Page 48 of Bluebell’s Fate

Even in sleep, she’d commandeered his every whim. When she rested, he permitted himself to pour over her sketches of the blue room. He had each one memorized. Nathaniel would have started taking a hammer to the walls by now if the task hadn’t taken him from her side.

He was too ashamed of the way he’d acted the last time they’d talked about her sketches. The blue room was the one topic of conversation they’d avoided the past couple days. If only Nathaniel could erase the hurt he felt by her lack of trust that he would be able to afford to build the conservatory. Granted, since he’d stopped helping his father run the estate, his purse strings were stretched quite thin with the added cost of the conservatory taken into account. But he could work within his means. He’d been doing so for years with great success. All it took was a little sacrifice, patience, and ingenuity.

Could he approach his marriage the same way? Nathaniel felt confident that he could call Bell his friend. But he wanted more than friendship. He wanted to earn Bell’s trust and confidence. How else was he supposed to carve a path toward convincing her that she could love him one day?

Ever since learning Bell’s greatest desire was to be loved, Nathaniel had set in place a plan to make that happen. For his part, he’d always admired Bell. It had been slightly more challenging to call her a friend, but only due to misunderstandings. Bell was as light as sunshine, as sweet as honey, yet as unreachable as the stars. He’d fallen halfway in love with her the first time they’d met in her woods. His heart, he admitted, did not belong entirely to himself any longer. How else could he explain the reason he was embracing five-letter words like trust and heart and happy, words he’d long suspected were elusive.

And now, had forgiving himself made such a difference in his thinking? Edwin…five letters. Death…five letters. But Edwin was not haunting him any longer, and his death was something Nathaniel was healing from. All thanks to his incredible wife.

A knock sounded at the front door, and Nathaniel stopped his futile pacing to hear who his visitors were.

“How do you do, Wilson?” a feminine voice carried through the house.

A smile lit Nathaniel’s face. His grandmother was finally here—she would be incredibly helpful in Bell’s recovery! Not waiting for Wilson to find him, Nathaniel took swift steps to the end of the corridor and down the stairs. “Grandmother, is that you?” he called before rounding the corner.

Wilson was the awkward recipient of one of his Grandmother Hamilton’s famous hugs. His face was a little pink, but there was a smile in Wilson’s eyes as he patted the small old woman on her back. His grandmother pulled away and squeezed Wilson’s hand before she turned fully to Nathaniel.

“Nathaniel, I’m so glad you wrote.” His grandmother embraced him, and the exchange was not only expected, it was entirely comforting to his soul. “Where’s Bell?”

If any other person had skipped asking him how he was and had gone straight to his wife, Nathaniel might have been a little put out. But no one knew Bell’s circumstances quite as well as his grandmother. It was only natural for her to be worried. “Bell is in her room.” Nathaniel swallowed and rolled his shoulders back. “She has been recovering from a fever.” He rubbed the back of his neck, telling himself—again—that she was never in real danger.

For the first time, his Grandmother Hamilton looked her age of seventy-two. She put her wrinkled hand on his arm. “That must have been difficult for you. May I go to her?”

“Of course. Allow me to escort you there.” He tucked her wrinkled hand in the crook of his arm and turned her toward the staircase. As they started to walk away, Nathaniel noticed another visitor.

There, leaning against the kitchen door frame, a pilfered bottle of wine in hand, was his cousin, Ian Cutler. Nathaniel felt like a rock had been shoved down his throat.

Ian, on the other hand, had no issue speaking. “She’s sick of you already?” His tone was teasing, but Nathaniel knew better. “Perhaps meeting me will improve her spirits?” He winked.

Nathaniel hadn’t realized he was clenching his teeth together until his jaw started to hurt, but he refused to say anything. He didn’t want his grandmother to witness a fight in the entryway like they were still schoolboys again. He ignored Ian’s barb and turned his grandmother to the stairs, taking deep breaths through his nose.

She looked over her shoulder and filled in the awkward silence. “Ian, don’t tease your cousin. He is concerned for his wife. Now, make yourself useful and go to Cairnsby Hall. Tell them I’m going to stay here at Cairnsby Cottage.”

“I thought we came here together,” Ian pushed himself from the wall, and took a few lazy steps nearer.

She smiled back at him. “We’ve discussed this. I simply ask you to keep up your side of our arrangement.”

Ian’s chuckle had a dark edge to it. “Of course, Grandmother.” He smirked at Nathaniel, shot his eyes up to the ceiling as if he could see Bell through the floor, and strode lazily out the front door, swinging the bottle of wine at his side as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“You’re going to grind your teeth into dust, Nathaniel,” Grandmother chided. “Take a deep breath and wipe that look of distaste from your face. Bell deserves your smile.”

Bell deserved far more than that, but it wasn’t easy for Nathaniel to shake the encounter with Ian. “Why did you bring him?”

“I don’t enjoy long travels alone. Besides, he was in London already, and he is your family. You practically grew up as brothers.”

“Cain and Abel were brothers. Look where that landed them.” Nathaniel winced. That might have been a little too close to the mark to be humorous. Edwin’s death wasn’t his fault.

But this new thought he’d been entertaining hadn’t taken full root yet, it seemed. If Nathaniel and Edwin hadn’t fought that day down by the river, would Edwin still be alive? Would Nathaniel? Edwin had been about to throw him in the river for beating him in a race at the time. It could have easily been Nathaniel with the fever—if Edwin would even have gone for help.

Ian’s arrival had driven Nathaniel’s mind to old times. Nathaniel had heard it said that a man dies twice. The first time is when the man’s spirit leaves his body. The second time is when the man is forgotten, and their name is spoken for the last time. Edwin would never die that second time so long as his parents still lived. But if Nathaniel had been the one to take sick, he’d have died twice the day of his funeral.

Nathaniel tried to leave his morbid thoughts on the stairs, but they somehow persisted. For all the planning Nathaniel had done in his lifetime, he must not be very good at it. Nothing in his life turned out like it ought to have by his calculations. For one, Nathaniel’s parents still decided to ignore his existence unless he thrust it upon them. After all the work he’d done for the estate, all his sacrifices of time and effort to help his family move forward after Edwin’s death, nothing had softened their hearts toward him.

He came face to face with Bell’s door. If all his plans had played out as he’d once hoped, he would be courting Miss Stone right now. At least in this instance, he was extremely grateful for the way his luck had turned. He found that smiling wasn’t nearly as difficult as it had been a moment ago. He turned the knob and pushed the door open gently. “Bell, you have a visitor.”

Bell was sitting up in her bed, propped up by every available pillow Nathaniel had been able to find in the cottage. It was a little comical, really. She set her sketchbook down on her lap and met his eye. “Who is it?”

Nathaniel’s grandmother walked into the room and held her arms out wide.