“Of course,” she said. “Because you do not trust me, and I suppose you don’t trust him, and it doesn’t matter what I think anyway, because your word is law.” She got up from the table. “I seem to have developed a bit of a headache,” she told the table, not me. “Please excuse me.” And before I could say anything at all, she was gone from the room.
I slumped in my chair.
I wanted a nap.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I woke from my nap to a bit of a flurry in the household, the carriage being made ready for my wife, which was all right, because I had told the servants that whatever restrictions had been put on her, they all must be lifted at this point, but I was seized with the conviction she must be leaving me entirely.
Why would she stay with a man who could not trust her, after all?
Why stay with a man who had accused her of the worst behavior a wife could have exhibited?
Why stay with someone who she could not have conversations with?
I had only one thing to recommend me, it seemed, and it was the force of my desire for her. We were doomed.
Even so, I did not wish her to leave. I could not fault her for doing it, but I must attempt to stop her.
So, I went to her room, for she was not ready to leave yet, and I banged on her door.
“Elizabeth, please, let us talk,” I said. “Please.”
The door opened, but her maid was on the other side.
Elizabeth was seated, having her hair pinned up. “What is the matter?”
“You’re…” I looked her over. “Where are you planning to go?”
“Your aunt and sister have invited me for tea,” said Elizabeth. “I should have liked an excuse to beg off, but I did not seem to have one, and so I am going.”
“Oh,” I said, quite relieved. “I heard you were having the carriage readied, and I thought you were leaving entirely.”
She blinked at me. “Odd, that course of action had not even occurred to me.”
“I am coming with you,” I said.
“You were not invited,” she said.
“Even so, I am coming.”
“I believe that the understanding is that it is a women’s only sort of gathering.”
“I don’t care.”
She looked me over. “Are you intending to prevent me from leaving by keeping an eye on me, Fitzwilliam?”
“No,” I said. “I simply have an urge to see my aunt, that is all.”
She snorted.
The tea was horrid. My aunt was surprised to see me.
“My servants reported you were keeping her in her chambers, not allowing her to send out letters, and that you and my son galloped off somewhere together on some urgent business that required the procurement of gunpowder and ammunition,” she said. “I am not an idiot. That is a duel. And so I don’t know what your wife did to indicate that you must shoot someone over her, but you are lucky you have not widowed her in the process!”
“All of that is over now,” I said to my aunt. “That business is concluded, and it is not your concern. So, if that is all, let us turn to other topics.”
“You have accompanied her here, I see,” said my aunt. “Can she not be out of your sight, Darcy?”
