Dangerous Exile by K.J. Jackson

{ Chapter 20 }

Heaven help her, what had she done?

She’d wanted—needed—Talen to remember his past, to remember her. To know that she wasn’t mad and destined for an asylum. But this—she’d never meant to send him into madness.

She hadn’t wanted this. Not the horror of what had happened to him. Not for him to leave this world even as he left his body behind.

He’d warned her and she hadn’t listened. She’d let her own blasted self-doubt demand this of him.

Rain had started, heavy rain, but even that hadn’t nudged Talen from where he’d frozen in place. Poised on his knees in front of his mother’s grave, not moving, his eyes open but not seeing anything.

She’d yelled his name, over and over again, but she couldn’t get him to flinch, to move. A granite statue she couldn’t budge.

Wedging herself between him and the headstone, she bent down in front of him, her right hand fully on his cheek, her left fingertips cradling the other side of his jaw. The rain was coming vicious now, slashing across her cheeks, drowning his face in rivers that ran from his dark blond hair.

“Talen—Talen—look at me, please. Just look at me.” Not that her face could pull him from the monstrosity of what he must be feeling at the moment, reliving the deaths of his parents.

Not that anything could pull him back.

Her hands tightened around his face. “Talen, please.”

No reaction, not even the slightest blink. Panic set deep into her bones. His eyes were glassy, so like her mother’s often were when she’d visit her in the asylum.

She couldn’t lose him. Not now.

What the hell had she done?

“Apologies for the interruption, but the rain has started in earnest.”

Ness tore her gaze away from Talen to crane her neck and look at the driver they’d hired in Birmingham at the far side of the iron fence. She had to lift her voice to be heard over the downpour. “The rain, it is already mucking the roads, isn’t it?”

“It is, miss. We need to leave before the carriage gets stuck. I moved it closer along the lane.”

She straightened, her right hand moving to grip the side of Talen’s neck. “Help me. Help me get him back down to the carriage.”

The driver hustled along the side of the fence until he could enter the cemetery. “What is wrong with him?”

“He’s had a shock. That is all. But your arm around him from one side and mine on the other should suffice.”

The driver nodded, quickly slipping his hold along Talen’s back and prodding him upright onto his feet as Ness did the same on Talen’s left side.

Thank the heavens, Talen held the bulk of his weight on his own, and they managed to get him to take steps forward, though much of his heft still crushed down onto her shoulder. Again and again as they moved down the hillside, she tried to shift Talen over slightly, so he would lean more against the driver, but he would take a step and then lean back onto her.

But she would bear the weight. Bear anything for him.

She hadn’t realized until that slog down the hill, how much he truly meant to her. How she would trade everything—make a deal with the devil—if only he would come back to her.

Her right shoulder near to cracking, they finally got Talen down the hillside and across the field to the coach.

When they stopped at the open door of the carriage, Talen’s eyes were still glassy, unfocused, as Ness implored him, “Two steps up, Talen, please. Just two steps up and into the coach.”

An exhale of relief flew from her mouth as his right leg lifted, then his left. Up and into the carriage.

So he hadn’t completely left her. Not yet.

She jumped up into the coach behind him, prodding him toward the bench before she turned back to the driver. “How far is the nearest coaching inn?”

“There was one in the village we passed several miles back inCalthwaite.”

She waved her hand toward that general direction. “Please, then, to there, posthaste.”

He gave her a nod and closed the carriage door, the coach shifting to the side as his weight scampered up onto the driver’s seat.

The ride back to the village was agonizingly slow with the muck of the road sucking at the wheels with every turn and stopping the coach twice, but within two hours they had a room in a coaching inn and Ness was teetering on the side of the bed, biting her bottom lip. She stared at Talen sitting on a chair, facing the fire, his eyes still glossed over. No words, no movement.

Nothing from him even as she’d pulled off his sopping coat, waistcoat and lawn shirt, and pulled off his boots. Even with as wet as they were, she left his trousers in place. She doubted she could get him up off the chair enough to remove them.

Then she’d sent a tumbler of brandy down his throat in hopes that might numb whatever had seized him, but there was no change.

As she’d stripped off her own wet dress, leaving in place her damp shift, she’d kept up steady chatter about inane things like the birds most common in Scotland, the types of moss present on the ancient stones around Whetland Castle, and the lambing of ewes.

Anything to keep her mouth moving and her thoughts off the possibility that she’d broken his mind with their trip to the Washburn estate.

Not that he heard any of it. But she couldn’t leave him alone in the silence. Silence with nothing to bring him back to the present.

But now she was waning, her words faltering, tears threatening.

Watching the agony he was in had shattered her heart. That she had done that to him. Make him suffer as he did. She would never forgive herself for this.

He would never forgive her for this.

With her shoulders slumped, she scooted along the bed toward the bedside table and grabbed the decanter of brandy, pouring it into the tumbler that sat next to it until it was half full. She rarely drank brandy, but now was the time to start if there ever was one.

One sip. Two. Both gulps sending fire across her tongue and deep into her throat. What she deserved.

A third sip at her lips and Talen jerked, his body suddenly moving where there had only been stillness.

The jerk and then he stood slowly, rising from the chair as his eyes came back into focus, though he didn’t look at her, his gaze solidly trained on the fire.

She jumped to her feet, setting the glass on the table and moving to stand in front of him.

Staring at him. Silent. Waiting. Excruciating.

“Hell. All of this.” The words eked out rough along his tongue, a raw whisper.

Her lips parted, but she had no words. No words for this. No words to make this better. To soothe the pain.

His eyes slowly shifted up to her from the fire. “Dammit, this is why I froze. This is why I’m not fit to protect you, Ness. Not fit for anything but death and disaster.”