Page 27 of An Accidental Bride for the Duke
It was a strange sensation, that he was driven to panic suddenly about his wife’s well-being. He should not have cared. If anything, he should have felt relieved that this was the reason she hadn’t come down. But for reasons he did not fully understand, nor did he try to, he worried that her sickness was his fault.
Was I too cruel to her yesterday? What if she is not truly sick and she is just angry with me? I thought I made my reasons clear, and that she understood them. But perhaps I grossly misinterpreted the situation…
He bit into his lower lip as he tried to curb the panic. He told himself it did not matter to him, why should he care if she did not react to yesterday how he expected her to. That thought should have brought relief, his question answered, back now to ignoring her as was his original plan.
And yet… Philip could not break from the thought that he had done something wrong. More than that, he needed to check on her.
It was as if his body moved without his command. He rose from the table and strode from the breakfast room. Up the stairs, down the hall, and soon he was approaching her bedroom. Dammit, he wanted to make sure that she was fine and that he had not caused whatever this was.
He knocked gently on the door. “Iris…”
“Come in,” she spoke from the other side, her voice weak.
He pushed the door open, and he breathed out with relief when he saw her. She was still in bed, the curtains to the room drawn, the atmosphere dark and heavy and telling him without the need to ask that she was not doing this to avoid him. That she was indeed sick.
“You are… what happened?” he asked, staying by the door as if afraid to go in. Afraid to show that he was worried about her.
She laughed softly. “Care to take a guess?”
He grimaced. “I… it is not… yesterday…” Philip was ordinarily the type who brimmed with confidence, caring not for the opinion of others or what they might think. But in that moment, he was embarrassed to say how he was feeling.
“No,” she said, her voice weak and hoarse. “It is nothing that you did.”
He felt himself relax. “Good. It was stupid of me, I know, but…” His cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and he looked away. “That is not important.”
She said nothing to that, but Philip could feel her watching him. No doubt she was as confused by his being there as he was. Considering his insistence that he wanted nothing to do with her he should not have given a damn that she’d taken ill.
But Philip was a complicated fellow. Despite his desires to be left alone, there was a side of him that was caring. That feltan inborn need to look after those that needed it, because they couldn’t take care of themselves. It came from his youth, his family… and all the trouble that had caused him.
For that reason, despite everything he had said, still not knowing what he wanted exactly, Philip walked further into the room if for no other reason than to let his wife know that he was there for her.
“You seemed fine yesterday,” he said, his voice soft. “I would have never…” He grimaced when he came closer, because she looked an absolute fright.
Her white skin was pasty and grey. Her dark brown hair was matted from sweat. Her eyes were sunken. Her frame withered. And she coughed lightly, the sound like a shovel being dragged across gravel. So frail… she needed him.
“I was that,” she said, her voice still pitifully weak. “But this…” A shake of the head. “It is not as surprising or random as you might think.”
“What does that mean?”
As fragile as Iris already looked, somehow she managed to appear even more so as she withdrew into herself and shifted further beneath the covers of the bed. “I guess there’s no reason for you to know this about me, but as a child I was sick quite often.”
“You were?” Philip frowned, finding that surprising in one who appeared to him so strong and capable.
She laughed bitterly. “In truth, I was sick more often than I was not. When I was born, until my early teens, it was almost every day. It was my lungs, whatever the cause, I had trouble breathing and could not exert myself for too long otherwise I’d feel weak.”
“And now…”
“Oh, now I am fine.” She smiled with exaggeration and laughed. “At least I am most of the time. But it comes and goes and every now and then, there are days like this one.”
“Iris…” Philip found himself moving toward her. “I am so?—”
“Please do not say you are sorry,” she spoke over him. “I got enough of that growing up. My mother would have wrapped me in wool if she’d been able. Sometimes, I wondered if I was as sick as they said I was, or it was just that I was never given a chance to prove otherwise.”
He laughed softly. “Somehow, I think you’ve managed to prove the point well enough by now.”
“Perhaps,” she sighed. “And my mother is a lot better about it—she does not mother me as she used to. But whenever I am with her, there is still the sense that she sees me as the same weak little girl who needs her protection always.” She scoffed. “Typically, I can’t say or do anything to persuade her fromthe notion either. The fact that she allowed me to marry was surprising enough.”
“I don’t think you are weak,” he said.
