Fox felt winded.
This wasn’t Leah. This wasn’t his wife.
She might be insistent on certain points, but she was never unkind. Not to him. Not to anyone.
He had never seen this fractious side of her. He didn’t realize shehada fractious side.
She is grieving, he reminded himself.
She went back to the small cabinet in the corner, and having located the hair pins, began ruthlessly stabbing them into her hair.
Fox stepped across the cold floor, planting himself between her and the door.
“I will be honest, wife. It feels like you are casting me off. Surely I can dosomethingto help you.”
Leah shoved the last pin into her hair. “Fox, the best thing ye could do would be to leave me be. Give me a reprieve from my wifely duties to yourself. Return tae Madeline and the business that I cannae know about.”
Her words were not unlike a knife thrust into a festering wound, lancing it anew.
“When . . . when will you come home?” he asked, trying to ignore the panicked beat of his pulse.
“I dinnae know. As I said, it will likely be months.” She picked up an apron from the back of a chair and tied it around her waist. “I’ll try tae send word when I can.”
There was no warmth in her tone. No sense that she would miss him. No suggestion that she would miss Madeline or Laverloch or their life together.
Logically, he knew she was grieving. That his wife’s cutting tone originated from a place of pain.
But that didn’t stop the sting of her flat words.
Until that moment, Fox hadn’t realized to what extent the harmony in their marriage relied upon her goodwill. On Leah constantly reaching out to him, helping him, accommodating him.
And now, with her retreat . . . he didn’t know what to do. How he might hold her to him.
Women always leave you, a part of him whispered.You knew this was how it would end.
Only . . . he hadn’t thought it would be so soon.
He thought they had been settling into their marriage, but he realized now what a tentative thing their bond was, not strong enough to withstand the pressures of life without snapping.
“Won’t . . . won’t you miss me?” Fox regretted the words instantly. The pathetic whine of them, the neediness.
His wife paused, folding her arms across her chest, and faced him, her expression terrifyingly blank.
“I survived twenty years without ye, Fox Carnegie. I ken I can manage a few months.”
Silence.
“Anything else ye care tae say tae me?” she asked, eyes narrowing expectantly. “Anything at all?”
Words crowded his tongue.
Would a confession of love matter at this point?
Didhe love her?
He liked her. Tremendously. He found her . . . engaging and interesting and charming and . . .
Well, he would certainly feel her lack.
