"Do you... have to go now?" Belle whispered, her eyes opening wider. She was so used to sharing a room and a bed with him that the thought of sleeping alone unsettled her. What if she fell into the land of the dead or into the life of that Isabelle, who would wake her up then?
Rohan noticed her unwillingness to sleep alone and touched his hand to her face. "I won’t go now, but eventually, I have to. We can’t let the guards see me leaving through the window." As much as he wanted to spend the entire night with her, he had to return the baby while he was still sleeping, after he was done feeding.
Angel had the habit of waking by dawn and then refusing to sleep again. Before that time came, Rohan would have to make sure the child woke in Lady Evenly’s arms or else he wouldn’t want to be carried away from Belle and end up crying, which would no doubt draw the attention of the Dawsons.
Seeing how she wasn’t closing her eyes to sleep again, but only stared at him instead, Rohan said quietly, "You should sleep."
"I am no longer sleepy," she muttered softly, then added, "There’s something I wanted to tell you."
Rohan looked attentive at those words, his dark gaze focused on her, as he asked, "What is it?"
Their voices were a harsh whisper, lowered due to the silent night, and by their need not to wake Angel, who was beginning to drift off to sleep between them.
"This afternoon, I found out that Jamie is engaged to the Marquis’ daughter," she told him.
"I know. I found that out this afternoon as well when I took a stroll to his shop, I was told about it by a boy. I went to meet the Marquis to ask about it."
Belle’s eyes rounded in astonishment. "You went to meet the Marquis? What did you talk about?" She had not thought that Rohan would have started his investigation this quickly, on the very first day of being in Aragonia.
"Not pleasant things," he admitted. "From what he told me, I believe the people in your dreams are real people, and Jamie Marchant is related to Deven. Deven is his grandfather."
He told her everything they had discussed in the carriage, and he saw her face pale a little, the rosy tint fading from her cheeks.
"They are real people... they died in a fire," Belle muttered grimly, her arm subconsciously tightening around her son as her eyes shifted upward to the ceiling. "Then that Isabelle... what happened to her? What did Deven do to her to make her hate him? I felt her hatred like it was mine."
She had always suspected the people were real, that they had once existed. But she had no idea why the girl looked so much like her, or why her family had never spoken about naming her after someone who had died long ago. No one had ever told her about this Isabelle, or about the scandal between their family and the Marchants. Though neither of her parents had been born at that time, family history always carried on through stories.
And Jamie... she had never thought he carried such a history. How had everything come to this? How could it be that now these dreams were haunting her sleep?
"We can only get the answers about what happened to that Isabelle from your parents. And if I dig into the Dawsons’ past history, the one they seemed determined to bury," came Rohan’s quiet voice, pulling her gently out of her thoughts, "perhaps then we’ll know. But before I do that, I don’t want you worrying about these things. Once we get answers, we will understand why the dreams are coming to you."
Belle nodded absentmindedly, curiosity gnawing at her inside as the weight of the emotions of the girl who looked like her pressed heavier on her mind. What had happened to her to turn her into a hateful person when she had seemed lovely and excited about marrying Deven?
"Isa," Rohan called gently, touching her arm and rubbing it to gain her attention. She turned slowly to look at him. "I said no worrying. Your mind is already flying away. I will talk to your parents when the time is right and make them answer me."
She nodded again, but her eyes still looked distant.
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