Wicked Becomes You(86)

“Let me explain something to you,” he said.

Slowly she nodded.

He angled his body toward hers slightly, as though preparing to tell her a secret. Instead, in a calm voice, he said, “You speak of love, Gwen, as if it’s something that should hold a person down.”

Her lips parted on an unvoiced syllable. Yes, she wanted to say. Love should hold you. It should bind you.

But she did not speak, because with a sinking feeling, she suddenly divined the direction of his thoughts.

And, indeed: “I suppose that’s what love properly is,” he continued with a rueful half smile. “But you must understand—sometimes it feels indistinguishable from cowardice.”

Here he lost her. “It takes bravery to love,” she said. “I see no cowardice in being beholden to a person.”

“Yes, well, perhaps you wouldn’t,” he said softly. “Here’s a tale. Part of it you know. I had terrible asthma as a boy.”

“Yes,” she said slowly. She knew it through Richard, and of course his sisters, who forever feared that the childhood ailment had wrought some lasting weakness in him. Gwen had never understood such worries: Alex was the most vigorous man she knew.

“Terrible fucking disease,” he said bluntly. “I would wish it on no one. What can you count on, if not your own breath? And there were no identifiable causes for it. I never knew when it would strike—one moment I would be well, the next, flat on my back on the floor. Then there was only one question: where was the medicine? Sometimes it was in my pocket, and sometimes, it even did the trick. But sometimes it was fifty yards away—or, worse yet, only a few inches past my reach—the nitre paper and matches on the table above me, and me staring up, unable to do so much as lift my hand or call out, my only hope that someone . . . a maid . . . someone would come by.”

He took a deep breath. “I remember—” He exhaled, and she did, too, through a throat that felt tight. “I remember those waits,” he said quietly. “Every one of them. Suffocating, helpless as an infant. I was not calm, Gwen. I never mastered that art. I was terrified. I always knew that this would be the time when no one came.”

She blinked, and flinched as she felt a tear fall free. She reached up to shove her hair out of her face, but really to wipe the tear. If he saw it, he would not appreciate it.

“I had no choice but to depend on others,” he said.

“I know.” Her voice betrayed her. It sounded full of gravel.

He glanced at her, light blue eyes penetrating. “The memories do not upset me. Perhaps I should have said that beforehand. I am sharing them by way of explaining something to you. After a few frightening episodes, my parents set someone to follow me about. Room to room, house to lawn, lawn to house. A bloody ear pressing to the door of the water closet. No woods for me; the pollen was suspect. No dogs, no horses; dander might trigger an episode. Other boys of my age played rough; I was kept to the company of my sisters, and of Gerard, when his self-respect could permit him to play with a cripple.”

“Alex,” she breathed.

“That is only the word he used,” he said evenly. “I did not agree with it, of course. But all this care did not prevent the attacks. And so the doctors began to speculate that the asthma was a product of nerves. Off I was sent to Heverley End. Nobody else around. My parents hoped that solitude and a strict schedule would heal me. I was taken for daily walks. Fed and lectured and taught. Cleaned and put to bed. I was ten, eleven, during that time. Like a beast tethered at the end of a chain. But at least I felt safe. There was no chance that an episode would find me alone on the floor, inches from the medicine. All that ailed me was my own loathing. I was glad, for a time, to be a tame little pet.

“That didn’t last long, of course. I was growing. My lungs began to catch up to my limbs. I grew bolder and decided I wanted to go to school. I begged and argued and pleaded and demanded to go. They refused. Out of love, no doubt. I threw fits. I ran away. They caught me and locked me inside my rooms to keep me safe. Out of love, you understand. They fitted up Heverley End like a prison, with locks that kept one inside. And even then—even then—I knew that their decisions, and the restrictions they placed upon me, seemed necessary to them. Because they loved me. They were keeping me alive, they thought. And I have never resented them or wished them ill for it. But it took some very spectacular threats to finally win the right to go to Eton. And I still find it very difficult—so difficult, Gwen—to think of love and concern without thinking, first, of how very many ways one might suffocate.”