Adopting his customary urbane mask, Devlin accompanied Sanderson to the front hall.
As Sanderson shrugged on his coat, he met Devlin’s gaze. “If you have any lingering concerns over Therese’s recovery, or the children’s, come to that, don’t hesitate to send for me.” He paused, then more quietly added, “Sometimes, injuries aren’t evident immediately.”
Devlin nodded.
Portland had a hackney waiting. Devlin walked with Sanderson onto the front porch. He shook the doctor’s hand and told him to send in his account. He waited on the porch and raised a hand in salute as the hackney rattled off, then turned and went inside.
He paused in the hall, trying to fix in his mind all that Sanderson had said, then with a nod to Portland, along with a recommendation that the butler should return to his bed, Devlin headed for the stairs, intending to return to Therese’s room and his vigil by her bed.
But at the foot of the stairs, he paused. For a long moment, he stared blindly before him, then he changed direction and made for his study.
Chapter 15
Fifteen minutes later, Devlin quietly opened the door of Therese’s room and walked inside.
By the wall, Parker sat rigidly upright on the straight-backed chair, her gaze locked on Therese’s still figure.
Devlin left the door ajar and walked to the side of the bed. Halting before the armchair he’d previously occupied, he confirmed that Therese hadn’t shifted so much as an eyelash since he’d left the room, then he glanced at Parker. “Go to bed, Parker. The doctor doesn’t expect her ladyship to wake this side of noon, and you’ll be no use to her if you’re exhausted. You were in the crash, too. Even if you don’t want to think it, your nerves must need a rest.” He gazed at Therese. “I’ll watch over her through the night. I’ll ring for you if she wakes.”
From the corner of his eye, he watched Parker wrestle with what was, in essence, an order, no matter how civilly couched. In the end, her training triumphed, and she rose and dipped in a curtsy. “If you’re sure, my lord?”
He nodded. He continued to study Therese’s face as Parker quietly left the room and closed the door behind her.
He held still for a moment more, then exhaled.
Then he raised his right hand, the one that, as he’d entered, Parker hadn’t been able to see and, moving to the bedside table, carefully set down the figurine he’d fetched from the safe.
Sanderson had left Therese lying on her side, the better to keep all pressure off the surely painful wound; although the lamps had again been moved away from the bed and turned low, Devlin could see every line of her face. He spent several seconds adjusting the position of the figurine so that as soon as she opened her eyes, her gaze would find it.
Or so he hoped.
The figurine was in the shape of a rearing dragon about to launch into flight. A fierce defender, just like Therese herself. He’d thought of her the instant he’d seen it, when they’d paused at the Russian jeweler’s stand on the opening day of the exhibition. He’d been intrigued that she had also been drawn to the finely worked statue. Knowing that she had been attracted to it—drawn to it, it had seemed—had made it the perfect gift for her.
Ironic that securing the perfect gift for his wife should have caused so much heartache and pain.
If he hadn’t gone to fetch it, she wouldn’t have seen him and thought…and she wouldn’t have been on the train when it crashed.
He’d debated whether to bring it there—even whether to give it to her at all. While he hoped it would stand as visual proof of his explanation of what she’d seen in Covent Garden, he worried that it might, instead, forcibly remind her of what she’d imagined and felt on seeing him go into the Russians’ lodgings.
Would she view it the way he hoped she would—as a heartfelt gift—or as a reminder of a moment of wretchedness?
In her mind, would the dragon symbolize love or pain?
He stared at the figurine. Even in the weak light, the gold of the body gleamed, the enameled panels were vivid with color, and the gems dotted about the dragon winked and sparkled. The little creature was exquisite and seemed almost alive.
In the end, he’d allowed instinct to guide him and had brought the dragon to her.
Slowly, he sank into the armchair. He sat back, his gaze resting on her face.
Having to deal with the children and Sanderson had forced him to stay focused, to maintain outward control, but now, he had no reason, no incentive, and little remaining strength he could muster to suppress the cauldron of feelings roiling inside him.
As he sat and stared at her, those feelings surged anew. They swelled and grew, then erupted; caustic and powerful, they poured through him, scouring and stripping away all pretense and leaving him—his inner self—starkly exposed.
Fear, guilt, and frantic worry flooded him until he felt in danger of drowning.
He forced in a breath, then exhaled and breathed in again, deeper, longer, before exhaling again. He repeated the exercise until the raging tumult calmed to a sullenly surging sea.
There was no sense in wallowing in guilt over the game he had played with their lives—with their marriage, with their love. No sense in regretting the effort he’d put into maintaining the fiction that he wasn’t in love, his futile yet steadfast attempt to deny reality. There was no point in railing at his own cowardice in refusing to acknowledge what he’d always known was true.
His gaze steady on Therese’s unmoving features, he vowed that, when she woke, he wouldn’t hesitate—wouldn’t allow himself to put off the moment no matter what justification his mind supplied—but would tell her all. He would own to it all—to the breadth, depth, and overwhelming power of his love for her.
His lips tightened as memories of the last hours washed through him; in truth, he knew all about the breadth, depth, and power of his feelings for her—the emotions that had battered him had been stronger, more intense, more fundamentally shattering than any he’d ever felt before.
In starting down the path of admitting his love for her, he’d freed the genie from its bottle, and there was no way to put it back, no way to retreat.
Not that he wished to go back to the way things had been between them. These last weeks had held a promise so golden, so precious, he couldn’t imagine turning his back on it. Everything in him wanted to seize and secure that golden future for him, her, and their family.
Openly loving Therese might leave him vulnerable—more vulnerable—to horrendous grief and misery, to pain, anxiety, fear, and the terror of impending loss, but against those negatives, balancing them and tipping the scales heavily to the positive, were the unrestrained joy, the sunshine of happiness, the glow of warm elation, and a deeper, richer, more profoundly glorious satisfaction that, in the absence of acknowledged love, simply did not exist in life.
Love, in all its many facets, wasn’t to be underestimated. It was, he now firmly believed, fundamental to the human condition. Without it, one couldn’t and wouldn’t experience all there was in life.
Unbidden, his gaze traced Therese’s features, drank in the beauty of her face—a beloved image.
Sanderson’s words seeped into his mind. “Sometimes, with injuries such as this, there’s some underlying trauma that means the patient doesn’t actually want to wake up.”