I can still feel the purple and red butterflies all over my skin as someone awakens me from this dream. The sensation is quickly replaced by a throbbing headache. “Ohhh,” I moan, sitting up and placing my hands against my temples.
“I brought you something for the pain,” Harold says softly.
I open my eyes, feeling absolutely horrified, and find him kneeling beside my bed with a burning candle in one hand and a silver goblet in the other. I stare at him in shock and humiliation, not believing I’d asked to see his foot and then fondled it so thoroughly. “Forgive me,” I say, folding my hands in pleading. “I don’t know what came over me before.”
“Whatever was in Sir Vincent’s experiment, I imagine. You must drink this. It will clear whatever fog is left in your mind and relieve you of your discomfort.” He holds the goblet out closer to me.
I smell the featherfew plant that’s been added as I bring it to my lips. It’s what my mother always offered me when I was ill growing up. The taste is as bitter as ever.
Harold watches me closely until I have finished.
“Thank you, Harold,” I say, giving the empty cup back to him.
“I feel I should be the one apologizing to you,” he says. “I am sorry to have kissed you when you were in such a vulnerable state. I feel awful about it.”
A heavy feeling sinks to the pit of my stomach as I recall the kiss. The embarrassment of revealing my obsession of his foot has erased it from my mind—until now. I wonder why I do not regret it more.
“Did you mean what you said, Arabella?” Harold asks me.
I stare at my hands, steadying them against my knees, and answer. “Yes.”
“All of it?’
“Yes.”
The silence swallows us for a minute.
“Then I’m afraid we cannot be friends.”
Tears spring to my eyes as I stare at him. He sets the candle at my bedside and begins to stand, so I grab his hand. “No. You are my only ally in this solemn place.”
“And you are mine. But my body has burned for you since the moment we met and I cannot trust myself alone with you anymore knowing how you feel, not with you marrying my brother.”
A very small whimper escapes my lips, causing him to lift my hand so he can kiss it and hold it against his cheek.
“Why could it not have been you who chose me for a wife instead of him?”
“It is cruel and unfair to say the least. I am sorry that it has to be this way.”
He lets go of me and turns away to walk toward the door. It feels like I can’t catch my breath as I begin crying even harder, watching the firmness of his thighs through his trousers as he crosses the room.
He opens my door and stops to look back with an expression of longing. “I will be sure to have Cherish continue to look after you, Arabella. You will not be left alone to endure my dreadful family.”
His final words, full of caring and love, burn deep into my soul, leaving it forever wounded.