Yes, he thought, hoisting himself into the carriage. Perhaps.
Up until this wedding announcement, he had been legally barred from stepping foot in his ancestral home. He had been verboten from contacting his wife or his child, young as the babe was at the time. He had legally forfeited the running of the estate and its full custody to Claire and Claire alone.
She was allowing him back to see his mother wed. Could it be anything more than an act of charity?
After all, his life was certainly very different than it had been the last they saw one another. Unrecognizable, he thought. Truly unrecognizable. There was no flourish in acknowledging that.
He had spent the last handful of years as Orpheus and Eurydice both, trekking to and from Hades with no idea what trailed behind him or if there was any reward at the end. Sometimes, he’d catch his own reflection and pause, not quite sure the person who looked back was still him.
The dice were gone now. The cards were burned. He had lived through a month in a den of vice, a temple of gambling, and not placed a single bet. He’d lived as a common man, sharing a townhouse with Abe for a time; he’d kept vigil for Joe during the year he’d spent abroad, during which Freddy had lived in his little flat, cared for it, kept it warm.
He’d lived half a dozen new lives in the time since she’d gone. He’d tried to be better. But he hadn’t reallychanged, had he? He was still himself, still stuck in this body, still thinking with this mind. He could hold the demons at bay, perhaps. He could makea damn fine hollandaise and dust a bookshelf now. He could direct a pedestrian to Canary Wharf and Covent Garden and Cheapside if they asked, places he’d never dreamed of visiting in the before.
That didn’t make him anyone new, though. He was still just Freddy Hightower. Still saddled with the mistakes he’d always made. Still lucky that anyone still spoke to him at all.
He knew how the others saw him. How they passed him around like a seasonal burden. How none felt any sort of surprise, even mildly, when he messed things up again.
She was terrified.
That’s what Joe had said. That was the word he’d used.Terrified.
What had he done to make her afraid? Of all the things he’d done, why had she been afraid? He didn’t know, and without knowing, how could he ever make amends?
What about the boy? His son. He had a son.
What had she told him? Had she told him anything at all? Surely his mother would not have stood by and let her grandchild think he had no father? Surely Tommy would have … surely?
He tried not to sigh. He tried to focus on the world rolling past outside of the carriage window. He tried not to twist his wedding ring. He tried not to think about Bruges.
And like many things that Freddy tried, he failed.
It wasEmber who insisted they stop again, only an hour or two from Crooked Nook, and rest for an extra day.
“Weddings are so very much,” she said, blinking innocently at her husband. “I’d rather be perfectly fresh when we arrive, especially in such genteel surroundings.”
“Is that so?” Joe replied with the faint look of a charmed man hovering about his features. “Well, if Freddy isn’t opposed…”
“I’m not!” Freddy put in immediately. “I wouldn’t mind the rest myself. There’s a very good inn at Moreton-in-Marsh, the White Hart. Let’s do it. I will pay.”
“He will pay!” Ember echoed, delighted, and then a few moments later, “Hart?”—she held fingers up to her hair—”or heart?”—she moved her fingers to thrum over her chest.
“The former,” Freddy told her. “The latter would be rather horrifying, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ember said.
“It would,” Joe also said at the same time, causing the two to catch one another’s eye and hold it for a shared moment of sickening intimacy.
“Stop!” Freddy moaned, flicking his hand at the air between them. “You’re being lewd.”
When they arrived, Joe took to the particulars, leaving Ember and Freddy by the carriage in the gentle glow of early dusk.
Freddy glanced at her, feeding a sugar cube to one of their pulling horses as it was freed from the yoke. He waited for her to glance back and then he said, “Thank you.”
“Ever so welcome,” she replied, walking toward the horses and leaning against the driver’s seat. Always the jealous one, Ember motioned for a cube of her own and delivered it to the other horse, whispering that he was her favorite anyhow.
Freddy only shook his head.
She smirked at him, dusting her hands off as the mounts were led away to rest for the night. “So,” she said briskly. “Have you a plan, yet?”
