“You’re daft.”
“Am I?” She curled her legs up on the bed, positioning herself more comfortably.
James frowned. “What are you doing? Are you settling in for a cozy chat?”
“I don’t see why not. I’m wide-awake, and you say you never sleep. We might as well talk to each other.”
“What if I don’t want to chat?” His tone was so close to that of a petulant child that Laura had to smile.
“Then I suppose I shall have to do all the talking, won’t I?”
“You probably would.” But he turned toward her.
“Why won’t you tell your family that you are ill?”
“What do you expect me to do? Stand up at dinner and announce I shall die soon? I’m sure they have figured it out by now. Nobody wants to speak of it.”
“Your mother doesn’t realize it. She thinks that marrying me shows you’re expecting a long life ahead of you.”
“Mother likes to be happy. She doesn’t want shadows or lurking demons or anything but fine clothes and a pretty reflection in the mirror. And ample men to admire her.”
“But what about when you—when it happens?”
“You see?” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Even you have trouble saying it.” He rubbed his hand over his face, knocking the cloth askew, and Laura leaned over to adjust it. “Don’t worry yourself over my mother. She will have a grand opportunity to emote. Throw herself across the casket and weep. She has perfected the art of crying without damaging her looks.”
“James!” Laura was shocked. “What a horrid thing to say. Do you really believe your mother won’t grieve for you? That she doesn’t love you?”
“Oh, she cares. Just as she cared for my father. Or Aunt Mirabelle. Or—” He broke off with a shrug. “But she dearly loves the drama of it all, as well.”
Laura studied him for a moment. His thick, dark lashes shielded his gaze from her. He appeared to be intent on the path his fingers took as he traced the pattern on her brocade dressing gown where it spread across the bed coverings.
She wondered if she ought to cease questioning him, but it seemed to her that conversation, even his irritation at her probing, distracted him from his pain.
“If you know that your family has surmised you are ill, why do you try so hard to keep them from seeing it? Why do you hide your tiredness? Your pain?”
“My weakness?” He looked up at her then, his mouth twisting in a mockery of a smile. “Well, one cannot let down the side, can one?”
“What side?”
“I’m not sure,” he admitted, the smile falling away. “Very well, if you must know, I cannot bear to have my mother indulge in her tragic role. Crying and bemoaning and asking me every two minutes how I feel. Handkerchief always at the ready, reminding me of every tender moment in my life, real or imagined, pleading with me to be strong and not leave her. It’s exhausting.”
“I see. But what about the others? Your brothers and sister, their spouses.”
“Them?” His jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.”
“So they are the other side.”
“Mm. I suppose the other side is everyone except myself.”
“You’re wrong there,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice, reaching out to turn the cloth over so that the cooler side lay against his forehead. “I am your wife. So whether you like it or not, I am on your side.”
His eyes flew to hers, an odd spasm of emotion so fleeting she couldn’t identify it flickering across his features. “I don’t need your pity,” he told her roughly.
“Maybe not. But you could certainly use my help.”
He turned his eyes back to his forefinger tracing a whorl on the brocade. After a moment, in a low voice, he said, “I’m losing my mind.”
“What?”
He wet his lips. “I couldn’t tot up a column of numbers today. It wasn’t just my stupid hand shaking. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t remember how to add them. It was hopeless.”
“Don’t fret over that. Someone else can do it. I’ll check them for you if you like.”
“Yes, but that’s not the point. I’ve always been good with numbers. I understand them. They’re fixed, certain. But now . . .” He turned his hand palm up, flexing his fingers as if grasping at air. “I’ve lost them.”
Laura took his hand. “You haven’t lost them. They’re still there; they still mean the same things. They’re just as constant as they were before.”
“Yes. It is I who’s not.” He stroked his thumb idly up and down hers. Sad as his words were, it was the intense heat of his skin that worried her. He was growing more feverish. “I sometimes see . . . things that aren’t there.”