She gave a small nod. “Of course. I shall… um… search through my diaries and letters, to see if I can come up with any further information for you about the… uh… accidents. To help.”
“Very good.” He paused, willing her to look at him, but her walls had gone up again, blocking him from feeling her warmth.
So, without another word, he left her alone… as he had done for all the years of their marriage. A habit that it seemed he could not break.
CHAPTER 23
Why did I make such a foolhardy request of him?
Thalia brushed her fingertips across the pages of her diary: the gloomier entries where she had lamented her solitude, the loneliness so vivid in her memory that it ached afresh; a paragraph where she had written about Henry returning to Holdridge after many months, wondering if they might dine together this time; a sentence of apparent disappointment that they hadnotdined together and had not, in fact, interacted at all.
It was subtle within the pages of her own thoughts and feelings and the events of her life over the past four years, but Thalia could pick out tiny glimmers of yearning. Little moments of wanting more than she had asked for, not in terms of ‘things’ but her husband’s presence in her world.
“You may ask anything of me, here and now,”Henry had said on their wedding day, as they entered the carriage together, tohead to her new home.“Whatever it is, I will oblige you. But you can only ask it now: a wish, if you like.”
Maybe it was the sight of those unsettling men in the distance, maybe it was the circumstances of the wedding; maybe it was her anger toward her father for putting them all in such a dire situation; maybe it was the fact that Henry had seemed so cold and indifferent; maybe it was stubbornness, ignited by the realization that she could not fulfill her mother’s dying wish.
Whatever the reason, she had given her fateful answer:“Very well. I wish to be left alone. I wish for us to lead separate lives. I wish to not have to think about this marriage if I do not have to.”
She did not know what she had expected from him, but she had not expected his agreeable reply of,“As you wish. I am so often away from my residence that you may consider it yours. Do what you will with it. I shall have to return here and there but, otherwise, consider us separate from one another. Live your life however you please, as long as you do not bring my family name into disrepute. After all, that is the point of this, to benefit my standing in society and to rid your family of debt.”
“Is that our deal, then?”
“If you accept the terms, then yes.”
She had readily accepted and thought herself incredibly lucky to receive an entire manor to herself, to do with as she pleased.It had taken a matter of months before she realized it was a poisoned chalice and that solitude did not suit her at all.
According to her diary, she had tried to get her father to let Dorothy live with her, but he had refused. So, she had filled her time with founding schools and publishing women’s books, and it hadalmostbeen enough. But even among the entries of pride and excitement about her endeavors, there were crossed-out sentences asking,I wonder if I should tell Henry… I wonder if Henry would like to hear what I am up to… I wonder if I should suggest new terms… I cannot do this alone anymore.
With a lump in her throat, Thalia removed the letter from the back of the diary and smoothed it out on her lap. The response was brief, but not unkind, yet it carried a new meaning as she read the words: she was not to get her hopes up that anything would change.
That way, if he left once his task was fulfilled, it would, perhaps, hurt that little bit less to be alone again.
“Your Grace?” Baxter appeared in the doorway of Henry’s study.
Blinking away the blur of his strained eyes, for he had been reading letters and writing replies for hours by candlelight, Henry glanced quickly at the butler. “Is it my wife? Another headache?”
Indeed, he had not left his study for three days. Not because he wished to avoid his wife, but because he did not yet have answers for her. After all he had promised, he did not know if hecouldsee her again until this mystery was solved and he could confirm, without doubt, that she was safe.
“No, Your Grace,” Baxter replied, the ghost of a smile upon his lips. “You have visitors.”
Henry set down his quill and rubbed his eyes. “Visitors?” He looked toward the carriage clock on his writing desk. “But it is almost ten o’clock.”
“It is His Grace, the Duke of Shawton and His Grace, the Duke of Foxhill,” the butler replied with a wry look. “They are most insistent.”
Leaning back in his chair, feeling his shoulder crack, Henry nodded. “Send them in.”
As the butler turned to go, however, Henry suddenly called him back. “Has there been news of Gibbs yet?”
He had sent Baxter to Farhampton to arrange a meeting with the Viscount, only to discover that Gibbs had been absent from the manor for almost a week. Kenneth did not know where his father was, but did not seem perturbed by the absence, as if it were common enough.
Henry, on the other hand, was very perturbed indeed. It reeked of suspicious behavior.
“None yet, Your Grace, but it has barely been two days since I sent out my hounds. They must have time to sniff out the fox,” Baxter replied, his voice taking on a chilling edge, as it occasionally did. “We will likely hear something soon.”
“Yes, of course. Of course. I must have patience. Thank you, Baxter,” Henry replied, decidedlyimpatient. “May you fetch some of the good brandy up from the cellar? I expect the gentlemen will be thirsty.”
The butler bowed his head. “Certainly, Your Grace.”
