“So you have said.”
“Yes, but I have led you to believe they are nightmares of the regular sort—phantasmagoric. Fanciful. Frightening but transitory. But they aren’t. They’retrue. Theyhappened.”
“Your memories are coming to you as dreams.”
“Yes.” He went on to tell her what he’d told the boys, about the wardrobe and the broken arm and the drowned kitten. He told hermorethan he’d told the boys. There were so many examples. He hadn’t thought it necessary to include them all the other night, in order to make his point, but something about Julianna’s careful, unstinting attention made him want to tell her everything. To recite the whole brutal, mortifying list.
“That is why I never told you the whole truth about who I am,” he explained when he’d finished his list of woes. “Because I don’t want to be who I am.”
Because of who I am, I can’t have you.
He almost said that last bit aloud, but he reminded himself that it was only one reason among many he did not want to be the heir to the Earl of Stonely. And it was only one reason among many keeping him and Julianna apart. It was, given her fierce resistance to the very idea of marriage, a minor reason at that.
They lay side by side in silence for a long while until a scrabbling sound drew their attention. Julianna glanced in the direction of Leander’s sheet-draped cage.
“Have you brought yourbirdon your holiday?”
“I have indeed. Leander is at a critical point in his education, and I didn’t want him to backslide.”
She chuckled. “Is he saying more words?”
“Alas, no. He has added ‘Go’ to the roster, but still no sentences, or even phrases.”
That was a lie, and Effie had never lied to Julianna. But what choice did he have?
A terrible thought dawned: What if Leander said his one sentence in front of Julianna?I am in love with a woman named Julianna Evans.
He could only hope the creature would settle back down to sleep.
And/or that the sentence, which had never been heard since its singular utterance, had been an aberration.
“So he says, ‘No,’ ‘Try,’ and, now, ‘Go,’” Julianna said, and Effie was tickled that she remembered from his correspondence such inconsequential details as Leander’s previous syllables.
“That is correct.”
“Why did you name him Leander? I never asked. Presumably he is named after the Greek hero? Leander who swims to his love Hero every night, guided by the light in her tower.”
“I was inspired by the Keats poem that recounts Leander’s drowning, but yes.”
“Was she imprisoned in the tower? I can’t remember.”
“I don’t know, but she must have been, else why would she let him drown trying to get to her?”
She slid off the bed. “May I meet your Leander?”
“Of course.”
He led her to the other side of the room and slid the sheet off Leander’s cage, praying the creature would stick to his single syllable du jour.
Julianna leaned over and out her face quite close to the bars. “He’s lovely.”
“Isn’t he?” Effie cleared his throat. “Miss Evans, please meet Leander. Leander, this is Miss Evans.”
“Hello, Leander,” Julianna said warmly.
“Hello, Miss Evans!” Leander, that absolute bounder, said.
Chapter 8
