Sherry Thomas - Ravishing the Heiress

Something about her composure defused tension, even when the subject was highly flammable.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Me?” His question surprised her. “Yes, I’m well—well enough at least.”

“Why aren’t you crying over your fellow?”

“My what?”

“The one you had to give up to marry me.”

She added another spoonful of milk powder to her tea—they were out of fresh cream. “It’s different for me. We did not have any history—it was largely wishful thinking on my part.”

“But you love him?”

She looked down into her cup. “Yes, I love him.”

The pain that had been dulled by an excess of whisky came roaring back. “We are in the same boat, then—neither of us can have the one we want.”

“It would seem so,” she said, blinking rapidly.

It was a shock to realize she was holding back tears, even as he adjusted his opinion of her from bland deference to quiet strength: When he’d lost all his bearings, she’d been the one to guide him back from the wilderness.

“You’ve conducted yourself far better than I have,” he said, his words awkward and tentative, at least in his own ears. “I don’t know how you do it, putting up with me when it has been just as difficult for you.”

She bit her lip. “Don’t tell anyone else, but I am secretly a laudanum fiend behind your back.”

It took him a moment to realize she spoke in jest. He felt himself smiling faintly. The sensation was strange: He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled.

She rose. “I’d better finish the letter before Mr. Holt from the village arrives. He will be”—she hesitated—“he will be coming with whisky.”

Millie would have liked to decline the whisky for her husband. But she had told him the day she poured out every bottle—the aggressiveness of her action still astonished her—that the choice was his.

So it must be.

She took delivery of milk, bread, eggs, butter, fruit, and salading. There was a box of tinned sardines, potted meat, and tinned plum pudding—everything manufactured by Cresswell & Graves. And there was the whisky.

“The spirits are no longer needed,” said Lord Fitzhugh.

Millie had become accustomed to the bearded, wild-haired, slovenly drunkard. The young man who stood before the cabin was clean-shaven and sharply dressed. He was still too gaunt and too pale—behind his eyes was a grief as old as love itself. But Millie had to force herself to tear her gaze away: He had never been more striking, more magnetic.

“Very good, sir,” said Mr. Holt. “I’ll carry the rest inside. And—I almost forgot—there is a cable for you.”

Lord Fitzhugh took the cable and opened it. His expression changed instantly. “There is no need to unload anything. If you could wait half an hour or so and take us down to Woodsmere, I’d be grateful.”

Mr. Holt touched the brim of his hat. “Anything, milord.”

Millie followed him back into the house. “What’s the matter? Who sent the cable?”

“Helena. Venetia’s husband has passed away.”

“Of what?” Millie was incredulous. Surely her kind, beautiful sister-in-law could not have been made a widow so young. Mr. Townsend had been in perfect health at the wedding. And in Mrs. Townsend’s recent letters there had been no mention of any illnesses on his part.

“Helena didn’t give the cause of death, only that Venetia is devastated. We must go back and help with the arrange-ments.”

We. It was the first time he’d referred to the two of them as one unit. She couldn’t help a leap of her heart. “Of course. I’ll start packing right now.”

Twenty minutes later, they were on their way. The lurching and swaying of the cart couldn’t be easy on his still fragile person, but he endured the discomforts without complaint.

In some ways, they were not too unalike. They both put duty first. They were both reserved by nature. And they both had a greater capacity to bear private pain than either had suspected.

“Thank you,” he said when they were still a mile from the village. “If you hadn’t disposed of the whisky when you did, I’d be in no shape to be of any use to my sister. I’m glad you had the resolve and the fortitude.”

The pleasure she derived at his compliment was frightful. She looked down at her hands, so as to not betray her emotions. “I was afraid you might do mortal harm to yourself.”

“That would probably need more than a few weeks of drinking.”

She almost could not bring herself to speak of it. “I was talking about the rifle.”

He looked genuinely puzzled. “What rifle?”

“You were staring into the barrel of a shotgun.”

“You mean the dummy rifle I found in the shed?”

Her jaw dropped. “It was a dummy?”

