A Solemn Promise

XX

"So it's true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love." E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

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XX.

Grace laid a hand delicately on Adam's cheek, feeling the prickle of his jaw against her skin. "I am sorry I did not come to you earlier," she said softly. "I knew something was wrong."

Adam smiled, albeit sadly. Lord, his smile was quite possibly her favourite of Adam's features, and she wondered when she would see it again. How long had it been in her own bereavement before she had been able to laugh properly again?

"How could you have known?" he said simply. "In fact, how do you know?" he realised, asking curiously.

"I came upon your father in on the stairs whilst on an errand for Lady Sarah. He was struggling, and so I helped him to his bedroom," explained Grace. Adam grew rigid, as though he wanted to go to his father. "He's alright," Grace assured him. "I helped him into bed, and then he asked me to stay and read to him awhile. That is when he told me. Or rather, he asked me how long it had taken my own father to die of the sickness." Grace was not sure of how Peregrine had known the cause of her father's death, but then the doctor who was treating him might well have been the one to treat her father. Perhaps he had shared his knowledge of similar patients with the duke.

"Ah," said Adam, in a tone barely above a whisper. "He hasn't told anyone aside from me, and Mother, of course," Adam revealed. "In learning of my father's condition, Mother set about marrying me off. I now know why she was so persistent during the Season," he uttered distastefully. "And Father revealed his condition to me when I went to speak to him about you."

Grace figured as much. Adam's behaviour had changed about then, and she never did learn of the outcome of that conversation, even though the results were glaringly obvious. Otherwise she would not have just spent time picking out wedding clothes for another.

"I won't insult you with the solution that he offered me," Adam muttered angrily. "I would not want your ears to ever hear such filth."

Grace recoiled slightly and her eyes widened. Adam reacted to her movement, pulling her back close to him.

"Don't ever pull away from me, please," he begged quietly.

Grace nodded, knowing that there was not much that Adam could do that would turn her away from him.

"My father bade me marry her," Adam said sadly. "He doesn't see marriage as I do, and it honestly bewilders me considering the match he had. He told me the scandal it would bring to wed a servant would be too much as I inherited and took my place in the House of Lords." He gestured to the books and papers before him. "My father has practically spent our entire time back at Ashwood teaching me how to run this estate. The short version of the story is that it requires a lot of money, and much of ours is tied up in investments, land, dwellings, Susanna's dowry, my mother's dowry and our trusts upon her death ... my father called Sarah's dowry liquid cash."

Adam shut his eyes for a moment and took a breath.

"And I hate him. I hear this, and I hate him. And then I hate myself for having such wicked thoughts knowing that he is dying. And it hits me over and over again that he is dying, every day, the knowledge kills me. Despite everything, our disagreements, my father is dying, and I don't know what to do. I can't help him. I can't do anything." Adam's voice was on the verge of cracking, and so he stopped, trying to control his emotions.

Grace understood Adam's anger, and his subsequent guilt.

"I love him," Adam continued after a quiet moment. "He is my father and I love him. I know he only wants what is best for me, for what he is to leave behind. And he's ... dying ... and it's going to kill me, Grace." Adam let out a frustrated cry of pain as he held her tight, resting his forehead against her collarbone.