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Chapter Thirty-Seven
For the fourth night in a row, James stayed in Clara’s bed until morning. Not even Clara was concerned about discovery. She didn’t appear concerned with anything anymore.
James barely slept the first night after their loss. Clara was so still that he placed his finger under her nose to make sure she was breathing. She barely stirred when he changed the linens between her legs.
When finally she’d opened her eyes, she blinked and was silent for a long while. “I had hoped it was only a nightmare,” she said eventually.
But she accepted his comfort then, at least. She even asked how he fared.
By the second morning, the color disappeared not only her face but her spirit. In the time since, she’d spoken little, especially this last day.
This morning, he sat with Clara for an hour while she stared at the wall, her embroidery hoop untouched on her lap.
“Shall I read to you, lass?”
She blinked, looking at him almost as if he were a stranger. “Go riding.”
James’s eyes widened. “You wish to go riding?”
“You.”
He shook his head. “I’m not leav—”
“Molly can read to me. You haven’t been out. Go and get some air. Please.”
He kissed her forehead before leaving reluctantly. She didn’t move a muscle or otherwise react to his departure.
It was the first time he’d ventured beyond the terrace in five days; it did feel welcome, at least for a little while.
James was careful to avoid riding in the direction that took him to the farmers’ fields. Seeking privacy, he guided Horace to the edge of the woodland whose floor turned blue when the bluebells bloomed in spring, as Clara told it.
“There’s a lad,” he crooned every so often to the horse along the way.
He held himself together until they reached the tree line. He slid from Horace, tied his reins to a fallen tree, and walked into the trees until the right one called to him.
Gripping the trunk, he closed his eyes, and amid the whistles and the trills of the birds, he let go.
He couldn’t contain the pain any longer. He sobbed, he yelled; the bark bit into his hands as he released his grief, his anger. Clara’s raw cries in the tub echoed in his ears, as if they mourned together now. At the time, he’d held her, been with her, but in shock.
Breathing hard after he spent his tears, his cheek pressed against the rough bark, he thought of Clara sitting lifelessly back at Anterleigh Hall.
He felt powerless. The big, independent, headstrong industrialist—who had built a fortune out of nothing, who commanded an empire of employees, who felt capable of solving any problem—could donothingin this moment. As painful as the loss was, the complete inability to do anything about it was equally challenging.
He pushed back from the tree. His presence seemed to do little or nothing, but he wanted to return to her.
Clara couldn’t make it this far yet, but perhaps she’d do well to step outside into the sun.
When he returned to the hall, he let out a ragged sigh of relief. Clara was already outside—sitting on the bench in her mother’s rose garden.
“There’s my lass,” he said, happy to see her.
Clara looked up—and right through him, as if she wasn’t even really seeing him.
∞∞∞
Clara sat as still as a statue under her parasol in the rose garden.
“May I, my lady?” Mrs. Watts interrupted.
