectly well,” he insisted, a note of irritation in his voice. “This is pointless. You should return to your own chambers and sleep. Indeed, your being here, chattering, will just make it take longer for me to go back to sleep.”

Pulling herself backward until she sat against the headboard, her presence prompting him to move to the far side of the bed, she ignored his protests.

“It is nothing to be ashamed about,” she said.

“Everyone has nightmares, I expect, and you have the added influence of living in a creepy castle. It would be strange if you did not have nightmares, in truth. That is why I read before I fall asleep, so I have pleasant dreams instead of nightmares. Oh—that gives me an idea!”

She darted off the bed, racing back to her own chambers. Snatching the papers off the bedside table, she sprinted back— running faster than she ever had in her life—while hoping that Cyrus had not closed the door and locked it.

Instead, she found him sitting up with a blanket over his shoulders, concealing his bareness from her. In a way, it was like he had closed a door and locked it, just not the one she had expected.

“If that is what I think it is, do not bother,” he said tightly, rolling his eyes as she jumped back onto the bed and wriggled back into her earlier position.

“You wanted me to read it to you before,” she argued. “I cannot think of a more ideal opportunity.”

He puffed out a breath. “You said you did not like to read aloud. I have no interest in hearing it. My sole interest is in you leaving this room at once.”

“One cannot overcome a fear if one never faces it,” she insisted, smoothing out the pages.

“That is a lesson that I used to stubbornly refuse to learn, but I am beginning to see the merit in it now. My friend, Beatrice, is not afraid of anything. I have always wished to be more like her but have never—ironically—had the nerve. Now, I am trying to be more courageous.”

Cyrus wrapped the blanket tighter around his bare chest. “Why would you want to be anything like Miss Johnson? She is… crass.”

“She is not crass!” Teresa retorted, her eyes flaring with annoyance. “She is confident, and most gentlemen do not know the difference. They do not like a fierce woman. Rather, they do not know what to make of a woman who is as capable and assured as they are.”

She held her tongue, not wanting to say too much about her dearest friend that might be incriminating.

It was not common knowledge that, in secret, Beatrice had been coming up with ways to make her own fortune, so she would never have to rely upon a man for anything.

And, by all accounts, she was rather good at it.

“ You are confident,” Cyrus said.

Teresa’s brain faltered. “Me?” She laughed awkwardly. “That was a terrible jest, Cyrus.”

“It was not a jest,” he replied, his tone perfectly serious. “You are also confident, capable, and assured.”

She laughed again, blushing furiously, fidgeting with the corners of her treasured pages to try and remove some of her discomfort. “If you think that, I am sorry to tell you that you do not know your wife at all. I have never been any of those things.”

“Since I have known you, you have,” he argued. “I do not flatter to deceive, Teresa. I do not flatter at all. This is not some false compliment, but the truth. The woman I have seen, that I have come to know a little bit, is all of those things and more.”

She shifted on the mattress, burning from top to toe with something that felt like embarrassment, but had none of the hallmarks. It was more akin to… pride or gratitude; a feeling so overwhelming in its warmth that she wanted to run from the bed to her chambers to escape it.

He has no reason to lie, but… how can he think of me as such an accomplished woman?

“There was a reason that your friend had me placed at the bottom of that wretched list,” she said quietly, deep in the midst of her thoughts. “Those cruel things he said about me—they angered me because they were true.”

Cyrus shook his head. “I do not believe that.”

“I am… different when I am with those who are dear to me,” she continued unevenly, treading upon difficult ground. “But what your friend said was true in relation to who I was—who I am—in society. I am afraid I am something of a social tortoise: I withdraw in company.”

“You conducted yourself impeccably at Anthony’s ball,” he pointed out, reminding her of a fact that still confounded her.

She had been social at that ball, greeting everyone, thanking everyone for their well wishes, making the occasional joke to make the others laugh.

And I danced, when I never dance!

Even now, she could not explain what had come over her, to make her handle that evening so well.

“That night was a blur,” she murmured. “I suspect it had more to do with the gown than my character.”

He gave the faintest chuckle. “Then remind me to buy you all the gowns I can, so that society may see what I have been granted the privilege of seeing. You do not need to be like Miss Johnson. You are… entirely right as you are.” He hesitated. “Entirely beautiful, within and without.”

Teresa fumbled with the pages, her face so hot she worried she might combust. How was she supposed to respond to that?

How was she supposed to restrain her expectations when he said something like that?

It was not a tiptoe toward being closer but a vast leap, and she was not at all ready for it…

especially not if it was something she was just misinterpreting.

Perhaps, he just feels sorry for me.

“Evidently, you are still half asleep,” she mumbled, her throat scratchy. “Now, I am going to read to you, and I do not want to be interrupted, or I may lose my nerve.”

Beside her, he shrugged and said nothing.

With a shaky breath, Teresa began the tense tale of Miss Savage’s brush with a watery death.

Cyrus wondered if he would ever hear the full chapter, as he carefully removed the pages from Teresa’s limp hand and set them on the bedside table.

The temptation to read the rest lingered for a moment, but he decided against it; he would leave it up to her to choose if she would ever regale him with the remainder.

She had fallen asleep just as the whale had cracked open the hull and let a flood of icy ocean into the ship, Miss Savage swimming out of the hole while the Captain ran to the deck and jumped in after her.

She does not know how beautiful she is. He gazed at Teresa as she slumbered, her body tilting slowly to the side, without his body there to stop it.

It would be a soft fall, but he did not want her to fall at all. Before he could prevent himself, he had her in his arms, lifting her gently from his bed. She did not stir, though her eyelids fluttered a little and her mouth moved as if trying to say something.

Satisfied that she would not awaken, Cyrus carried her out of the room and down the hallway to her own chambers. The door was already open, and he wielded her across the threshold, a performance of the wedding night they had never had.

At her bed, the covers thrown to the end, he lay her down upon her mattress and lightly brushed a lock of hair out of her face so it would not irritate her in her sleep.

That done, he covered her with the bedlinens, and perched on the edge of her bed for a moment, just watching the woman who had inexplicably become his wife.

“You are everything you do not seem to believe you are,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

Her brow was warm and smooth against his lips, and as he drew back, he wished she might have awoken, so he could kiss her properly instead.

So, it was perhaps for the best that she did not.

“Sleep well,” he murmured, leaving her to her solitary rest.