Page 20 of Love’s Refrain at Roslyn Court (Noble Hearts #2)

Twenty

ISAAC

H e had to leave. He had to get away. This was torture, beyond torture, being near her and unable to speak to her, knowing that she would be married to someone else.

Isaac trudged the last few steps to the back doors of Roslyn Court, his shoulders sagging, his feet almost too heavy to move.

Jeremy’s news had sent him teetering on the edge of despair, and he had begged the young man to let him off the cart at the end of the drive, not feeling up to any manner of conversation for longer than absolutely necessary.

After a most challenging day, one small thing was in his favour—the kitchen door was open.

He slipped through it and made his way to the back stairs that would take him to his rooms without passing through the main hall where he might be seen by one of the family.

He ought to be hungry, but could not abide the thought of food, and brushed off the kitchen maid who offered to bring him a tray.

Food would not fill the hole that was growing in his middle. Only Sophia could.

Oh, curse the day, curse his miserable life, and curse everything that had brought her to him, and then wrested her away.

The black cloud that had dogged him since those dreadful days in Spain hovered perilously close, and he feared he could succumb.

He staggered up the final few stairs, and down the hall to where his door gaped, and finally, into his rooms. He barely noticed when he fell face-first onto the bed, as the cloud descended until it all but smothered him.

Perhaps he drifted into sleep; perhaps it was mere stupor.

How long he had lain there, face pressed into the mattress, he did not know, but the sky was dark when he struggled upright again.

He fumbled on the mantel for a flint and managed to light a candle, by whose light he could see that it was now past midnight.

His stomach, which had felt perfectly unequal to food earlier, now protested loudly, and he knew from experience that neglecting it further would only make his dark mood worse.

If he did not rouse himself to eat now, he might not find the strength of mind to do so for several days.

He would not wake the staff to bring him food. They deserved their sleep as much as any other person. To the kitchens, therefore, he must go.

The effort seemed monumental, each motion one that threatened to sap all his strength, but he forced himself onward. That black cloud of despair had not entirely enshrouded him yet; he might still struggle free of its suffocating grasp. And so, he moved, inch by exhausting inch.

First, he must change. He had not undressed upon reaching his room, and now pulled aching arms out of his coat, to replace that garment with a more comfortable robe, and tugged his rock-like feet from heavy boots, to slide them into soft slippers.

This was far preferable for skulking around a great house in the small hours of the morning, and he felt vaguely better for the effort.

This was what he knew he must do: make the effort.

Push through the cloud, fight through the miasma, feign equanimity, until he returned to his usual mood.

It was arduous, but it must be done. He had learned the hard way what happened when he let the darkness win.

He could not always fight through the fog, but he had to make the effort.

And so, he began the trek to the lower levels in search of sustenance and light.

In the kitchens, a fire still burned slowly in the hearth, tended by one sleepy maid. Isaac gestured for her to remain on her seat, and began rummaging around in search of some bread or cake to see him through till the sun rose.

“There is warm stew in the pot,” a voice said from the far doorway.

He knew that voice.

“Sophia!”

“And Cook usually leaves cold meat in the cold cabinet along the back wall. Unless you would prefer cheese, or some of the potatoes, or perhaps a piece of apple pie.”

“Why are you not asleep? It must be nearly one o’clock in the morning.”

“I might ask the same of you. I could not sleep. I have been sitting in the back parlour, but when I heard somebody about, I thought it might be you. It has been so long… I have missed, you.”

“Only days,” he replied. “Not weeks or months.”

She looked very sad in the dim light of the flickering fire, almost as sad as he felt. “But still too long. I have quite come to depend upon our conversations.”

If he did not know better, he could almost believe she cared for him.

“I have missed you too.” The words escaped before he could stop them. “I have wished so often to talk to you, to listen to your beautiful music, but…”

“But my aunt has been interfering.”

Stopping him in his tracks, pulling him from her door, physically at times, pushing him at Louisa or summoning him to meet some acquaintance or another.

He had tried, once or twice, to stop her, but some part of him was still labouring under the weight of obligation: he was a guest in her house; he must be amenable and polite.

And, another part whispered, too loudly to ignore, Lady Poole, at the moment, outranked him.

One day he might be a viscount. Today he was just a pathetic ruin of a soldier, a distant relation. She was the wife of a baronet. And as a soldier, he knew all about deference to rank. A lifetime of such adherence to custom was hard to escape.

So yes, indeed, her aunt had been interfering.

“And not only your aunt,” he replied when he shook free of these wild thoughts. “You have been with Mr Bladestock a great deal.” He could not stop the words, and he hoped it had not sounded like an accusation.

She looked down at the floor. Was it embarrassment? Shame? Something else? Could it be that she was afraid to tell him she had developed an affection for Mr Bladestock? But why would she worry about that? He had hardly confessed his feelings for her.

Oh, why was this all so troubling? He really had to leave as soon as he could, before he was quite unable to do so.

But instead of admitting to a grand amour, her shoulders sagged and she replied, “My aunt has pressed him into service as my assistant. I do believe he is pleased enough to be of use, but it is Lady Poole’s doing, not my own.”

“But—”

Sophia shook her head and gestured to the sleepy servant.

“Let us take our snack and find somewhere to talk.”

They gathered a few things in a basket that Sophia brought down from a shelf. She then led him not into the parlour, but out through the doors and into the gardens, thence to the tiny cottage that she had brought him to before.

