Page 21 of Truly, Madly, Daring

“I know!” She laughed, the sound doing odd things to his heart. “Well, never mind that. We had best ready ourselves for bed, I suppose. If you wish for any help, you’d best instruct me quickly. I am quite prepared to sleep in my boots if it comes to it.”

Wrexham opened and closed his mouth, quite at a loss. The realisation hit him in that moment. He was alone. With his wife. Who was willing to consummate the marriage. All at once, he was not the least bit tired and the idea of her helping him undress was making his nerves leap.

“Well, I assume you have no wish to sleep in your coat and boots,” she said briskly, when he failed to answer. He heard her move closer and jumped as she put her hands upon the lapels of his coat.

“I beg your pardon,” she said at once. “Forgive me, I ought to have asked.”

“No, it’s fine,” he said, feeling ridiculous. “I just wasn’t expecting…” You, he thought wildly. I was not expecting you. She had shaken him to his core.

“May I help you, Wrexham?”

He nodded, steeling himself for the touch of her hands as she pushed the coat from his shoulders.

“My friends call me Rex,” he said, aware of every sound, every rustle of her skirts and the way they pressed against his legs as she got close to him. “Or at least, they used to.”

She paused, and Rex held his breath, waiting. “Used to?”

“Before,” he said with a shrug, listening as she walked away, he assumed to put the coat somewhere.

“Surely, they kept in touch with you?”

“Some did, but… I wasn’t feeling terribly sociable.”

“I’ll put your watch and chain on the table beside the bed, on the right side, unless you object? May I undo your waistcoat?”

He nodded, imagining slender fingers undoing the mother-of-pearl buttons, his skin burning with anticipation. The waistcoat was a dark blue satin, almost the velvety black of the summer sky the moment before night consumed the day, or at least it was if his valet had dressed him correctly before they’d left Holbrook.

“It’s understandable that you needed time to adjust to your new circumstances, but things are different now. Surely, you must get terribly bored? As I understand it, you were a physically active man, and very sociable. I see no reason you ought not return to at least some of those pleasures. Perhaps it is time to—”

“No.”

He could almost hear her frowning at him and, despite his irritation with her probing into his life, the thought made him want to smile.

“Why not?”

“Because they were my friends and I do not wish to subject them to watching me turn into a—”

“A what?” she demanded, interrupting him before he could finish, a challenging note in her voice that gave him pause.

“A madman,” he replied, seeing no reason not to say it. They could not hide from the truth; he had spelled the future out to her as frankly as he’d been able to. She had known what he would become.

“What manner of madness?” she asked, without missing a beat. “You have mentioned the subject several times, and that I would not need to trouble myself with your care other than ensuring that you remained in your own home and were treated with dignity, but I have heard no details. You have supplied meticulous plans for me to follow regarding your care when you can no longer make decisions for yourself, but you have never illustrated what will happen to you. Will you be delusional? Childlike? Manic? Explain to me what to expect.”

Wrexham knew by now his wife was not one to shy away from difficult subjects, but all the same that bald enquiry startled him. “I do not know the precise details, only that if I follow the path my uncle trod, I shall lose my mind and end up in an asylum.”

“And who told you that?” she asked, and he was uncertain if she was angry or not but there was a brittle edge to the question.

“Well, my father—”

“The father who despises you and has tried to have you killed?”

There was no missing the impatience behind the pointed remark. Rex digested this.

“It’s common knowledge that my uncle lost his mind. He became paranoid and believed people were trying to kill him.”

“Perhaps they were. They’re trying to kill you.”

Rex shook his head. “It’s not the same. He wasn’t the heir, he was no threat, and he also believed the furniture was alive and moved of its own accord. He gave the chairs names, like dogs, and had long conversations with a grandfather clock.”