“I am fine.” Harriet slipped from their grasp.
Her legs buckled, and then she was falling. Her head struck something hard and sharp. Pain broke through the smothering warmth. She cried out.
“Get help, now!” She had no idea who was barking orders, but she wished they would not.
It made her head ache.
She could feel something wet trickling down the back of her neck.I am making a mess.At least she was outside, and the grass was cool against her skin.
The voices stopped, and the world faded into black.
CHAPTER 28
“It is her favorite.” Theodore gestured to the book he was holding in his hand.
He was standing in the eastern drawing room with Phoebe. His niece arched an eyebrow at him, her nose wrinkled in distaste with her arms folded across her chest.
For the last two days, he and Phoebe had been hard at work putting her plan into action. Theodore had pulled himself out of the black sinkhole he had been living in, bathed, shaved and dressed.
The pain in his chest had not lessened, but now there was something else within him too. It felt like he was a steam engine and this plan to get Harriet back was the coal the engineer was feeding him. It consumed every waking hour, when he slept, he dreamt of it.
“It’s boring.” Phoebe shook her head.
He looked at the book in his hand. It was Shakespeare’s Much Ado about nothing. His thumb stroked the lettering of the cover. It was faded as though someone had done it many times before him. He had found so many of Harriet’s sketches in books of Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays.
She had a perpetual stack of books by her bedside. Some were books of poetry, some were novels, others were plays. But always Shakespeare was among them.
I should get some of these rebound for her.Theodore traced his hands across the pile of books and their battered covers. He could imagine Harriet sitting in a window, sunlight shining over her face, knees tucked towards her chest as she lost herself in the world she was reading.How often did I see her do that?
“I will admit, the bard is rather difficult to read. His plays are meant to be performed and that is when they are at their best.” Theodore idly leafed through the pages, trying to find a good bit to read for his niece.
Theodore saw several scribbles in Harriet’s handwriting across the pages. His fingers traced the elegant curve of her writing.
Flaws not perfection.
Three words – he could hear Harriet’s voice saying them as his eyes drifted across the page. He felt a tug on his sleeve and realized that Phoebe was trying to get his attention.
Hastily, he snapped the play shut. “But perhaps you are right, it may be better to start with a different book. What do you think of this one?”
He held up a book of Byron’s poems and Phoebe stroked her chin. Then she nodded and reached for it, carefully placing it on the sideboard, before looking back up at Theodore, her head tilted in a question.
He adjusted the book ever so slightly, angling it so it would stand out more. Then he picked up his stack of books, and she picked up hers, and they began to move down the hall together.
“I think you would enjoy a play,” Theodore said as they deposited another play by a fruit bowl.
Phoebe gave him a look so skeptical that he could not help but laugh. “Really, you would. The next time we are in London, I will take you to the theatre. We have a private box – if you really hate it, you can always go to sleep.”
“But I do not like London.” Phoebe frowned as she slipped a book onto one of the coffee tables in the dining room. “It is busy and big and smelly.”
“It is all those things, but there are some good things too. And when you are older, you will spend more time in the city. You will have all sorts of balls and garden parties to go to,” he pointed out as Phoebe took several books from his pile; her pile had been dispersed.
Phoebe wrinkled her nose, clearly unconvinced. Theodore shook his head and could not help but laugh.
“I suspect you will rather enjoy those things.” Theodore grinned as he helped her put a book on one of the higher shelves.
“But why do they have to be in London?” Phoebe shuddered.
“Because that is just how these things are done.” Theodore shrugged. “There are some lovely galleries and such we could go to as well. Museums and big libraries.”