“Very much. A child’s toy.” He laughed. “Perhaps we should introduce you to some proper firearms, so you can tell the difference next time.”

Her face heated. “This is terribly embarrassing, isn’t it?”

Now that he was sober, his eyes were an unearthly blue. “It is, for me: that I should have behaved in such a way as to cause anyone to doubt my will to live.”

“You’d endured a terrible loss.”

“Nothing others—including yourself—haven’t endured.”

He was inclined to gloss over heartbreak and affliction—again, like her.

The road turned. A gorgeous vista opened before them: a wide, oval lake, as green as the emerald peaks that framed it. All along the banks, late summer flowers bloomed, their reflections, white and mauve, like a string of pearls around the lake. On the distant shore stood a pretty village with ivy-covered cottages, their window boxes still aflame with geraniums and cyclamens.

“Well,” she said, “at least the honeymoon is over.”

“Yes.” He tilted his face to the sky, as if marveling at the sensation of sunlight on his skin. “Thank God.”

1896

Fitz stood outside Isabelle’s house.

The day before, he’d hesitated in front of her door because he’d needed to cope with both an exorbitant hope and an equally strong fear of disappointment. But that was yesterday, before they’d committed themselves to a future together, a future once thought to be lost. Today he should enter her home with a spring in his step and no uncertainties whatsoever.

But last night he had discussed the matter with Millie. And sixteen hours later, he remained unsettled by her burst of panic, her horror at what he’d proposed. She’d agreed in the end, but the sense of rejection had lingered, as if all their years of mutual affection and common purpose counted for nothing.

He rang the bell and was duly admitted. In Isabelle’s sunny parlor, they embraced a long time before taking their seats. She was well; the children were well. She’d taken them for a tour of the British Museum in the morning. Alexander couldn’t get enough of the suits of armor. Hyacinth had been fascinated by the mummies, especially those of animals—and was already plotting to preserve General, their elderly cat, for all eternity, when the latter gave up the ghost.

“I can guess where she might have come by her mischief,” said Fitz.

Isabelle chortled. “I dare say she will quite surpass me as a miscreant.”

The tea tray was brought in. She rose and went to a side cabinet. “Tea is such a silly drink for a man. Can I offer you something stronger?”

He had not touched a drop of “something stronger” since the Lake District. “No, thank you. Tea is fine.”

She looked a little disappointed. There was much she did not know about him—or he her. But they had time for catching up on the past later.

She sat down again and poured tea. “Yesterday you said you needed to speak to your wife. Did the conversation go well?”

If the conversation had gone well, then he ought not feel this strange hollowness inside. Yet he could not report that it had gone ill, since he did obtain what he wanted.

“Well enough,” he said, and gave Isabelle a highly abbreviated version of what he and Millie had agreed between them.

“Six months!” Isabelle exclaimed. “I thought speaking to your wife would be a mere formality.”

“It’s never quite so simple when you are married.” Or so he’d begun to realize.

“But you’ve been married almost eight years. If you haven’t managed to procreate in that much time, how will six more months help?”

He’d anticipated this question. “We have seldom attempted to procreate. I had my needs met elsewhere and Lady Fitzhugh, as far as I could tell, was pleased to be left alone.”

“How seldom?”

“We spent a few nights together during the honeymoon.”

Technically, he was not lying, but he was deliberately creating the wrong impression. He did not want anyone, especially Isabelle, to think that there was anything irregular or incomplete about his marriage. Millie would be mortified.

It surprised him how easily he thought of her as Millie—perhaps he’d done so for a while now, without quite realizing it.

Isabelle’s reaction was ambiguous: Disappointment dragged across her face, followed by a flitter of relief. For him to have never bedded his wife would have been a terrific statement of faithfulness to her; but it would also mean that in trying for an heir, he’d be taking on a new lover, which Isabelle could not possibly want.

“I know you don’t care for the arrangement, Isabelle, but you understand that Lady Fitzhugh and I must do our duty at some point. I believe you’d prefer to have this out of the way, rather than for me to go back to her periodically, once we are together.”