As if on cue, the clock on the mantel rang midnight. Twelve tinny bells echoed through the room, and both Miss Grey and Captain Neill paused to listen.
After the last chime, she squeezed his sweating, trembling hand, and said, “There. That’s midnight. The night is half over already. Soon, it will be dawn, and you’ll be safe. This will all feel like a bad dream. You won’t even remember what you were so frightened of.”
Not remember? How could he forget?
“Miss Grey, I’m not a child afraid of the dark. My fears haunt me, day and night. Don’t you understand?” He looked into her blank eyes. “No, of course not—how could you, you sweet, sheltered girl? You don’t know anything of destruction or addiction. Have you ever heard of opium? Morphine?”
“Morphine is for pain.”
“Yes! And I am in agony. I don’t eat. I barely sleep. I spend every minute of my life praying for the death that I somehow dodged in the trenches,” he said. “Oh, I’ve seen the doctors and the specialists. Spent months in hospitals and convalescent homes, being shocked and prodded, and encouraged to talk about my feelings. Nothing helped, except one thing—morphine.”
He jerked his hand from Miss Grey’s grasp, too disgusted with himself to let her touch him. His skin was pallid and clammy. Just talking about the medicine made his body crave it once more. Brody braced himself for a fresh wave of sickness. “A London doctor first prescribed barbiturates. Said the tablets would help me cope. But they weren’t enough. I needed more. After a particularly difficult episode, I was given an injection of morphine. The effects were remarkable—I was calm, quiet, and, most importantly, free of the demons that had plagued me for so long,” he explained. “The problem, you see, is that I’ve become quite dependent on it. When the needle is withheld from me, I become…sick.”
“Then can’t you go to hospital and get more?”
He almost smiled. “There are easier ways to get morphine than going to hospital.” When Miss Grey looked confused, he added, “Unscrupulous doctors, chemists with a sideline, back alley dealers, and dens in Chinatowns all over Britain. In fact, one can get it almost anywhere, at any time.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“Oh, it is—terrible and wonderful, all at once.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, shuddering. “I wish I’d never heard of it.”
“Then I’m sorry to be the one to teach you. But I thought you ought to know the sort of man you’re dealing with.”
He couldn’t lie to her anymore. She’d been so honest and open about her blindness that he felt like a cad hiding his sickness from her now. He wanted Miss Grey to know the real Captain Broderick Neill, so that no one could ever accuse him of misleading her. If they were going to be friends—or more than friends, or nothing to each other at all—she would go into it knowing everything.
“I’ve never met anyone like you before, Miss Grey. Talking with you tonight has made me believe that perhaps I’m not a slave to my demons after all. Despite my car crash, and my morphine withdrawal, I’ve enjoyed sitting here with you in the dark more than I’ve enjoyed any moment of my life. Does that make sense?”
She nodded. “I understand completely.”
Brody reached for her hands. “Don’t you feel the same?”
“I—yes, of course. I think so.”
He’d never before felt a thrill from holding a girl’s hand. Feeling Miss Grey’s ghostly, white fingers between his own large, calloused palms was like a prize he’d worked very hard to earn. He wasn’t a chaste man, but tonight he felt like a schoolboy walking out with his first sweetheart.
There was something different about this woman. She made him want to be a better man.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For a while, she forgot Captain Neill was sick and injured. Strange how something so obvious to her when they first met was slowly becoming no longer noticeable. He had been sick a few more times, and even complained again about the demons in the corners, but he no longer hung on the brink of death. He was able to talk and laugh, and even flirt with her.
In fact, he spoke to her as if she were any other girl. For one night, he was simply a man, and she was simply a woman, and their world was blessedly normal.
Outside, however, the storm continued to rage. Lightning flashed, and thunder clapped. Sometimes, she jumped. Sometimes, he jumped. But, now they were able to laugh it off. It wasn’t so bad to be afraid, as long as they had each other to keep them safe. If the house caught fire, she knew Captain Neill would not leave her in the flames.
Angelica wished it would always be so.
Soon, daylight would come. The shadows would be driven out, and he, like them, would flee this place. Everyone always did. For who would condemn themselves to a world of everlasting darkness, when there was brilliant sunlight just outside these walls?