Her husband appeared more sober, but the high flush of his cheeks said otherwise. She had seen Fox drunk more often than not, so she knew the signs.
Leah watched her husband disappear through the doorway, frustration rising in her chest. Despite his reasons for taking to the bottle, she couldn’t bring herself to aid and abet his drinking.
Furthermore, she had spent the afternoon thinking of Fox and Susan, of the love he had showered upon her. The child they had likely made together. The careful way he tread around her memory.
And then, the men reappeared after fishing, drunk and so blithely oblivious to it all.
What was she to do? She hated this sense of seething futility.
“Ah, Leah, dinnae look socrabbit.” Ethan threw his arm around her shoulders and brought her in for a lopsided hug, turning her away from the door. “And dinnae be too angry with your husband. We all like a wee dram, from time to time. I promise, we dinnae get your Fox too foxed.”
Leah closed her eyes at the repeated pun, shook her head, and then pushed out of her brother’s sloppy embrace.
“That’s the problem, Ethan,” she said, trying (and failing) to keep her tone level. “Ye can drink a wee dram or two without getting roaringfou. I would have thought better of ye two. Or at least, that ye might have a perceptive brain between the twos of ye.”
“Now, Leah.” Malcolm held out a staying hand. “Dinnae get upset at us.”
“Upset. I am hardly upset.”
No, she wasfurious. There was a fine but distinct difference between the two emotions.
“I know you two,” Leah continued, voice sharp and rising higher. “Ye will sleep off your whisky tonight, take yourselves off in the morning, and not get drunk again for an age or two. Ye dinnae need alcohol. It’s nothing more than an occasional soothing drink for ye. But others are no’ like that. Some men cannae help themselves when there’s a bottle of whisky about. They’re a slave tae the drink.”
Her brothers remained silent, looking all too much as they had as children when she had caught them with still-warm, stolen shortbread in their pockets.
“I need ye tae be helping me with my husband,” she went on. “Not indulging his predilection for drink and making my life that much more difficult.”
Movement in the corner of the room had Leah turning her head.
Fox stood in the doorway there, having come back down the stairs, his weight leaning heavily on his walking stick.
His expression said he had clearly heard every word that had just passed her lips, the unspoken censure of them.
Leah’s heart sank.
This was not how she wished Fox to hear her concerns.
“Fox,” she began, taking a step toward him.
But he was having none of it.
He pivoted away and took the stairs two at a time.
18
Leah caught up with Fox as he slammed into his library, her heart in her throat.
She had wronged him; she had to make things right.
“Fox. I’m so sorry. I didnae mean . . .” She paused, as shehadmeant her words. “Or, rather, you misunderstood . . .”
But then . . . he hadn’t misunderstood either.
He ignored her, arrowing straight to the array of decanters and bottles atop the sideboard. Reaching for the whisky, he uncorked it and downed two large swallows as if drinking water.
Fox was impossible to reason with when he was like this. She knew that.
But she hated that they had taken a tentative step forward only to crash back.
