Page 68 of From Unwanted to Duchess
CHAPTER 22
Frances
Frances woke up feeling disoriented. Her head felt thick, as though stuffed with cotton wool. The bed felt soft underneath her, and she stretched when a sudden peculiar feeling snuck up on her.
Her eyes blinked open.
The room was dim, curtains drawn against the morning light. A fire crackled in the hearth, and in the chair beside her bed sat James, his clothes rumpled, his hair disheveled, his shoulders slumped. He looked as though he had been through his own storm. His face was drawn, haggard even, as though he had not slept.
“James,” she said, pulling the blanket up to her chin. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” His lips pressed together. “Watching over you. You could’ve died, you foolish, reckless girl.”
She wanted to be offended because she was not a girl, nor did she think she was foolish, but then she remembered. She had gotten stuck outside in a rainstorm. Really, a foolish thing to do.
Besides, he looked… worried, which was most peculiar.
“How long have you been sitting there?” she asked.
“All night,” he admitted. “I could not leave until I knew you would wake up.”
Slowly, the events of the previous day came back to her. She had stumbled out of the woods when her little shelter was flooded. The water had risen with alarming speed. She had been weak, and her legs had ached. Every step had been agony, her limbs leaden. Water had run down the back of her dress most uncomfortably, and then, just as she thought she was going to pass out, she had seen him riding through the rain.
She hadn’t known it was James, of course. She had only thought that, finally, someone had come to save her. A guardian angel in the tempest.
She had awoken on the horse briefly to see his face, his jaw clenched, his nostrils flared, looking every inch the avenging angel. The relief in his eyes when he had found her—she remembered that, too. As though finding her had meant everything.
Then she had passed out.
“I am quite all right.” She sat up, acutely aware that she was in her nightdress, and then pulled the blanket up to her chest.
“You could’ve died.” His voice was stern, but his eyes betrayed his worry for her. A tenderness she had not expected to see.
“But I didn’t. I am quite well. Not even a sniffle.”
“You may still develop a sniffle later,” he argued.
“Perhaps, but I feel very well. Famished, in fact. I could eat a horse, truly.”
He nodded and got up from the chair. “I will have breakfast sent up here.”
“You really do not have to,” she said.
He shrugged. “Very well then, I shall not. If you are determined to be contrary.”
She let out a disgruntled sigh. Must he be so vexing?
He looked at her, head tilted to the side. “What is it?”
“You,” she replied. “You. You are so… Why are you like this? I know you’re not always like this. So withdrawn, so quiet, acting as if I am nothing but a nuisance and you would rather I leave you alone.”
“This is how I am,” he said. “I have always been like this.”
“That’s not true. The time we were in London, you were infuriating and hard-headed, and you set my bristles up at every turn. But you talked, you debated. You were alive, engaged. Now you are a ghost haunting these halls. Now you are silent. And I know it is because of me, because when Gideon was here, you were not like this. Your silence is a prison. A tomb. Worse than when I was living with my father.”
“Oh,” he said, “so your life really is as miserable as your mother’s was.”
She slammed her palm onto the bed, but since her duvet was very soft and filled with feathers, it did not have the desired effect. A most ineffectual display of temper.
