“You felled my guards,” he reminded her. “More than that, you unarmed me. I never doubted that you could fight, Miss Darling. I just didn’t realize until today how trouble doesn’t sway you. If you are going to walk into it, as you did today, you should be properly prepared.”
His voice—or maybe it was his words—maybe it was both—seeped into her flesh, her blood, her bones until she was filled with the sound of him, consumed by his slightest touch on her leg.
“Are you feeling ill, Miss Darling?”
“Hmm?” Wasn’t she just asking him how he felt? Had he answered? “Why are you changing the subject to me?”
“Because your breathing is labored and you’re fanning yourself with your hand.”
She felt faint too. He didn’t mention that. “It’s hot and cramped in here,” she replied coolly and shifted her legs farther away from his.
“Are you smiling?” she asked, squinting her eyes at him.
“No.”
“Liar. I can hear you.”
“Miss Darling, what did I tell you about that kind of talk? You canhearme smiling? Come, now.”
“But I’m right, aren’t I?” she stated rather than asked.
He didn’t answer. Then, after a moment of silence between them, “You amuse me.”
She was genuinely happy that she brought amusement to his life, but compared to the mountain of obstacles before them, amusement fell panting by the wayside. “You frighten me, my lord.”
“Has there been a time when you weren’t frightened by me?” His husky voice echoed in the shadows and settled like a blanket around her shoulders.
Should she tell him the truth? She wanted the truth in return, and she wasn’t sure she would get it. “Today I felt it when I realized you were communicating with the birds, stopping them from attacking those screaming men. And that raven…” She shivered thinking of how close it had been. “I’ve seen it flying around you before and I think it might have been about to attack me because I was covering you, but it flew away the second your arms came…around…me. And Ghost…”
“What about Ghost?” the marquess asked quietly without a trace of anger or defense in his tone.
“It seems she can understand you.”
“Animals communicate differently than we. Ghost can sense my feelings, and she responds to them. Just as you say you can hear what people say without words? So it is with any living thing we care about. Words are not always necessary.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but you were stopping them with telepathy. You were inside the coffee house. The birds were outside. You weren’t sensing anything from them or them from you, unless it was some kind of gift.”
“Gift?”
“Yes. You can communicate with animals. That’s a gift.”
“I can’t communicate with animals, lady. I’m not so arrogant to think they understand and obey me. Again, heed my warning not to speak of this with others, or I fear the animals might suffer.”
And there was the truth behind it all. The animals would suffer. “I won’t speak of it,” she promised. “But tell me, do you really deny communicating with those birds and Ghost? And what about that raven?”
He lifted his fingers to his temple. “I can’t communicate with them, but…”
“Yes,” she urged quietly.
“While I was passed out, I…I dreamed that I could, you know, communicate with animals. There was Ghost wanting to break down the door and the raven wanting me to awaken to stop the birds…” After a short, pitiful sound escaped him and compelled Aria to rest her hand on his knee, he continued. “Perhaps I can communicate with them, but I don’t remember ever doing it deliberately. Everyone else seems to believe I can. Even you. Perhaps I can.”
“If you really don’t know, then maybe you made yourself forget.”
He was quiet for the remainder of the trip. When they reached the castle Aria left the carriage first and called the physician.
She wouldn’t allow the marquess to get out of the carriage until the physician arrived. When he did, he ordered that the marquess be brought to bed to rest and for observation over the next few days.
“I’ll look for the door myself while you recover,” Aria told him an hour later when he was urged to remain in his bed by the two nurses of Dartmouth. “Maybe Will can help me.”