Every step felt as if he were wading through a mire, his legs heavy and his hands like lead cannonballs at the end of his lifeless arms, but he trudged after her gladly; he would have followed her to the ends of the earth.

The cottage seemed miles away, although he knew it was only a few steps beyond the edge of the woods that bordered the gardens.

Isaac blundered about until he found that chair in which he had fallen asleep not so long ago, and let himself collapse into it.

In the darkness, he heard Sophia shift, felt the air move and heard the scrape of wood on the floor as she brought one of the tiny chairs close to him and settled herself in it before opening the basket of food.

The feeblest thread of moonlight limned the rolls and cheese that she handed him, and then the lemon water that slaked his thirst. They ate in silence, content to be in each other’s company, until, at last, Sophia rose again, her skirts rustling in the void.

He heard the swish of her slippered feet on the floor, watched the shadow that was Sophia drift, with surety and grace, to the clavichord in the far corner.

“Shall I play for you?” The lid to the keyboard creaked open, and he sensed her take a seat on the small bench. “You seemed sad, so very despondent, and I wish, if I can, to ease that.”

Without waiting for an answer, she began to pick out a short passage of notes on the gentle instrument, which she then spun into a lovely, delicate, melody.

“Have I been the cause of your unhappiness?” she asked, her hands still weaving the threads of music that filled the small cottage.

“No… that is… I do not know.” His tongue was as useless as his limbs, heavy and unwieldy, good for nothing.

Then, realising what he had said, he blurted out, “No! You, yourself, have done nothing wrong. Nothing at all! I would not have you think you are in any way the cause of this…” How could he describe this ? He could hardly explain it to himself.

“Your melancholy?” The music stopped. “When I see you, sometimes, it is as if your eyes are looking at something not there, something so terrible that you mind cannot understand it. It is not always heavy on you, but it always seems to be there, hovering.”

“Like a dark bird of prey,” he supplied, “waiting to swoop in and destroy everything that makes me happy.”

“Tell me about it. Might that help?”

Her voice, as it had been before, was a faint beacon of light in this endless gloom that engulfed him.

“Can you play? The music brings me such peace.”

She began again, a different piece, a sweet and lilting lullaby, soft enough that he could speak almost at a whisper and still be heard.

“Have you ever looked through coloured glass?” he asked after a moment. “Perhaps blue, or orange, or green? As you look around, the whole world seems to change colour. Everything becomes pink or yellow or golden.”

“I have.” She kept playing, the music altering slightly under her fingers, but remaining true to the first gentle tune.

“My glass is not bright and cheerful. It is dark, thick grey, nearly black. It drowns all brightness and vanquishes all colour. It is the opposite of light. But when the terrors come in my dreams, at least I cannot feel them. It drowns me as well, until I do not live, but only exist. I am the bard’s Walking Shadow, strutting and fretting, but ultimately without hope. No more. Signifying nothing.”

The notes faltered, but she did not stop playing.

“Is it always like this? Your moods have seemed changeable, but not always so low.”

He shook his head, although he knew she could not see him.

“No. Sometimes the glass is so faint as to be almost clear, and life is almost normal. But I do not know when all will grow dark again. And that is why I cannot?—”

He stopped short.

He had been about to admit that he could not marry her, when he had never broached the topic at all before, nor even admitted that he loved her. She had no expectations. She would think him mad.

So wrapped up in his own thoughts was he that he had not noticed the cottage was now silent.

There was no more music, not even the sound of his own breath.

Then came a whisper of noise, the brushing murmur of fabric, and darkness moving on darkness, and to his shock, her face appeared suddenly, inches from his own.

It was more a different arrangement of the inky night than anything he could see, but it was her, and he would know her anywhere. She was kneeling on the floor before him… now her hands were fumbling for his own, which he gave her gladly.

Soft, cool, her skin was peachy satin under his fingers, and each tentative touch brushed away some of the smothering cloud. She squeezed his hands with hers, and then let one trail up his arm, along the sleeve of his banyan, over his shoulder, and then to his face, to touch his cheek.

How could he feel like this? How could this tentative caress shake him so? Her fingers had left a trail of fire in their wake, acute sensation where moments ago there had been only numbing blackness.

Isaac had never been a rake, but neither was he a monk.

There had been times, especially in Spain, where the men took what comfort they could, and he had been no exception.

The pretty girls in the villages were not averse to a smartly dressed Englishman, and sometimes a caress behind a shed became something more.

But those encounters were nothing like this. This touch, soft and cautious, seared past any response of the body and shot straight to the foundation of his essence.

His eyes caught hers, vague glowing orbs in the inky night, and could not let go. Could a man look into another person’s soul? Could a gaze be that portal into another person’s world? He was caught in hers, trapped, and absolutely unwilling ever to be set free.

His hand floated upwards, light as air, to caress her cheek.

Soft. It was so soft. His thumb traced an invisible line on the seam of her lips and he felt them open a hair’s breadth.

God! He wanted to kiss her like he had never wanted anything in his life. His head dipped towards hers, their eyes still riveted to each other’s, and?—

No! Damn him, he could not do this. To kiss her would be to promise himself to her. And that was a promise he could not keep.

“Isaac?”

That one word broke him.

“I cannot do this. I cannot do this to you.” The words came out in a desperate rasp.

Tearing his eyes from hers, he bolted upright to standing and struck out to where he thought the door was. His fingers met the cold metal latch and he threw it open, before rushing out into the night, as far as he could get from the one person from whom he would never be free.