Free His Saving Grace by Sharon Cullen Page B

you as you have given up on yourself.”
    Was that what he had done? Given up on himself? He’d never thought of it in that way. But no matter what she thought, he knew he wasn’t going to change her mind now. In time she would understand.
    “What else is there?” she asked, tilting her chin up as if preparing to take another blow. This was what his return had done to her, made her a soldier willing to go to battle.
    He wasn’t telling her the rest. About the demons that haunted him in the deep of night, the dark thoughts that plagued him incessantly. That was not something he could tell her.
    When he didn’t answer, her chin lowered a notch and wariness entered her eyes.
    “Are you…” She licked her lips and he tensed, waiting for whatever she didn’t want to say. “Are your faculties diminished?”
    He winced but understood her need to ask. “Do you mean am I simple? No. Whatever intellect I had before seems to be intact, unless I am searching for a word that has escaped me.”
    “So, to sum it up, at times your memory fails you, and you are prone to anger.”
    Putting it that way made it seem not as serious, but it was serious, and she would soon find out how much. “Running the earldom will be difficult. And Parliament…I do not even want to think about that right now, but soon I will have to take my place in Parliament. Then there are the headaches that come and go irregularly. How am I to have a schedule if there are days when I am incapacitated?”
    He could see that she was beginning to understand his predicament. “Grace, I need you to help me hide this from society.”
    Her eyes widened. “Hide this from society? Michael—”
    “People will talk. They’ll question. They’ll think I’m not fit for the duties of an earl. I can’t let that happen.”
    “No they—”
    “Yes. They will.”
    She pressed her lips together and he could see the truth in her eyes. She agreed. People would question him. “What about the doctor in London?”
    “No more doctors.”
    “But what if he can heal you?”
    He looked her in the eye and forced himself to be brutally honest. “No one can heal me. You need to know that I’ll never be the man I was.”

Chapter Seven
    Grace sat on the bench in her garden, staring at a purple and yellow peony. Last night, sitting in the hallway, she’d been numb. That numbness had been a protection from the emotions that threatened to batter her.
    This morning the numbness had given way to overpowering fear that had turned to anger. She had been furious at Michael for pushing her away and for preferring Tarik over her.
    Now? The numbness had returned. She’d wanted to know what was wrong with Michael, but this…This was far different than anything she had imagined in the cold hours of the morning.
    Far different and, in some ways, far worse.
    She’d read of the horrible conditions of the Crimean War. Disease had taken more lives than the actual fighting, so she’d imagined Michael with a deadly disease. She’d imagined a hundred other things, but not this.
    His brain was injured.
    She had no idea what that meant and, worse, no idea how to help him.
    A large shadow descended over her, and to her surprise, Tarik sat beside her.
    “You were right,” she said. “It’s a story only he could have told me.”
    “I’m glad he did.”
    “Did he suffer much?”
    “Yes.” No pause, no mincing his words. She liked his honesty, even if it pained her. “He still suffers.”
    She ran her fingers over the rough stone of the bench. “I don’t know how to help him, Tarik. I don’t know what to do for him. I’m…lost.”
    “You will find your way.”
    “That’s not the answer I was hoping for.”
    Tarik turned to face her. “You are lost? What do you think he feels like?”
    She looked away, embarrassed at her selfishness. She’d been thinking about herself, about how she was going to honor his request and keep the news from society. She had not stopped to think about