LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 13 JUNE 1814
Much later that night, Anthony was lying on his side in bed, cradling his wife, who had snuggled her back up to his front and was presently sleeping soundly.
Which was fortunate, he realized, because it had started to rain.
He tried to nudge the covers up over her exposed ear so that she would not hear the drops beating against the windows, but she was as fidgety in sleep as she was when awake, and he could not manage to pull the coverlet much above the level of her neck before she shook it off.
He couldn’t yet tell whether the storm would grow electrical in nature, but the force of the rain had increased, and the wind had picked up until it howled through the night, rattling the tree branches against the side of the house.
Kate was growing a little more restless at his side, and he made shhhh-ing sounds as he smoothed her hair with his hand. The storm hadn’t woken her up, but it had definitely intruded upon her slumber. She had begun to mumble in her sleep, tossing and turning until she was curled on her opposite side, facing him.
“What happened to make you hate the rain so?” he whispered, tucking one dark lock of hair behind her ear. But he did not judge her for her terrors; he knew well the frustration of unfounded fears and premonitions. His certainty of his own impending death, for example, had haunted him since the moment he’d picked up his father’s limp hand and laid it gently on his unmoving chest.
It wasn’t something he could explain, or even something he could understand. It was just something he knew.
He’d never feared death, though, not really. The knowledge of it had been a part of him for so long that he merely accepted it, just as other men accepted the other truths that made up the cycle of life. Spring followed winter, and summer after that. For him, death was much the same way.
Until now. He’d been trying to deny it, trying to shut the niggling notion from his mind, but death was beginning to show a frightening face.
His marriage to Kate had sent his life down an alternate path, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he could restrict their marriage to nothing but friendship and sex.
He cared about her. He cared about her far too much. He craved her company when they were apart, and he dreamed about her at night, even as he held her in his arms.
He wasn’t ready to call it love, but it terrified him all the same.
And whatever it was that burned between them, he didn’t want it to end.
Which was, of course, the cruelest irony of all.
Anthony closed his eyes as he let out a weary and nervous exhale, wondering what the hell he was going to do about the complication that lay beside him in the bed. But even while his eyes were shut, he saw the flash of lightning that lit up the night, turning the black of the inside of his eyelids into a bloody red-orange.
Opening his eyes, he saw that they’d left the drapes partway open when they’d retired to bed earlier in the evening. He’d have to shut those; they’d help to keep the lightning from illuminating the room.
But when he shifted his weight and tried to nudge his way out from under the covers, Kate grabbed his arm, her fingers pressing frantically into his muscles.
“Shhhh, now, it’s all right,” he whispered, “I’m only going to close the drapes.”
But she did not let go, and the whimper that escaped her lips when a clap of thunder shook the night nearly broke his heart.
A pale sliver of moonlight filtered through the window, just enough to illuminate the tense, drawn lines of her face. Anthony peered down to assure himself that she was still sleeping, then pried her hands from his arm and got up to close the drapes. He suspected that the flashes of lightning would still sneak into the room, though, so when he was done with the drapes, he lit a lone candle and set it on his nightstand. It didn’t give off enough light to wake her up—at least he hoped it wouldn’t—but at the same time it saved the room from utter blackness.
And there was nothing quite so startling as a streak of lightning cutting through utter blackness.
He crawled back into bed and regarded Kate. She was still sleeping, but not peacefully. She’d curled into a semifetal position and her breathing was labored. The lightning didn’t seem to bother her much, but every time the room shook with thunder she flinched.
He took her hand and smoothed her hair, and for several minutes he simply lay with her, trying to soothe her as she slept. But the storm was increasing in intensity, with the thunder and lightning practically coming on top of each other. Kate was growing more restless by the second, and then, as a particularly loud clap of thunder exploded in the air, her eyes flew open, her face a mask of utter panic.