Anxious to check on Noelle, Brigitte sat up … and just as quickly sank back into the bed. Why in the name of heaven was she so weak?
Memory flooded back in a rush. She’d been ill—very ill—for how long, she hadn’t a clue. The last thing she remembered was collapsing in Noelle’s chambers.
No. She remembered Eric, sitting at her bedside, bathing her face, forcing sips of water down her throat.
Or had she dreamed all that?
Gingerly, she tried rising again, this time slowly, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and coming cautiously to her feet. She groped at her nightstand until she found the lamp, turning it up so she could see.
Her room was empty, the grandfather clock by the wardrobe telling her it was nearly two A.M. Shivering, she glanced down at her thin linen nightdress and automatically reached for her robe, only to discover it wasn’t in its customary position at the foot of her bed.
Her gaze fell on the tufted chair, its indented cushions and rumpled blanket a clear sign that someone had been using it as a cot.
Eric.
With a tender smile, Brigitte ran her fingers over the chair’s elaborate wooden trim. So it hadn’t been a dream. Eric had been with her, tending to her while she’d been sick, actually sleeping in her room lest she need him.
Joy swelled inside her.
The noise slashed the silence again.
Brigitte’s head came up, her smile vanishing as she focused on the harsh, abrasive sound. Noelle?
All else forgotten, Brigitte dashed down the hall and flung open the door to Noelle’s room.
She halted at the threshold.
The room was dark, quiet, the even sound of Noelle’s breathing telling Brigitte she was fast asleep.
Relieved, Brigitte shut the door, leaning against it to regain her strength—and to analyze her persistent feeling that something was amiss. With a will of its own, her gaze traveled across the hall to the room she’d been forbidden to enter—the room she’d known from the outset had been Liza’s.
The door was ajar, a shaft of light escaping through it … along with an echo of the rasping sound that had awakened her.
Reservations cast aside, Brigitte crossed the hall and slipped into the room, somehow knowing she was taking another irrevocable step, this one more pivotal than those she’d taken the day she’d agreed to marry Eric and the afternoon she’d shared his bed.
The room was in shambles.
Broken furniture, shattered glass, splintered paintings—shrouded in four years of dust—covered the carpet in a blanket of debris. In the center of it all stood Eric, head bent, shoulders heaving with long-repressed emotion.
“Eric.” Brigitte said his name softly, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms about his waist.
He went rigid. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, his voice raw, harsh with pain.
“I love you.” She lay her cheek against his shirt. “I want to be here with you. And I won’t leave, no matter how hard you fight me.”
His muscles went limp, and he turned, crushing her against his chest. “I have no more strength to fight. But Brigitte”—he swallowed—“look around you. For God’s sake, see what I’ve done, what I am. Run from me while you can.”
“I don’t want to run. And I can see perfectly well what you’ve done. I can also see why. Perhaps you managed to deceive your staff, the villagers, even yourself. But you can’t deceive me. As for who you are, you’re the one who’s blind to that truth, not I.” She tilted back her head, meeting his tortured gaze. “Stop destroying yourself. None of what happened was your fault. Eric—” She lay her hand against his jaw. “Liza wasn’t worth it.”
Shock supplanted anguish. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I most certainly do.” Brigitte stood her ground. “My fever is gone, my head perfectly clear. As for my assessment of Liza, I know a great deal more than you think I do, possibly more than anyone else does. You see, my lord, I had the unique opportunity to see the cruelty your sister kept so carefully concealed behind her engag
ing veneer. I knew her priorities, her coldness, even the extent to which she’d go to ensure her goals were realized.”
A vein throbbed at Eric’s temple. “How?” was all he managed.
“For reasons of her own, Liza decided I was a potential threat to her future. So she relinquished her facade in order to keep me in my place.” Brigitte’s smile was sad. “I must admit, she did a fine job.”