“This is absolute madness.”
George raised his head from his ledgers. “Lady Merrow, I assure you I’m working to resolve?—”
“Oh, do be quiet.” She waved dismissively at him. “Your financial disasters are the least of my concerns. Louise, you look like death warmed over.”
Louise set down her teacup before her shaking hands could betray her further. “We’re adjusting. It takes time.”
“Adjusting.” Lady Merrow tested the word like spoiled milk. “Is that what we’re calling it when two people in love torture themselves with separation?”
The words hit Louise like a physical blow. She pressed her palms flat against the table, focusing on the wood grain to avoid meeting those too-knowing eyes.
“Your nephew made his feelings perfectly clear. We were a temporary inconvenience he’s well rid of.”
“My nephew is an emotionally constipated fool who wouldn’t recognize happiness if it bit him on his well-formed posterior.”
George choked on his tea.
“He sits in that study from dawn to midnight, staring at nothing. He doesn’t eat. He doesn’t sleep. Buttercup howls at his door like the world is ending, and perhaps for him it is.” Lady Merrowleaned forward, her voice gentling. “He loves you desperately, my dear. He’s simply too terrified to admit it.”
Louise stood abruptly, the chair scraping against worn floorboards. “Then his terror and my heartbreak are well matched.”
She fled to the window, staring out at the narrow street where gray slush accumulated in corners the sun never reached. So different from the pristine gardens of Calborough House, where she’d walked with Aaron, where he’d kissed her, where everything had seemed possible.
“Emily cries herself to sleep.” The admission scraped her throat raw. “She muffles it in her pillow, but I hear every sob. She asks why we had to leave, why we couldn’t stay where we were happy.”
Lady Merrow rose, moving to stand beside her at the grimy window. “What do you tell her?”
“Lies. That this is our home, that we’ll be happy here again, that everything will be fine.” Louise’s fingers clenched on the windowsill. “She nods and pretends to believe me, but we both know I’m lying.”
Overhead, Emily’s voice drifted through thin walls, telling Buttercup about each treasure, explaining where she found them, why they mattered. The dog’s occasional whine suggested he understood more than he should.
“Three days.” Louise’s voice broke on the words. “Three days and it feels like three years. How am I supposed to survive this?”
Lady Merrow’s hand settled on her shoulder, warm and maternal. “You survive it by not accepting it. By fighting for what you want instead of accepting what you’re given.”
“Fighting Aaron is like fighting stone. He’s made his choice.”
“Has he? Or has fear made it for him?” Lady Merrow squeezed gently. “My nephew spent his childhood watching his father destroy every woman who loved him. He’s terrified of that capacity living in his blood. But you’ve seen the truth, haven’t you? You’ve seen the gentleness he hides, the tenderness he’s capable of when he forgets to be afraid.”
Louise closed her eyes, remembering Aaron’s hands in her hair, the reverence in his touch, the way he’d given her pleasure while denying himself. The opposite of his father in every way that mattered.
“Seeing the truth doesn’t change the reality. He chose to let us go.”
“And you chose to leave.” Lady Merrow’s voice held no judgment, only observation. “Two terrified people making fear-based choices. How wonderfully stupid.”
Emily appeared in the doorway, Buttercup pressed against her side. “Lady Merrow? Buttercup seems sad. His tail won’t wag properly.”
Lady Merrow crossed to them, kneeling despite her expensive skirts to meet Emily at eye level. “He misses you terribly, darling. Dogs don’t understand human complications. They only understand love and loss.”
Emily’s lower lip trembled. “I miss him, too. I miss everything.”
The naked pain in her voice shattered Louise’s fragile control. She turned away before Emily could see her tears, gripping the windowsill until her knuckles went white.
“We’ll return tomorrow.” Lady Merrow rose, her voice carefully steady. “And every day after until things are as they should be.”
After they left, Emily stood at the window watching their carriage disappear into the London gloom. She didn’t speak, didn’t cry, just stood there like a small statue of grief.
Louise wrapped her arms around her sister from behind, resting her chin on copper curls that still smelled faintly of Buttercup.
