“How is true that? They didn’t come.” And she’d remained there, trapped.
Brand sprang up from his chair. “We didn’t know where you’d gone.” He quickly crossed the floor and once at the pianoforte, he leaned against it. Concern lined his expression. “No one told us anything about your absence. When Drew asked, our father shouted us from the room.”
“Tried harder you could have!” Oh, she hated when she got upset, for the words had more of a chance at tripping over themselves. “I was afraid, alone, confused.”
“I didn’t know!” Brand shoved a hand through his hair. “But as soon as I did, as soon as Drew brought you home, when I met you at that Christmastide house party, I’ve been racking my brain of how I can make it up to you.”
Her heart trembled a tiny bit. “But that was long ago.”
“I realize that, and I have no excuse. Life happened. The navy consumed me. I met Elizabeth. Started a shipping outfit, but all I can say is that I’m here now, and if John moves you to Ipswich, I fully intend to get to know you better.” Nothing but earnestness reflected on his face. “So we can be the cousins we were cheated out of being by our parents.”
“That sounds lovely.” She nodded even as her fingers continued to press the right combination of keys. “What about Andrew?”
“What about him? He can go to the devil for all I care. I’m done towing the Storme line.” He leaned over until he was back in her line of vision. “Forgive me?”
For a few seconds, she pounded away on the keys, building up into the next crescendo in the piece. Once she crested it and the melody slowed, Caroline nodded again. “Yes.”
Brand exchanged a speaking glance with John, who gestured toward the door with his chin.
“Perhaps you should leave us alone for a bit,” he asked of her cousin. “It’s obvious Caroline is upset. I’d like to help her reach the turning point she’s sorely needed for a while.”
“Will I see you both at dinner?”
“Of course.” John waved him off. “Go write your wife a letter.” Finally, her cousin left the room, and her husband returned to stand near the pianoforte. “You seem to have more on your mind that you wish to speak into the air.”
She nodded but continued to play. “Yes. I am very angry with my family. They left me.” Tears stung the backs of her eyelids.
“But that’s not what I’m going to do.” When she didn’t know how to answer him because the churning emotions in her chest roared loud, he went on. “It’s sometimes helpful to understand your perception is nothing but pain from the past discoloring your view of your life now.”
“How?” Caroline frowned.
“All those old feelings cloud your mind, make you pretend that you still see them.”
“But I feel them now.”
“I understand, for I fight with them too, but we can’t let them win. The past is not your present nor your future. If I must remember that, so do you.” He patted her shoulder, let his fingers drift along her nape. Tingles swept through in his wake. “Drop all those dead emotions that aren’t doing anything for you. You’re safe now. You aren’t trapped and forgotten any longer. Those old stories you keep fighting with? Those chapters have closed. There is a whole new book to step into that’s filled with light and amazing things.”
Caroline shook her head. “My future, though settled, is still confusing.”
“That’s as to be expected.”
“I am fearful.” Her playing grew more and more frantic. No longer did the keys soothe or the music calm. All the emotions in her chest twisted with the notes to create a violent storm she couldn’t outrun. “You want children; have talked of having them. What if they are as broken in the mind as me? How can we do that to them?”
“Sweeting, you are not broken. Neither are you insane. Don’t put stock in anything people say. Pity is just as destructive as an ugly soul.”
That made sense on some level, but it didn’t help slide the puzzle pieces into place. Her mind reeled and whispered to her that no one loved her. It was all a joke. “After the asylum, after Cousin Andrew, I dreamed of being free.”
“You are. Do you not feel that way? That was the purpose in marrying. So you could find out who you were away from the Stormes, away from all that brought you pain.” Confusion reflected in his golden-brown eyes, and she wanted to cry, for it was her who made him feel that.
“I am here, with you,” she said slowly, not wanting her words jumbled. “But I’m waiting. Any day I fear you will discover I am a fraud, a pretend woman and wife, that I am truly mad. That I can do nothing but paint and play music. I’ve trapped you.” The reality of that tightened her chest. It had never been her intent to pull him down into her world.
“That isn’t true at all.” John’s deep voice seemed to fill the space around her, and that only brought her closer to riding that angry wave. “You are not a fraud, Caroline, but I hope you’ll change your way of thinking. This way no longer serves you.”
Why couldn’t he understand? “You will never love me! Don’t you see? Joke already we are to servants who laugh. No one has ever loved me.” She slammed her hands onto the keys, uncaring when a discordant noise echoed in the room.
“I am not your family.” A touch of anger had entered his voice, but he breathed deeply and let it out. “Even now, I… I’m learning to see you for who you are and who you are becoming.” His tone had modulated. “Already I’m quite fond of you.” The warmth in his voice stood as a testament to that fact.
And it made her all the more confused. “But not as a man is to a woman, a husband to a wife. We are not real.”