“Tell him he must give me the laudanum when I ask for it,” she said, suddenly strident. “Tell him, Xavier, tell him that!”
He hesitated. “He and Father will decide together about the laudanum, Sarah. If they decide you truly need it, then you will have it.”
“No!” She punched the bed weakly. “You are leaving me—you told me you would never leave me, Xavier, you lied!”
He did not know what to say. He had insinuated that he would never leave her; perhaps he had even said such a thing, but he had meant that he would always be there for her. That he would always take care of her. “I am leaving, Sarah, because Duty calls, but even though I am gone, I shall see that you are as well cared for as if I were here, personally attending you.” He stood up.
She met his gaze for a fraction of a second, saw that he was resolved, and she stared at her knees, sobbing. But she nodded.
“Come down for tea,” Xavier said. She was a tiny woman, and when he stood he towered over her, especially now, when she reclined in bed. He felt like a giant. She seemed like a dwarf.
Sarah made no response.
“I shall expect you downstairs in thirty minutes,” Xavier said softly. But it was a command and they both knew it.
She looked up, not resentful, merely pitifully resigned.
“It is not healthy for you to stay abed all day,” Xavier added gently.
She stared at him unhappily, and after a long moment, she nodded again.
Her acquiescence made him feel somewhat better. He turned, and when he was at the door she called out to him. “Xavier?”
He froze. He comprehended her question before it came, and he dreaded having to answer it.
“Where are you going?”
He did not want to tell her. He wanted to lie. The lie was there, on the tip of his tongue—the Indies, he would say. And he would promise her presents and pretty baubles. But as he hesitated, she guessed. For Sarah was as astute as children sometimes are. “No!” she gasped.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“No!” she cried again, rising up to her knees. “Not to Barbary!”
“Yes.”
She screamed.
“Sarah!” He had expected a violent reaction, but not this.
“You will never come back!”
When Dr. Carraday left, Sarah had been doused heavily with laudanum. Teatime was long since gone. Xavier checked to make sure that his wife was sleeping soundly. Bettina sitting by the bed, holding her hand, her big brown eyes sad, before striding downstairs. His father was in the formal salon, standing by the grand piano that Sarah played so well—when she could be motivated to do so.
William looked at his face and moved to the sideboard. There he poured them both oversized snifters of brandy. “This has been a long day.”
It was not even suppertime. Xavier nodded, drinking, and soon a warmth began to unfurl the constriction in his abdomen, even lightening the heaviness in his chest. “Yes, a very long and trying day.”
“How is she?” William asked with concern.
“She is asleep.” Xavier’s face tightened. “I should not have admitted the truth.”
“Do not blame yourself. You always blame yourself. The world does not rest upon your shoulders, Xavier.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Xavier said, as lightly as he could. But he looked away from his father’s eyes. Because these days it felt like the entire world did rest upon his shoulders. And though he was young and strong, he was not that strong, no one was that strong, by God.
“You can’t treat her like a child for the rest of your lives.”
“But she is a child.”
