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“Yes. I agree. But after we talk…”
She set her cup down also, and leant to him, bringing her lips softly to his, for the veriest brush of a kiss.
It was enough to send heat through him with an intensity that took his breath away.
“Iris, I promised you ‘no secrets’ - but I have not told you everything of late. Not everything of my feelings, nor everything of what I believe is happening with Maggie. I apologise for that – I want what is between us to be honest. And the very first thing that I must tell you is how I feel about you.”
She did not move from where she sat, nor do anything at all, yet he could see the tension in her – she was afraid of what he might say. In that moment, he cursed himself – he should have spoken to her of his feelings from the first point that he had truly come to recognise the scope of them.
“And… how do you feel about me?”
Her voice was low, a little shaky. He bent forward and brushed his lips over hers, as softly as she had kissed him just minutes before.
“I love you.”
The words were baldly stated. Were not such declarations supposed to be flowery, and full of poetic language? Yet he had no words like that, only the bare truth. Her sky-blue eyes widened, and her lips opened on a soft gasp.
“You…love me? I… I had hoped…”
“I love you. I think that I began to love you the very first time that we played together. It was as if that opened a door in my soul, and once opened, it could not be shut. And the more time I have spent with you, the deeper that love has become.”
“Leon… I… I love you, also. From the very first moment that I saw you play at Lady Ormondston’s musicale, I knew that I loved you.”
His heart raced, and a bubble of joyous laughter rose within him.
“I am doubly a fool then, for not telling you my feelings sooner – but I was afraid – afraid that you might not be able to love me, that you had only chosen to marry me to avoid scandal.”
“Then we are fools together Leon, for I was afraid to tell you, lest you had offered for me just to do the honourable thing. I knew that you at least cared for me, but I was afraid that I might discover that that caring did not extend to the point of love.”
He studied her for long moments, allowing the meaning of her words to sink in, allowing his heart to expand, and the fear that he had carried for so long to drain away. Then he kissed her. Properly. Deeply. With every ounce of his being.
When they drew apart, he was dizzy with it still. But he could not allow this happiness to prevent the rest of the conversation, for to do so would leave this tarnished by secrets.
“Iris… before we go any further, I must speak to you of Maggie. I did not wish to believe her capable of it, but I have come to the painful conclusion that she has genuinely been trying to cause you actual physical harm, intentionally. I must beg your forgiveness for my failure to prevent that from happening. It is a man’s responsibility to protect and care for his wife, and I feel that I have failed you. Equally, I have failed my sister, by not protecting her from herself.”
“Leon, I do not judge it that way. I know that you cannot abandon your sister! But… I agree that something must be done, for I do not know that I can go on as it has been. For I have not told you all of what has happened. I did not intend it as secrets between us – I simply could not bear to burden you further. Nonetheless, it has become as if a secret.”
“What has she done, that I don’t know of?”
Pain and dread twisted within him – he had suspected that Maggie had done more than he had been aware of, but now, to have it confirmed…. Iris looked away for a moment, taking a sip of the cooling tea. Then she turned back to him.
“She waits until neither you, nor your mother, are there and she slips away from Mrs Withercombe to wander the house until she ‘accidentally’ comes across me, when no one else will see. Then she trips me, or tries to make me fall on the stairs, or attacks me with whatever sharp object may be to hand. She has even flung herself upon me, and beaten at me with her fists, until the footmen had to physically remove her, and take her back to Mrs Withercombe. If she were stronger… then I might have suffered true damage. It has come close, a number of times. I am sorry that I did not tell you sooner, but I kept hoping that it might change. It has not, and lately, I have begun to fear that she wishes to kill me.”
Shock coursed through Leon at her words.
“Kill you? That is… utterly beyond the pale. I know that she is no longer a rational being, and I had concluded that she wished to harm you, but to kill…”
“I denied it to myself until shortly before we came to London, but then, I could no longer pretend. Here I feel safe. There, I do not.”
He stared into the fire for some time, his heart shattering within him. There was only one conclusion to draw from her words. His sister no longer existed. Her body still walked and talked but the person within it, the sister he had loved, was gone, irrevocably stolen from him by the disease which ravaged her body and mind. That recognition simplified things, in an odd way, made it easier to see what he must do.
“Iris, I can see only one solution for this. If we cannot get her to see that what she does is wrong, then I will lock her away -not in the rooms she now has – that would be too difficult, but in the East wing of that floor, which connects to the rest of the house by just one door – there are not even servants’ stairs or corridors into that floor of the East wing. If she is truly that completely no longer my sister, then she must be locked away to protect both you, and her, from the consequences of her madness.”
Chapter Twelve
Iris looked out of their breakfast room window at the garden, full of flowers. It was a perfect May day, after a perfect night… in bed with her husband – who loved her, as she loved him. Now, she understood that look on Camellia’s face in a whole new way.
The only thing about the day which was not perfect was the fact that it was the day before they would have to return to Greenleigh Park. The thought of Maggie, and the conversation which Leon intended to have with her, stole the brightness from the day in an instant.
