He leaned in closer, gazing into her eyes. “Eveline, out there, you spoke. You said two words. Have you been unable to speak or have you just been unwilling to speak all this time?”
She swallowed hard and then again. She opened her mouth, but paused almost as if she were afraid to even try.
“Try,” he coaxed gently. “I won’t judge you. Try to say the words.”
He held his breath in anticipation, only now realizing just how important it was that she be able to communicate verbally with him. He’d never felt an eagerness like this. His pulse was about to beat right out of his head.
Her hand went to her throat, and then she opened her mouth again. The words when spoken were a little garbled and barely a whisper.
“I w-was a-afraid.”
His chest tightened at such simple words, but they conveyed a heavy wealth of emotion.
He nudged her chin upward so she’d see his own words. It was important she understand what he would say. If she knew nothing else, he would have her understand his vow. “You don’t have to be afraid here, Eveline. You never have to be afraid with me.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Th-they haate mee.”
This time the words were rather singsong and they came out in varying degrees of loudness. She started soft, became much louder in the middle before fading away to nearly nothing. It was almost as if she were testing, trying to see what was normal.
And how would she know?
So much was falling into place for Graeme. The pieces were rapidly coming together, almost too fast for him to keep up. He had to force himself to remain calm and not leap ahead of himself in his haste to discover all her secrets.
“Let’s start from the beginning, Eveline. I need to know what happened. Was it your accident that caused you to lose your hearing?”
She nodded.
“You were ill for quite a long time.”
She nodded again.
“Why didn’t you tell your family? Do you not think they would have understood? God’s teeth, they thought you were daft. I thought you were daft. You’re probably more intelligent than the lot of us.”
“I w-was afraid,” she said again in a thready voice.
“What were you afraid of, Eveline?”
The color rose in her cheeks. She fidgeted with her hands and then looked down as she pulled with her fingers.
Impatient to find a question she could more easily answer, he once more directed her attention to him and then asked, “Everyone thinks you’re daft. But you’re merely deaf and you’ve not spoken since your accident.”
She flushed guiltily, but nodded.
Graeme was elated. God’s teeth, but he’d felt like the worst sort of abuser lusting over a woman who didn’t fully understand the world she was in half the time. But none of that was true. She was normal. Or at least she was perfectly in control of her faculties.
“Why wouldn’t you speak?” he asked, touching her cheek again, tracing a line over the silky smoothness.
“I hhad no waay of knowing howww loudly I spoke. At ffirst I was ffrightened. I didn’t understand …”
Her voice drifted lower and lower until he was no longer able to hear her. He touched her lips. “Louder, Eveline. A little louder.”
She cleared her throat, swallowed, and then continued, her cheeks reddening once more. “I didn’t undeeerstand what had happened to me or whhyy. It took me a while to comprehend. When I did, I decided to keep it s-secret and l-let those around me think I was addled. Brain fever. Touched. Whatevver they chose to tthhink.”
The more she spoke, the more she seemed to gain confidence. It seemed to pour out of her after a very rusty start. Some of her words warbled and some of the sounds weren’t quite right, but Graeme had never heard such a beautiful sound in his life.
His wife could communicate with him. Not only could she speak, but she was highly intelligent and could read the words of others from their lips. Daft? If anything, it was her family who was addled for not realizing her deafness in three long years. Perhaps she was the only smart Armstrong of the lot.
She hesitated, and then she peeked up at him, uncertainty written all over her face. “You aren’t … You aren’t angry?”
His breath left him in a rush. “Angry?”
She nodded solemnly, and he knew in that moment that he still hadn’t gained the whole story from her. There was still something she held back, whatever it was that had made her afraid when she lived in the bosom of her family.
He cupped her face in his hands so that she wouldn’t miss a single word that came from his mouth.
“I’m not angry, Eveline. Far from it. ’Tis a joyous moment.”
She smiled tentatively and some of the warmth returned to her eyes.
He rubbed his thumbs over her cheekbones and stared down at her, hoping she would see his sincerity.
“What made you afraid, Eveline? What frightened you so badly that you would not admit to your family what was really wrong with you?”
Her face fell and once again she shut her eyes tightly, as if warding off the pain of the past. He didn’t press and instead continued to hold her gently, his thumbs feathering over her face.
When she looked back at him again, tears swam in her eyes, making them deep, blue pools. “I was to marry Ian McHugh.”
“Just a little louder,” he encouraged.
“I was to marry Ian McHugh,” she said again.
He nodded. “Yes, I know. The betrothal was broken after your accident. I assume he cried off because of your … condition.”
She nodded solemnly. “It was mere weeks after the accident had occurred and I was still confused and afraid. But when I realized that I wasn’t going to have to marry Ian because my own family thought I was daft, I knew that if I told them differently, I would likely have to honor the agreement.”