“Without proven, medical treatment, his behavior will continue to be erratic,” Dr. Carmichael argued. “His manic fits will become unmanageable, and his depressed episodes could cause him to harm himself. Without treatment, the prognosis for men with his condition is grim.”
“Then I will find another way to treat him,” Beckett insisted. He glared over his shoulder at the doctor. “There must be another way. There has to be. And I will find it.”
He turned back to Noah, who had enough strength and presence of mind to button up his own shirt, even though he was weeping.
“We’ll find another way, love,” Beckett told him, crouching to put Noah’s shoes on for him. “I’ll search high and low. There must be other ways to even you out.”
“What if there are no other ways?” Noah asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Beckett stood and clasped Noah’s face in his hands. “There will be a way, love,” he said, then kissed Noah’s lips, not caring if Dr. Carmichael and the orderlies were watching or not. “There will be. And I won’t leave you to find it on your own.”
ChapterFifteen
He was home. Nothing had ever felt so much like home to Noah as sitting bundled on the sofa in Beckett’s drawing room, a cozy fire snapping away in the grate not far from him, a warm cup of tea in his hands, new, soft slippers on his feet, and Aurora chatting happily away to him from one of the large seats across from him.
“It’s usually only the three of us for Thanksgiving,” she explained in a way that was only a hair too animated for her to be completely at ease with him. “I know they don’t have Thanksgiving in England, but I rather like it. Father, Beckett, and I have always celebrated in our own way, with a great big turkey that the three of us alone would never be able to finish, harvest vegetables, mountains of sweet potatoes, and two or three different kinds of pie for dessert: apple, pumpkin, and pecan. Have you ever had pecan pie before, Noah?”
Noah had listened to Aurora’s ramblings about the strange, uniquely American holiday, sipping his tea as he did, and while he wore a smile, his insides felt strangely hollow.
“I haven’t,” he said. “What’s it like?”
Aurora huffed and sank into her chair. “I’m not sure how to begin to describe it. It’s very sweet, for one, but so, so good.”
Aurora launched into an explanation of pecan pie, and Noah watched her and nodded where he felt it was appropriate, but he couldn’t focus his attention for anything.
The therapies Dr. Carmichael had prescribed for him had been nightmarish. Being nearly drowned in a tank was bad enough, as was being spun until he was so dizzy he didn’t know which was the floor and which was the ceiling, but being strapped to a table and shocked until his entire body seized up was something he never wanted to repeat. It had been a sort of pain he’d never experienced before, not like being punched or falling over. It had been sharp and persistent, but even worse, it had been terrifying. He’d had no control over his own body at all.
As long as he lived, he would never forget the relief and elation he’d felt when Beckett charged through the treatment room door to claim him, stealing him away from the sadistic doctor and his orderlies. Maybe they all believed they were doing good and that the treatments they’d tried to administer were for the best, but to Noah, they’d only been torture.
“Aren’t they?” Aurora asked.
Noah blinked, forcing his eyes to focus on his companion. He thought about giving her an answer, even though he had no idea what she’d asked, but after everything the entire Smith family had done for him, he was loath to be dishonest with any of them.
“I’m sorry, Aurora,” he said on a weak sigh. “My attention wandered and I did not catch your question.”
Aurora smiled at him with a look of such sympathy that it would have broken Noah’s heart…if it wasn’t already broken.
“I asked if you liked apples,” she said with great understanding and patience.
That tore at Noah’s heart even more. Aurora might have been a bit young for her age, as so many pampered young women of high society were, but the maturity in her eyes as she watched Noah was proof that she could be a brave mother hen when she needed to be.
“I do like them,” Noah said. He reached across the distance that separated them, and she took his hand. “I like you.”
“I like you too,” Aurora answered with a smile. “And don’t worry,” she rushed on. “Beckett has been reading every book he can on the treatment of…on ways to heal distressed minds. I’ve never seen him so devoted to researching anything, even when he was in college.”
Noah smiled, even though his heart twisted with guilt and shame. “Yes, Beckett is a dedicated friend. I’ve no doubt he’ll come up with some sort of novel way to manage my madness.”
Aurora’s face pinched, and she tightened her grip on Noah’s hand. “He loves you, you know,” she said. “Very much.”
Noah kept smiling, but his insides filled with butterflies. They all felt like stiff, mechanical butterflies with sharp edges that threatened to cut his heart to shreds, but they were butterflies. He had figured out Beckett loved him days ago. Even before the electroshock session. But it was that moment of heroic rescue, when Beckett stole him away and took him home, that solidified the truth in Noah’s gut. Beckett truly loved him.
Any man who would go through such torment and trouble for him—miserable, broken, difficult him—had to love him.
But as much as Noah wanted to thank his savior with heaps of adoration in return, he felt as though his heart had frozen shut with the shocks that had jolted through him, stiffening his body and erasing his mind. He didn’t know what he felt and couldn’t decipher what he was feeling. Whether it truly was a result of the therapies or whether he had simply become too much for himself, he didn’t know.
“Tell me about you,” he said, giving Aurora’s hand one last squeeze, then letting it go. “Have you been lucky enough to win an invitation to any of Mrs. Astor’s parties yet?”
“Not yet,” Aurora said, her face lighting as if she were sharing gossip with one of her women friends instead of a broken, pathetic, male invalid, “but I believe there is a strong chance I will be invited to several of the most anticipated holiday parties this Christmas.”