Her Wicked Proposal novel Chapter 16

Cedric was ignorant of his fiancée's thoughts as he walked with her to dinner. He let her body guide his, feeling the faint pull of her when he needed to alter his path. It was a skill he'd worked on when Ashton led him about while he first learned to survive with his condition. Fortunately, he was decently familiar with Godric's townhouse, but the nervousness that held his body made him more hesitant than usual.

He wanted to show Anne that he could still play the English gentleman, that he was not as helpless and hopeless as he felt. He sagged into his seat at the table with relief. His body seemed to naturally tense when he was up and about, as though some part of him expected to be injured somehow. Feeling more like himself, he reached out boldly to find his wine goblet...

Splunk!

His hand collided with the thin stem of the goblet, toppling it onto its side. He heard wine sluice over the table and the chatter around the table halted. Cedric, even blind, could sense every eye in the room fixed upon him. It was mortifying. The only relief was that he couldn't see the pity in their faces.

It was too much. He hated eating in front of others and this was why. Cedric shoved his seat back, which happened to hit a footman. The footman stumbled, dropping a replacement goblet, which shattered on the wooden floor close by. Cedric got to his feet and felt about for his cane, but it wasn't there.

"Cedric..." Godric said somewhere near his right, but Cedric shrugged off his friend's coaxing tone. With as much pride as he could muster, he walked in the direction of the door to leave the dining room. He didn't want to apologize; he didn't want to hear the pity in their voices. He needed solitude.

Charles called after him, "Cedric, really, it's fine," but Cedric had already reached the door and propelled himself out into the hall. Hands outstretched, he summoned a map of Godric's house in his head and made for the library-at least he hoped he was heading in that direction. Facing his friends was hard enough when he wasn't breaking costly crystal goblets. He'd been able to accept their help the first few months, but by now he should have mastered his hands and legs, no longer creating such accidents. It was shameful and he couldn't stand to receive any aid, not when he shouldn't need it any longer.

Cedric muttered a curse when he tripped over the threshold of the library. He knew it was the library by the thick, musty scent of a multitude of books. He'd never been one for reading, but he'd grown fond of libraries since he'd lost his sight. With a library he always knew where he was. Their unique aroma gave them away, and he felt comforted knowing exactly where he was in a house for a change.

"I wish I had my cane," he said to the book-filled room. He usually kept it close to him, but he'd been more preoccupied with Anne and had forgotten where he'd placed it. It took him a few minutes of blundering about before he stopped hitting bookshelves and found a deep-backed settee to slump into. He lay back and rubbed his eyes. A useless gesture, but it was a habit he couldn't break. Cedric took a few deep, measured breaths, but his hands were still shaking.

"Pull yourself together!" he hissed at himself.

There was a soft rap on the library door. Cedric didn't move. He heard slippered footsteps approaching him. The scent that teased his nose was flowery, but not the scent of wild orchids. It wasn't Anne.

"Cedric." Horatia sat down by him on the settee and laid her head on his shoulder as she used to do when she was a child. Brotherly instinct took over, and he wrapped his arms about her, pulling her close to him in a tight hug.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I have nothing much to say, my dear. I'm a pathetic creature who can't even dine with my friends. I'm sure Emily is devastated that I broke her fine crystal."

Horatia laughed. "She declared you did her a favor. She detested that crystal, and you gave her an excuse to dispose of the rest. She ordered the butler to have some footman take it all away after the meal is over. She seemed quite gleeful about it." Horatia's soft tone was full of amusement, and Cedric heard only truth in her voice. Still, Emily could just as easily have been putting on a show for his comfort when he later heard of it.

"And the others? How did they react?" he asked.

"They don't mind at all. We have all adjusted to what happened to you. Everyone but you, that is. What they mind is the way you think they won't accept you as you are now. None of us are perfect and none of us expect you to be either. You have to stop pitying yourself or I will get cross with you, and I do not want to be cross with my favorite brother."

"I'm your only brother," he cut in with a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.