The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons, #2)(110)

Anthony had fussed over her like a mother hen, second-guessing every move from every doctor until one of them had actually had the audacity to ask him when he’d received his license from the Royal College of Physicians.

Anthony had not been amused.

But after much haranguing, Kate’s leg was set and splinted, and she was told to look forward to at least a month of confinement in bed.

“Look forward?” she groaned to Anthony once the last of the surgeons had gone. “How can I look forward to that?”

“You’ll be able to catch up on your reading,” he suggested.

She let out an impatient exhale through her nose; it was hard to breathe through her mouth while clenching her teeth. “I wasn’t aware I was behind on my reading.”

If he’d been tempted to laugh, he did a good job of hiding it. “Perhaps you could take up needlework,” he suggested.

She just glared at him. As if the prospect of needlework were going to make her feel better.

He sat gingerly on the edge of her bed and patted the back of her hand. “I’ll keep you company,” he said with an encouraging smile. “I’d already decided to cut back on the time I spent at my club.”

Kate sighed. She was tired and cranky and in pain, and she was taking it out on her husband, which really wasn’t fair. She turned her hand over so that their palms met and then entwined her fingers through his. “I love you, you know,” she said softly.

He squeezed her hands and nodded, the warmth of his eyes on hers saying more than words ever could.

“You told me not to,” Kate said.

“I was an ass.”

She didn’t argue; a quirk of his lips told her that he noticed her lack of contradiction. After a moment of silence, she said, “You were saying some odd things in the park.”

Anthony’s hand remained in hers, but his body pulled back slightly. “I don’t know what you mean,” he replied.

“I think you do,” she said softly.

Anthony closed his eyes for a moment, then stood, his fingers trailing through her grasp until finally they were no longer touching at all. For so many years he’d been careful to keep his odd convictions to himself. It seemed best. Either people would believe him and then worry or they wouldn’t and then think him insane.

Neither option was particularly appealing.

But now, in the heat of one terrified moment, he’d blurted it out to his wife. He couldn’t even remember exactly what he’d said. But it had been enough to make her curious. And Kate wasn’t the sort to let go of a curiosity. He could practice all the avoidance he wanted, but eventually she’d get it out of him. A more stubborn woman had never been born.

He walked to the window and leaned against the sill, gazing blankly in front of him as if he could actually see the streetscape through the heavy burgundy drapes that had long since been pulled shut. “There is something you should know about me,” he whispered.

She didn’t say anything, but he knew she’d heard. Maybe it was the sound of her changing her position in bed, maybe it was the sheer electricity in the air. But somehow he knew.

He turned around. It would have been easier to speak his words to the curtains, but she deserved better from him. She was sitting up in bed, her leg propped up on pillows, her eyes wide and filled with a heartbreaking mix of curiosity and concern.

“I don’t know how to tell you this without sounding ridiculous,” he said.

“Sometimes the easiest way is just to say it,” she murmured. She patted an empty spot on the bed. “Do you want to sit beside me?”

He shook his head. Proximity would only make it that much more difficult. “Something happened to me when my father died,” he said.

“You were very close to him, weren’t you?”

He nodded. “Closer than I’d ever been to anyone, until I met you.”

Her eyes glistened. “What happened?”

“It was very unexpected,” he said. His voice was flat, as if he were recounting an obscure news item and not the single most disturbing event of his life. “A bee, I told you.”

She nodded.

“Who would have thought a bee could kill a man?” Anthony said with a caustic laugh. “It would have been funny if it weren’t so tragic.”

She didn’t say anything, just looked at him with a sympathy that made his heart break.

“I stayed with him throughout the night,” he continued, turning slightly so that he would not have to look into her eyes. “He was dead, of course, but I needed a little more time. I just sat beside him and watched his face.” Another short burst of angry laughter escaped his lips. “God, what a fool I was. I think I half expected him to open his eyes at any moment.”

“I don’t think that’s foolish,” Kate said softly. “I’ve seen death, too. It’s hard to believe that someone is gone when he looks so normal and at peace.”

“I don’t know when it happened,” Anthony said, “but by morning I was sure.”

“That he was dead?” she asked.

“No,” he said roughly, “that I would be, too.”

He waited for her to comment, he waited for her to cry, to do anything, but she just sat there staring at him with no perceptible change of expression, until finally he had to say, “I’m not as great a man as my father was.”