“I regret having to leave you behind.” She reached for Harrison’s hand again, and heat pricked the back of her eyes.
He yanked away at the same time he hit the power switch on his wheelchair. His chair hummed as it rolled backward. “If you regret it, then you’ll hang on and keep fighting.”
“I’m ready to die, Harrison.”
His face blanched, and his lips thinned.
She despised that she had to state her feelings so starkly. But he was giving her no other choice.
“I won’t let you die!” His whisper was harsh. Then he jerked his wheelchair around and whirred away.
She peered after him, wishing he wouldn’t leave but knowing she had to let him go so he could finally accept what he couldn’t change no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much of his vast fortune he spent, no matter the best treatments he could find.
Harrison rolled down the marble pathway toward the side entrance, fuming and embarrassed at the same time. This was one of those times when he wished he’d been able to stomp off for effect, slapping his feet with each heavy stride, looking strong and purposeful. Instead, he bounced along at his wheelchair’s top speed—five miles per hour.
If he glanced back, he’d find Ellen’s bright blue eyes upon him, full of pity.
His chest tightened. He didn’t want her pity. He wanted her admiration. Wanted her to see him as capable, not lost and alone in the world once she died.
Of course, he would be dreadfully lost and alone without her—more so than she’d ever be able to understand and in a way he mustn’t reveal to her.
To be fair, Ellen never paid attention to his disability. At times, he even wondered if she realized he was in a wheelchair and couldn’t walk. She had always been the one person who made him feel whole and strong.
But at this moment as he directed his wheelchair up the ramp, the pity in her eyes trailed him, and he loathed himself, loathed his wheelchair, and loathed his weakness.
“Lord Burlington.” Drake opened the side door and held it wide as Harrison steered into the passageway that led to the kitchen. His butler bowed his graying head in deference, his stooped shoulders and thin frame belying his strength and stamina.
Drake had been his personal attendant for ages and knew Harrison better than anyone. Even now, the older man shifted his sights toward Ellen, anticipating Harrison’s request. “Have no fear, my lord. I’ll carry her back inside when she’s ready.”
“Many thanks.” Harrison wheeled to the lift, pressed the arrow that would take him up to the ground floor, then expelled a weary breath.
“You should tell her, eh?” Drake’s statement contained a gentle rebuke.
Harrison stared directly ahead at the lift doors. He considered pretending he didn’t know what Drake was referring to. But the older man would see past his playacting. Nevertheless, he couldn’t make himself acknowledge the bold truth. “I have nothing to tell her, Drake.”
Nothing except that he desperately loved her—and not merely as a friend the way she thought he did. No, he loved her fully and completely as a man loves a woman. He had for years. He’d never spoken of his love to anyone—not even to Drake, but he wasn’t surprised his attendant had sorted it out.
Behind him, Drake refrained from saying anything more, stepped outside and closed the door, leaving him alone. Harrison swallowed hard, but the lump in his throat remained. Only when he was safely ensconced in the privacy of the lift did he bury his face into his hands. He wanted to give way to the need to weep, except he wasn’t a man who easily allowed himself to express emotions, even privately. His display of frustration in the garden with Ellen was more than enough. And now he regretted even that.
He was, after all, a scientist, a logical, rational thinker. He examined everything from each angle, analyzed the data, and drew solid empirical conclusions. He didn’t let feelings cloud his judgment.
As the lift dinged and came to a halt, Harrison schooled himself into his usual composed demeanor. The doors opened to the front hall, which was a room unto itself. The floor was inlaid with white marble and the walls lined with dark oak paneling carved with exquisite detail. Two dozen tall columns supported a center dome decorated with colorful stained-glass circles. A massive fireplace graced one wall, surrounded by the same white marble as the floors.
Marian had informed him the room in the Middle Ages had been a grand hall with trestle tables against the walls and a larger fireplace. She’d also maintained that the closet at the far end had housed an office used by the master.
Harrison had been fascinated by her detailed description of the original manor and had sketched out the floor plan the way she described it. He’d even excavated a vault underneath the hall closet. How could she have known it was there if she hadn’t crossed over to the past and witnessed it firsthand?
Shoving aside the doubts that had assailed him more often of late, he powered his wheelchair toward the eastern wing he’d reconstructed over the past two decades to make more handicap accessible—doors and hallways widened, rails and grips strategically positioned, windows lowered and enlarged. He’d even had an extensive laboratory built so he could work from home as frequently as he wanted, which in recent months had been nearly all the time.
He pressed the button on the wall next to his lab and waited as the automated door opened. The waft of sulfur and the scents of other chemicals greeted him.
He wheeled inside, heedless of the untidiness of cylinders, spreadsheets, empty bottles, bags, and plastic tubing scattered about—his fruitless attempts to find a cure for VHL. Stifling a yawn, he stretched his arms over his head. He’d had too many sleepless nights of late. But the desperation pressed hard against his chest and wouldn’t let him rest.
“Hospice?” The word echoed in the room, and it contained every trace of bitterness in his soul. He’d wanted to tear off the physician’s head when he’d suggested it at the appointment. All the way back to Chesterfield, he’d ranted about the dreadful suggestion.
Now look what it had done. Given Ellen permission to stop trying.
“Rubbish, I say. The doctor’s advice was all rubbish.” He rolled over to his desk and peered down at the latest beta cell regeneration study he’d focused on last night. Should he work out the figures again?
What choice did he have? He was running out of time and absolutely had to discover a cure.
If only he could find Arthur Creighton’s ultimate cure.
His attention shifted to the enormous world map he’d pinned above his desk, to the various red and blue pins scattered all over the continents. The blue dots represented places where miraculous healings had supposedly happened throughout history, many of them related to holy water or holy oil. Of course, Canterbury and Walsingham in England had the most documented miracles.
Arthur had concluded such miracles could be traced to the Tree of Life in the garden of Eden, specifically seeds that had been preserved from the Tree of Life and brought to Canterbury and Walsingham for safekeeping. Eventually the seeds had affected the groundwater in those locations, so that those who drank of it were cured of their diseases. Monks had bottled and sold the holy water to pilgrims in flasks known as ampullae. In Canterbury, such flasks were called St. Thomas ampullae and contained engravings of Thomas Becket, a murdered archbishop who’d been named a saint.