Sophia had no answer. She held the boy close and blinked back her own tears.
Sometimes, late at night, she heard movement in the corridor outside her chambers. Footsteps that paused at her door lingered, then retreated.
She never opened the door. And the footsteps were never followed by a knock.
They were married. They lived in the same house. And they had never been further apart.
CHAPTER 36
“Again.”
Edward spat blood onto the sawdust floor and raised his fists. His opponent, a dockworker with arms like tree trunks, circled him with wary respect. The crowd in the basement tavern roared its approval. They were hungry for violence.
Edward gave them what they wanted.
He threw himself into the fight with reckless abandon, his fists connecting with flesh, pain blooming across his knuckles, his ribs, his jaw. The dockworker was good, but Edward was desperate, and desperation made him dangerous.
He won. He always won. But the victory felt hollow, and the rush of combat faded as quickly as it came, leaving only the ache in his bones and the emptiness in his chest.
He staggered to the edge of the ring and accepted a tankard of ale from a faceless admirer. The liquid burned down his throat. He drained it and reached for another.
This was his fourth night in the tavern. Fourth night of fighting until his body screamed for mercy. Fourth night of drinking until the edges of the world blurred and softened.
It didn’t help.
Nothing helped.
He saw her everywhere. In the flicker of candlelight. In the curve of a stranger’s smile. In the quiet moments between one blow and the next, when his mind betrayed him and conjured the image of her face, her voice, the way she had looked at him when he told her it was a mistake.
The hurt in her eyes. The way she had gone cold and brittle, matching his cruelty with her own. The soft click of the door as she walked away.
He drained his second ale and signaled for a third.
Sleep had become a stranger. He lay awake in his bed, staring at the canopy, listening for sounds from the chamber next door. Sometimes he rose and crossed to the connecting door, his hand hovering over the handle, his heart pounding against his ribs.
He never knocked and never opened the door. Just stood there in the darkness, wanting what he had thrown away, too proud and too afraid to reach for it.
Food held no appeal. His valet had commented, with careful neutrality, that his coats were fitting more loosely. Edward had dismissed him with a wave.
The third ale arrived. He drank it without tasting it.
“You look like death.”
Hugo dropped onto the bench beside him, his fair hair disheveled, and his expression caught between concern and exasperation. He surveyed Edward with critical eyes, taking in the split lip, the darkening bruise along his jaw, and the bloodied bandages wrapped around his knuckles.
“You should see the other man.” Edward lifted his tankard in a mock toast.
“I saw the other man. He is currently being carried out by his friends.” Hugo signaled for his own drink. “What happened, Edward?”
“Nothing happened.”
“You disappeared for weeks. You stopped coming to the tavern and stopped answering my letters. And now you are back, fighting like a man with a death wish and drinking like youare trying to drown something.” Hugo leaned closer. “What. Happened.”
Edward stared into his ale. The liquid was murky and flecked with foam. He could see his own distorted reflection in its surface.
“Oliver got lost in Hyde Park.” The words emerged flat. “I was distracted. Sophia and I were…” He stopped. Swallowed. “I took my eyes off him. He wandered away. We found him eventually, scraped up and terrified, but he was lost for nearly an hour. Anything could have happened.”
Hugo was silent for a moment. “But he is all right now?”
