“Aye.” Ethan rolled his eyes. “And after spending the last four months in London doing the same, I must admit it does begin to feel onerous, particularly when it denies me the chance tae see yourself.”
“Such pretty words. Ye should be a poet,” Leah said with a teasing laugh. She turned to embrace her other brother. “Malcolm.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek, too.
“You’re unhappy,” Malcolm said on a frown. The first words he had spoken. He lifted his head and speared Fox with a hard stare. “Why isnae my sister happy?”
The accusation punched the air from Fox’s lungs.
His wife wasn’t happy?
Fox stood blinking, quite sure he resembled a fish gasping for air on dry land. He had been so consumed with his own woes and worries, he hadn’t considered if Leah was content with her life as his wife.
“Malcolm, hush,” Leah said, voice uneasy, cheeks blushing. “What a thing tae say—”
“Nae, I willnae be silenced,” he glowered, touching a finger to his sister’s cheek. “I ken that look in your eyes, all strained andworrit. If I know ye at all, ye are working yourself to the bone and taking everyone else’s problems as your own. ’Tis no way tae begin married life.” He finished by giving Fox another accusing glare.
Leahhadbeen hard at work, Fox knew. Why had he never stopped to ask if shewishedto work so hard? She seemed so steady, so cheerful, so unflappable—he had simply assumed that such good humor translated into contentment.
“I trust Aileen is well?” Leah tried to change the subject.
Malcolm dragged his eyes off Fox. “Aye. She all but pushed me out the door. The midwife says it will be at least a month or two yet afore the babe arrives, and I wanted tae see how ye were settling in. Make sure ye werehappy.” His eyes slid back to Fox. Hard. Unyielding. As if Malcolm held Fox personally responsible for his sister’s happiness.
His brother-in-law was not entirely wrong: Foxwasresponsible for Leah’s well-being. He couldn’t make her happy—happiness had to come from within—but he could certainly be doing more to ensure Leah felt valued and appreciated. Theirs might be a marriage of convenience, but he didn’t need to neglect her.
And yet, as he stood there, blindsided and blinking, Fox realized he had been doing just that. He had been wallowing in the weight of his own shame, guilt, and pain instead of assisting his wife to adjust to her new life. Instead of coaxing concerns out of her, he been waiting for her to lay them at his feet.
And despite all this, his wife had met the challenge of rehabilitating Laverloch and organizing his affairs with aplomb and grace.
Leah refused to meet his gaze.
Fox’s heart sank.
Malcolm was right. Leahwasunhappy.
The all-too-familiar sensation of guilt and panic twisted in Fox’s stomach.
Fortunately, he knew an excellent way of staunching it.
“Welcome, gentleman.” He clasped his hands before him. “The road up to Laverloch must have been long and dusty. May I offer your parched throats a drink?”
Her husband was drunk.
Leah knew this was not an unusual state for Fox Carnegie.
The problem, of course, was that Ethan and Malcolm were both roaringfouwith him.
The men had begun with whisky in the study. That escalated to sherry before dinner, wine during dinner, and then the traditional port afterwards. Now they had come full circle and were back to sipping more whisky.
It had been the first proper dinner that she and Fox had hosted at Laverloch. The first dinner with guests. The first with a cook who had prepared an elegant meal—mulligatawny soup, roasted venison in onion gravy, stewed partridge, and treacle tart for dessert.
And everyone but herself had spent the meal deep in their cups. Had the men even savored the silky gravy or admired the sheen of the polished cutlery?
Leah was torn between raging at her menfolk in frustration or simply making her excuses and taking herself off to bed.
Granted, there was one silver lining to the whole evening—Fox and her brothers were steadily ticking through the required tasks to form a true brotherhood:
First, drinking to excess. Check.
Second, merciless teasing. Check.
