Noah tried to pay attention as Aurora launched into an explanation of Miss Elizabeth Callendar’s skating party that was to happen the first week of December. He could only manage a few nods in what he hoped were the right spots as his thoughts drifted.
Beckett loved him. He wanted to be comfortable with the idea. He wanted to wrap himself in it and surrender to Beckett’s warm embrace. There had been no question when Beckett brought Noah home three days ago that he would continue to sleep in Beckett’s bed. They hadn’t made love at all, but Noah had clung to Beckett every night, fearful that if he fell asleep without Beckett’s arms around him, he would be assaulted by nightmares he couldn’t wake from.
It was no way to conduct a love affair, though. He had nothing of any value to give Beckett. He was dead weight, just like he’d been dead weight for his family and for Marcus. Beckett was the mad one for continuing to give him shelter and solace when there wasn’t a damn thing Noah could give him in return.
He wanted to, though. He wanted to give Beckett everything, the sun and the moon and every sort of happiness known to man. He just couldn’t. He no longer knew how to feel or give anything of any value.
Noah had just started to entertain the whisper in the back of his head that warned him that was the blackness talking when Gardener appeared in the parlor doorway.
“A Mr. Albright is here to see you, sir,” Gardener said.
Noah sat straight so fast that he sloshed tea across the blanket wrapped around him.
“Oh, dear,” Aurora said, leaping out of her seat and taking Noah’s teacup. “Let me dispose of that for you. And I’ll bring you a napkin to mop up what you spilled.”
Noah barely had time to open his mouth in protest and to beg Aurora not to leave him alone when Marcus stepped into the room. Then all he could do was gape at Marcus…and curse the fact that he had been reduced to taking calls in his dressing gown and slippers, wrapped in a blanket, like an old woman.
“Hello, Noah,” Marcus greeted him nervously, spinning his hat in his hands. “You’re looking…well.”
Noah snapped his mouth shut and slumped against the back of the sofa. “That’s a lie and you know it,” he said, failing to keep the edge out of his voice. He shook his head, appalled at his manners, and tried again with, “Good morning, Marcus. Do come in and have a seat. I can have Miss Taylor bring you tea.”
“No, no,” Marcus said, moving shiftily toward the chair Aurora had vacated. “I don’t need tea. I just wanted to call and see how you are.”
“I am as you see me,” Noah said, picking at the edge of his blanket. “Defeated, miserable, and diminished. I’ve had the life shocked right out of me.”
Marcus squirmed in his chair, almost like he expected Noah to fly into a fit and attack him.
Which he had actually done before during one of his fits, so perhaps Marcus’s prickliness was warranted.
“I hear that the electric therapy didn’t go particularly well,” Marcus said, clearly unsettled.
“It did not,” Noah said, forcing himself to meet Marcus’s eyes. “It was frightening, painful, and ultimately pointless. Rather like me, I would imagine.”
Marcus’s expression went slack with regret. “You’re not pointless, Noah,” he said in an apologetic voice. “You’re just….”
When Marcus couldn’t find the right words, Noah helped him with, “Difficult to care for? Impossible to live with? Too much?” He paused, then added, “Unworthy of love?”
Marcus let out a heavy breath, his shoulders dropping. “I’m sorry,” he said, then rubbed a hand over his face. “Beckett has put me to shame with the way he’s been bending over backwards to help you with this. I did nothing.”
“It wasn’t your problem to resolve, Marcus,” Noah said, balling the edges of his blanket into his fists. “It isn’t Beckett’s either, but he seems intent on giving it a try.”
“That’s because he loves you,” Marcus said, stressing the words, deep emotion in his eyes. “The way he loves you has awed and astounded us all.”
Noah’s back stiffened. “Is that so? Is that why you have all looked askance at Beckett the few times he has brought me to The Slippery Slope for a bit of company? Is that why his friends have advised him to be done with me, why hardly any of them have called on him since I have been living here? Is that how awe and astonishment is expressed?”
“Noah, you have to understand…” Marcus began, writhing with guilt.
“I already understand,” Noah said, less confrontational than before. “I understand that madmen make people anxious. I understand that the discomfort extends to anyone who attempts to see past the madness and to embrace the afflicted.” He paused, glancing down at his white-knuckled hands. “I understand that I am hurting Beckett with every breath I take.”
“Beckett loves you,” Marcus said again, though there was a thread of helplessness in his voice. “He loves you more than I ever did, which is why you must finally drop this obsession you have with me.”
Noah snapped his eyes up to meet Marcus’s and nearly laughed as he did. “Marcus, I don’t love you anymore,” he said. “There. It’s done.”
Suddenly, it was as though a massive weight had lifted from his shoulders. It sucked what felt like a year’s worth of darkness right out of him, scattering it to the ether.
“I wanted to be loved,” he said with more passion, leaning toward Marcus. “I wanted someone to care for me enough to push through the darkness that surrounds me.”
“Beckett is that man,” Marcus said.