Page 58 of House of Roots and Ruin
First Dauphine, now Alexander.
More ticks.
At a quarter past the hour, spun into agitation by all my pacing, I left the study, making my way deeper into the south wing. I had a vague approximation of where Alex’s bedroom was and when I heard a sudden moan, echoing in a familiar baritone, I knew I was heading in the right direction.
The door was ajar.
“Alex?” I asked, stepping inside the parlor.
Thrashing sounds came from the bedroom beyond, cries of pain and torment. A voice I recognized as Frederick’s ordered for a valise to be brought in.
That door swung open.
“Miss Thaumas, what are you doing here?” Johann asked, eyes wide with surprise.
I’d never seen him look so unkempt. His jacket had been removed and shirtsleeves rolled up. His vest was left undone and hung askew, as if something—or someone—had been tugging on it. His blond locks, usually so carefully pomaded back, fell into his eyes and he breathed through an open mouth.
“Alexander and I were supposed to have a session this morning but he never arrived. I thought I’d come check on him.” In the room beyond, Alex’s voice rose into a howl that pierced my chest. “What happened?”
“Pains in his legs,” Johann explained, his eyes darting about the room. “He gets this way sometimes.”
“I thought he couldn’t feel anything—”
“Where’s that damn valise?” Frederick shouted over a fresh volley of Alex’s struggles.
“Make it stop, please, Arina, make it stop,” he wept.
Johann dove forward, snatching the black bag from beneath a side table. “Master Laurent won’t be able to see you today.”
“Is that Verity?” Alex called out, panicked. “No. No. I don’t want her to see—” His words broke off, dropping into a groan. “Don’t let her see…see me…”
Heavy footsteps approached the parlor. Frederick peered through the gap, face splotched and eyes dark. “You have to go,” he stated firmly.
I didn’t want to disobey but I couldn’t just leave either. “If I could just see him for a moment, please? Wish him w—”
“No,” Frederick insisted. “Go.”
The door clicked shut with decisive resolution.
For a moment, I lingered in the parlor, listening to the horrible noises as my gaze drifted about the room. This was Alexander’s private retreat from the rest of Chauntilalie, a space wholly his own.
It smelled of him, like paper and ink, spiced tea and green clippings.
Piles of books stacked high on every surface. Some had bits of paper or ribbons poking from their tops, indicating where he left off in his reading. Others laid facedown, their spines splayed over the arm of a chair, the edge of a table. On his writing desk was one of the renderings I’d first drawn of him, from our afternoon under the redbuds. I traced my finger over his penciled form, wishing there was something I could do to help him now.
A great and terrible cry ripped through the air, raising the hairs of my arm. The silence that followed was even more dreadful. Then came his whispers.
“Thank you, thank you,” he murmured over and over, his voice broken and beatific. “Thank you.”
I turned and fled the room.
Gerard was in the main greenhouse, bent over a table. Rows of tiny terra-cotta pots lined the workspace and he spooned a sample of rich, black soil into each of them with care.
I was so relieved to see one of the Laurents in their usual state, I nearly hugged him.
“Verity,” he greeted, looking up from his work at the sound of my approach. He checked his pocket watch, a little rose-gold bauble hanging from a sparkling chain at his waist. It sprung open, revealing the clock face on one side and a small portrait of a much younger Dauphine on the other. “I thought you’d be with Alexander.”
“He’s…he’s not well,” I murmured, unsure of how to explain what I’d caught glimpses of upstairs, of the things I’d heard. “You might want to check on him.”
