The woman glanced at his hands and shook her head. “I-I don’t…”
“Nicola is my sister, your lordship,” the maid said. “Sh-she’s a friend of Lady Devereaux’s and has visited several times.” She wiped her eyes and sniffed.
Why are you distressed? What were you speaking of?
“Forgive me, your lordship, I don’t understand.”
He pointed to his right eye then ran his fingertip down his cheek. Then he gestured to both women.
“I-I’m merely upset b-because—”
“Because one of our pa’s collies needs to be put down,” Nicola interrupted. “She’s broken a leg and can no longer run. Isn’t that right, Susie?”
She glared at the maid, whose lip wobbled. Then she pulled her into an embrace. But Susie’s distress only seemed to increase.
“My poor sister’s a little weak-minded, your lordship. She becomes attached to anything and everything, and was quite taken with the dog. But you’ll recover, won’t you, Susie?”
The maid nodded, though her eyes were still clouded with distress—and something akin to fear.
“Were you looking for Olivia?”
Charles frowned. Who was this woman, to refer to his wife with such familiarity? Clearly he’d been away too long, and Mrs. Brougham had been overly lax, if strangers treated his wife’s chamber as if it were their own.
“Nicola, I think you ought to leave,” Susie said. “Th-thank you for comin’ to see me, but perhaps you should return downstairs. Or youcould seek out Jacob, as it’s him you came to see.”
“He’s nowhere to be found. I think he’s avoiding me. I saw him looking at Mrs. Temple’s youngest—Lily, or whatever the little slut’s name is.”
How dare they gossip before him like milkmaids! Charles clapped his hands and they stopped. Two pairs of eyes regarded him—one set filled with fear and misery, the other thoughtful and calculating.
Susie nudged her sister, who dipped into a curtsey. “Forgive me, Lord Devereaux, I ought to go and find Jacob. He’ll be wondering where I am.”
Charles frowned at her, and she curtseyed again then slipped out of the chamber.
“I-I think Lady Devereaux may still be outside, your lordship, if you’re lookin’ for her,” the maid said. “Mr. Reynolds said I was to wait for her here, sayin’ she might be in need of me. She was unwell this morning, you see, and I was concerned that…”
She paused as he raised his hand. Then he exited the chamber.
After he closed the door, the sobbing resumed. He leaned against the wall, waiting for it to subside, but it only increased. Surely the girl, no matter how sensitive her nerves might be, wouldn’t be in such a state of hysterics over a sheepdog? But women were an enigma—it was the only adage his father uttered that he agreed with.
Father usually followed that particular maxim by saying it was not a man’s responsibility to delve into the murky waters of a woman’s mind, for there lay the path to becoming a henpecked husband. But Charles found himself wanting to understand his wife—not to delve into her mind, but to make amends. And he wanted to see her smile.
Was he turning into a henpecked husband? Or was he merely falling in love? Most men of Society, profligates such as Foxton, saw love as a weakness, or they considered it to be merely a surrender to one’s physical needs—an act to commit for a moment’s satisfaction before moving on to the next woman.
But Charles’s mother had always said that love had little to do with attraction or desire, and everything to do with striving to make the world a better place for another, even if it were to the detriment of one’s own happiness. It was the love a mother had for her child, a wife for her husband…
Much good it had done her. Though Mother had loved others, there was no one to love her other than a small child with little understanding of the world. And Charles had been too young when she died to understand the meaning of love, to see that, despite a marriage in which she’d suffered abuse and neglect, she had striven to make Charles happy. She’d given him every comfort—a warm pair of loving arms, someone to soothe him to sleep at night during thunderstorms…
Until she had been ripped away from him, her life taken from her at the foot of this very staircase.
And it had been his fault.
He closed his eyes, striving to see her beautiful smile, but all he could see was the memory of the day his life had changed…the terror in her eyes while Father beat him, her grim determination as she wrapped her arms around him, and finally…
…her wide-open stare as the spark of life left her while she clung to the boy she’d sacrificed her life to save. But he was a worthless soul incapable of love, whom the Almighty, in his cruelty, chose to save in exchange for the kindest, most loving woman who had ever lived.
Mama!
The last word he had ever uttered echoed in his mind, as sharp and clear as if the child he’d once been was there before him. Then the sightless eyes shimmered and changed color, becoming a clear, warm honey…
