And she was beginning to think she held a piece of his as well.
Chapter 26
What can you feel?Her skin, cold to the touch.
What do you smell?Rotting leaves, wet earth, the stench of the still water.
What do you hear?Nothing. Not her laugh or shriek, not her lovely husky voice asking for help. Just silence, her face down in the lake. Fear pressing its icy finger along his spine until he was frozen. His name filtered through the pounding heartbeats, his chest so tight the pressure was all he knew. Blood rushing, pushing too fast, too hard, but not enough, not enough air,did she have enough air—
“Callum,fuck,let go!”
He sucked in a wheezing breath and realized he’d been gripping his cousin’s forearm. Releasing it, Callum staggered forward into his room—how had they gotten to his room?—and began to collapse into an armchair before James caught his arm and stopped him.
“You’re covered in mud and that terrifying housekeeper will have your head.” James’s voice was low, soothing. Christ, how many people had watched him fall apart like this?
He couldn’t speak yet, not when a keening wail ripped at his throat, so he nodded dumbly and began tugging at his soaked clothing until he trembled in his union suit, then stumbled into the adjoining washroom.
James appeared in the mirror over his shoulder, his brows knit together. Callum broke eye contact, couldn’t see the pity in his cousin’s eyes, couldn’t acknowledge the fear that churned in his own gut.
He cleared the mud from his face and arms with savage swipes of a length of flannel until the water in the marble basin was brown and cloudy, his skin pink and covered in gooseflesh. The roar, like a waterfall crashing over his head, had dulled to a constant buzz, a swarm of hornets in his ears.
“What happened, Cal?”
His jaw clenched. “She went in the water.”
James exhaled through his teeth. “She’s not hurt. I watched her walk into the house—”
“She could have breathed it in.” His breath sawed in his lungs as though he had taken in water himself. “She might have—”
“Stop.” James grabbed him by the shoulders, and Callum realized he’d been shuddering,shaking. “You made sure she was safe, and that’s all you can do.”
He shook his head and pulled away from his cousin, tugging a shirt from the armoire with barely contained hostility. “I could have stopped her from falling.”
“Short of tossing yourself in front of that bicycle, there was little you could do.” James chuckled. “As it was, you ran down that hill fast enough. You would have made our rugby coach at Harrow proud.”
His distress was so acute he didn’t find a retort, and James correctly read the lack of response as significant, coming to stand by his cousin’s side as Callum stared out the window. His eyes fixed on the edge of the glass atrium, the small bit he could see, mentally tracing the intricate metalwork surrounding the oculus.
He remembered the peace he’d felt when he’d unburdened himself, sharing the story of Ewan’s death. He was certain that if she’d been able to reach into his heart and pull out some of his pain to carry herself, she’d have done so. This fearsome woman would be a warrior for him.
After several minutes of breathing, simply letting his chest rise and fall until his heart seemed less likely to burst from his ribcage, Callum shook his head. “She told me she trusts me.”
James pulled back, then released a weak laugh. “What did you do to earn that?”
He couldn’t decide if he wanted to know, because then he would do it again. And trusting him was the worst idea possible when he was being dishonest with everyone he cared about, hiding their financial state and James’s romantic preferences, his true feelings for Violet—
“You know I was teasing when I said you were falling in love with her.” James sat on the windowsill, but Callum remained focused on the atrium. “Are you—”
“No.” The single syllable had thorns and tore up his insides as he pushed it out.
“You’re lying.”
Callum’s shoulders dropped, and he pressed his head against the glass. “I am.”
The weight of James’ palm on his shoulder centered him, and for once, Callum didn’t want to shake it off or put distance between them. “Does she feel the same way about you?”
Now it was Callum’s turn to laugh. “She wants to carry on an affair while I’m in England.”
When he caught James’ expression, the man was beaming. “That’s an excellent sign!”
