He stirred in bed, raising his head off his pillow slightly, only to lower it again with a hiss of pain. The curtains in Thomas's guest room were apparently decorative in nature – large, heavy and expensive-looking, despite being entirely useless as they did nothing whatsoever to prevent the sun from making his current predicament even worse. He pressed the back of his hand against his eyes and lay very still, as though his lack of movement might convince his skull to reconsider.
It, unfortunately, did not and things got worse as soon as his uninvited company arrived.
“Good morning,” Came his friend's voice, far too enthusiastically than any decent person had a right to speak before noon. “Or perhaps not particularly good, given your current pathetic state.”
“Close the curtains,” Edward groaned.
Thomas paused in deliberation, then he shrugged. “I will not.”
“Ravencroft.”
“Montford,” Thomas teased, clearly enjoying the spectacle that was Edward’s suffering.
Edward considered asking if he had nothing better to do but as he watched his friend lower a cup of – hopefully strong – tea on the bed side table, before he settled into a chair close to the bed with an expression of ease, he quickly realized this was the most unoccupied he had ever seen Thomas, much to his own detriment.
“You have been sleeping in my guest room for quite a few days now,” Thomas pointed out, as though Edward had lost his concept of time at some point recently.
“Have I?” Edward questioned, with an attempt at detachment that was somewhat undermined by the fact that he had not yet managed to sit up.
“I am certain that I know when you arrived and what day it is today – though I doubt the same can be same about you,” Thomas paused, looking displeased as he added, “Your wife has been told you are occupied with business matters in the city.”
“That is accurate enough.”
“Is it?” Thomas queried dryly, the lack of amusement in his tone advising Edward to brace himself for what was to come. “Because from where I am sitting, what you appear to be busy doing is avoiding your wife, drinking a considerable quantity of my finest brandy – which I will have to ask that you reimburse me for at your earliest convivence – and spending an unusual amount of time staring at various ceilings in my home. We have seen more of each other in the last week than we had in the last three months. I am sick of your face.”
Edward exhaled deeply, pursing his lips momentarily before stating, “I have been thinking.”
“Oh really? And here I thought you were perhaps admiring the stunning designs on the ceiling,” Thomas sighed as well, before he sat up straighter. “What are you thinking about, Edward? And does it have anything to do with why you have been acting so out of character?”
Edward did not answer immediately, attempting to buy himself some more time by entertaining the distractions that surrounded the environment around him. He could hear the distant sounds of the household – footsteps, voices, theunhurried rhythm of ordinary life being lived without particular complication. He found it both restful and faintly maddening.
He had not slept well in days. Whenever he closed his eyes, he longed for Phoebe in his arms again, quiet and warm against him, her breathing slow and even, as he stroked her soft hair. He had lain awake and watched her sleep during their last night together with a feeling in his ribcage that he could not name but knew without a doubt that it was the most frightening thing he had ever encountered in his life.
So much so, it proved him to be the coward he had always known himself to be, because in the morning, he had risen and ran away to the house of his closest friend. It had been a moment he had not been proud of in the slightest.
“I kissed her,” he said.
Thomas frowned in confusion at the sudden confession. “Who? Your wife?”
“Yes, my wife, Ravencroft, who else would I be kissing?”
“I – I wasn't entirely certain, given the gravity with which you said it. I thought perhaps you had begun living a separate life we've never discussed.” Thomas settled back in the chair with a sigh that spoke in volumes about how little he cared for Edward’s theatrics. “But I confess I do not understand why kissing your wife has driven you to take up residence in my house. You are married. I had assumed kissing was... involved in some capacity.”
“It was different,” Edward groaned, feeling more and more as though he was losing his mind with every breath he took.
“Different,” Thomas echoed in the same dry tone he had used earlier.
“Yes.”
“Different how?”
Edward stared at the ceiling, realizing with slight alarm that he had familiarized himself somewhat with the pattern that it bore. He had spent four days trying to locate an alternative explanation for what he had felt – or rather, what he had been feeling for some time, which had taken shape that night into something he could no longer reasonably ignore. He had examined it from several angles. He had tried to attribute it to proximity, to physical compatibility, to the stress of the evening and the relief of finding that there was no other man involved with his wife. None of it had held. Not if it explained the devastating crack in his chest that only ever seemed to be satiated when she was by his side.
“I am in love with her,” he whispered.
The words came out plainly and without any fanfare, as though he was speaking of a mere change in the weather. It made the admission seem closer to the truth than if he had put it any other way, and he felt justified, stating it so plainly. It was not a happy announcement. It was an accounting of something that had happened to him – like an injury he had failed to noticeuntil he tried to move and found he could not. This... disease had consumed him slowly, eating away at his insides, making its way upward as it devoured his heart and was now headed for his mind.
Thomas was quiet for a moment, then eventually, he gave the reaction that was befitting of a man of his status.