“Please.Leave.”
He reached down and—for perhaps the last time—kissed her lips.
And then he obeyed her command.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Leith was barelyconscious on the journey back to London.He stopped at inns and rested the horses as Preston demanded.He ate and slept.
But he could not think.He could not form any coherent thoughts.
He could only feel her loss.And feel how, if it continued, he would scarcely be able to recover.
When he got to Mrs.Bercine’s, she took one look at him and his grim countenance and pushed a glass of whiskey upon him.
“Thank you.”
“Where is your woman?”she asked.
He merely shook his head.And then, just briefly, she placed a hand on his shoulder and swept off.
Even that small touch of mercy had tears prickling behind his eyes.He blinked them away and swallowed the whiskey.
On this journey back, Leith traveled only with Preston.Charles had not come with them.Leith had asked the boy—it was clear that he needed to stay in Somerset with Sally.Given Leith’s new appreciation for love, he had not been able to reproach him.He had pressed ten guineas into his palm and told him that he’d always have a place with him if he needed it.
On the approach to London, his brain began to awaken somewhat under the effect of the familiar sights.But the turn of these thoughts only made him worse.
He thought of Monty.And the thirteen years the man had lived in the state that Leith now found himself.
Leith had not thought it possible for him to feel worse.
He was wrong.
Because he understood anew Monty’s suffering.And that it washewho had condemned another man, his best friend, to this miserable state.Leith had only been without Beatrice for two days and he had never known such acute misery.He did not think he would have the strength to endure what Monty had—and it terrified him.That he had been the means of delivering his friend to that horrible fate… He had never felt more worthless.
When he arrived back at his Leith Manor, he lurched through the door.
His only thought was of sleep.Perhaps, he thought, he could at least be unconscious to these horrible feelings.
“Thomas?Is that you?”
His mother.
He almost ignored her.He took a step towards the stairs.
But then, something, perhaps just age-old habit, or a boyish wish to have his mother comfort him, stopped him.
Leith walked towards the drawing room and stood in the doorway.
There, his mother sat, in her usual spot on the sofa, Bonaparte curled on her lap and a French novel in her hand.
“Darling,” she said, looking up at him.“You look dreadful.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly.
“Come here,” she said, alarm spread across her features.
He walked towards like a man going to the gallows.Since boyhood, he had tried to give her no trouble or anxiety.He had wanted to be in control of himself so that he may cause her no concern.But now, he knew, there was no hiding his true state.
