“Yeah. I am.”
“How many ducks would you like to own on our little farm?”
“Marguerite…” He sighed. “You’ll find a man who loves you.”
“I am aware that I am…on the surface, a suitable partner for a man in all ways but two. First, I have no social standing and absolutely no dowry to speak of. I am, for all intents and purposes, an orphan. But to a rich old man looking for a fertile young thing to decorate his house and his bed, that is likely not too great an obstacle.”
They both grimaced at the thought.
She continued after an exaggerated shudder. “And two, my dear Johnny, you seem to be overlooking the simple fact that has put us both on this boat in the first place. I am a shattered thing. Broken goods, as it were.”
Johnny’s tone lost all hint of mirth. It became as dark as the cloudy night sky on the Atlantic—a sea of nothing but shadows. “The doctor would take you as his wife.”
She frowned and looked out at the ocean, needing the sunlight and cheerful blue waves to chase away the cold that had crept up her spine.
Dr. Gideon Raithe. Her caretaker and her keeper. She owed him her life after he rescued her from Bedlam and took her under his wing. If he asked her for her hand in marriage, she would be dutybound to say yes. Her life was his, after all. Without him, she would be back in that cell in rags with naught but the damp stone walls and the shrieks of her fellow inmates for company.
And the rats.
Honestly, the rats were her favorite part.
They could be vicious things when underfed, but then again, what living creature wasn’t? But they were hardly the dirty, slimy things others made them out to be. In fact, when she began sharing bits of crumbs of her stale bread and whatever refuse they served her as food with her furry cellmates, they became quite friendly. Affectionate, even.
Queen of the Rats, the orderlies called her. The first time they said it, she had just shrugged and said they were kinder than any human she had met within the walls of Bedlam. She had a bruise across her face for that one for a week. After that, she didn’t open her mouth about it.
She owed Dr. Raithe her life.
He would be a wonderful husband. He was breathtakingly handsome—the sharp cut of his jaw, his muscular frame, his deep and velvety voice. His origins in the Ottoman empire made him just a bit exotic and fascinating, but not nearly as much as his stark white hair and molten silver eyes.
Yes. He would make a very attractive husband indeed. Sharing a bed with him would not be a hardship. Not in the least.
In all other ways, he seemed everything a woman could wish for. He was kind. Attentive. Gentlemanly. And he did seem…keen on her. The way he smiled at her. The way he spoke to her. He was more personal with her than she expected a doctor should be with his patients, but perhaps that was just his way. She did not know. Except for Johnny, she never met any of his other patients.
He preferred to practice his trade as a surgeon, he explained. Medical sciences of the mind were a new fascination, and still early in their stages of development.
She accused him of keeping her as a hobby.
Oh, how he had blushed and become flustered at that. She had laughed as he had tried desperately to unseat himself from the uncomfortable hole in which had placed himself.
He was a pleasant man, if incredibly intense at times. And there was…a darkness to him. Like something that lurked beneath the surface of the unfathomable depths of the ocean over which they journeyed. Deep beneath, she knew there were monsters that dwelled within him.
It just remained to see how literal those abominations were.
No, the impossible was exactly that—impossible. Magic was not real, and the visions she had of her repeated deaths at the hands of her warden and savior were just the delusions of a broken mind struggling to cope with some great trauma she had suffered.
But the things that lurked within the darkened corners of Dr. Raithe’s home in London made her second guess such an assertion. She was not sure if she believed in ghosts. But if a man were haunted by them, it was he. Perhaps if he seemed troubled by such things, she would give it more credence. But as it was, he did not shrink away from the things she could glimpse making their way through his home in the dark of the night. If anything, he seemed to embrace them. Speak to them.
Order them about.
He was not tormented by the things that lurked beyond the grave.
He commanded them.
She shook her head and shivered despite the warm sun. “I do not think I am a suitable wife for Dr. Raithe.”
Johnny wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his side, holding her in an embrace. No words passed between them. None were needed.
She did not know why she cried. But as a tear slipped down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away, she found she was not entirely surprised.