She bobbed her head absently.
Hardly the most comforting assurance.
Fox shot a decisive warning at Bethany. The maid nodded, indicating she would keep good track of the girl.
He left, intent on finding his wife or perhaps . . .
Was it too early to locate the nearest whisky decanter?
The not-quite-dead half of his good sense said, yes, it was indeed too early.
But the pulsing pain behind his eyes said otherwise. His body ached for surcease.
Unfortunately, the pull of physical craving was an old familiar friend. Was he really as bad as all this? But with alcohol this time, not laudanum as after Coorg?
The thought was dispiriting enough to dissuade him from the bottle. Perhaps.
He didn’t even have to go far to find Leah. He was spiraling round and round one of the narrow staircases—praying the dizzying motion did not upset his stomach—when he encountered his wife coming up.
She lifted her eyes to his and froze mid-step.
He did the same.
The stairs were so blasted narrow. They could hardly converse here, not with him peering down and trying not to tip forward with his spinning head, and her practically leaning back against the curved wall in an attempt to look up.
But it wasn’t as if they could stand face to face either. Given the tight width of the stairwell, that would be more like mouth to mouth. Just the thought ofthatsent Fox’s thoughts spiraling as tightly as the stairs themselves.
It didn’t help that the morning sunlight streaming through the window between them seemed to caress Leah’s face. The light turned her hazel eyes into pools of golden-green summer and rendered her soft, pink lips even pinker and softer and so very . . . kissable. It would take only three steps, and he could have her in his arms, pressed gently against the stone wall, his head descending—
Fox’s brain stuttered at the florid thought.
Normally, he would immediately banish such images and castigate himself for his unruly imagination. After all, the rules of propriety and his gentlemanly sense of honor required it.
But his own wife . . .
Why, he could think all manner of lascivious things with impunity.
Damn, but this marriage was going to be torture if he didn’t get a handle on himself.
Fortunately, a burst of shouting from the courtyard distracted his attention and caused him to stifle a whimper. Leah winced and glanced out the window between them.
“I’m most sorry about the bedlam in the courtyard,” she said, tilting back to look up at him again, eyes still shades of summer, lips still plump and kissable.
Fox grunted. Their placement together like this was nearly torturous.
He needed that drink. Consequences be damned.
“Come. Let’s discuss this in more comfortable surroundings.” He retreated back up the stairs and opened the doorway into his library.
Leah followed, lifting her full skirts to carefully make the steep step into the room.
Fox arrowed straight to the whisky decanter, only to find it empty. Turning, he immediately pulled an unopened bottle from a closed cupboard beside a bookshelf.
Leah watched him uncork the bottle, expression carefully blank.
For some reason, her lack of a reaction only served to further stoke Fox’s frustrated irritability.
Shouldn’t a wife care if her husband drank himself to death?
