“Except apparently it does. Lady Karstark is right. No responses to our invitation were lost in the mail. I’ve been cut.” The tears rolled down her face freely, and rather than have him see them, she walked toward the door.
Before she could exit, he grabbed her hand.
“Useless buggers, the lot of them,” he murmured into her ear. Guiding her back to the table by the waist, he pulled her into his lap and hung his chin on her shoulder. “They’ll regret it when they’re old and grey and friendless.”
“In their hundred-room Mayfair houses surrounded by help and enjoying the finest dresses?” She wiped at her cheeks.
“Big houses are lonely. And you’re better surrounded by people whowantyou rather than people paid to wait on you.”
She turned and sobbed into his neck. His arms wrapped around her like they were the only thing anchoring her in a storm of sorrow. The gentle stroke of his fingers in her hair just made her cry harder.
“There is so much more to you than the dresses you wear and the people you have to tea. I just wish you’d see it. Isn’t it enough that the people in this house think the world of you?”
It caught at Amelia’s heart to hear it. He thought the world of her. And he was quickly becoming her world. But could she be happy here? To never dance at another ball, smell the soot of London, feel the buzz of the opera? She was born to that life, raised to it, loved it. Could she ever be happy tucked away in the country?
“No,” she whispered. “It’s not enough.”
Chapter22
It was barely noon, and the day had been bloody awful. Benedict shook his head, trying to clear some of the fog that came from a night without sleep. His eyes hurt, strained by hours of running numbers by candlelight. Numbers that didn’t add up, no matter how he tried.
And now, while his focus should be entirely on how to save the livelihoods of half the village, he couldn’t get four words out of his head.
No. It’s not enough.
He dropped his head into his hands. He’d been a fool for thinking that he could make her happy. If he hadn’t been enough for his mother, who by law of nature was supposed to love him, how could he ever have been enough for a woman who’d detested him from the beginning?
Despite all his efforts not to care, his heart was crumbling like high ash coal.
“You look like shite,” Oliver said from the doorway.
Benedict looked up. “You’re late.”
Oliver shrugged and leaned against the doorway. “Not as late as the others.”
It was true. Benedict had sent a runner for Fiona and John a full half hour ago. They might not typically be at his beck and call, but if he’d sent for them, they should damned well assume it was important.
“What’s got such a bee in your bonnet that you’re sending orders like a bleeding general?”
Benedict shook his head. “We’ll wait for the others.”
He stood and walked to the cabinet—newly dusted and neatened and catalogued like the rest of the office. The brandy sat next to the cognac, which sat next to the gin. It was early in the day, but to hell with it. He opened the cabinet door and grabbed two glasses, offering one to Oliver, who crossed his giant, ex-blacksmith arms over his barrel of a chest.
“No alcohol in the workshop during working hours, lad. Put it away.”
Benedict raised an eyebrow. “I am your boss.”
“And you’re the one that made the bleedin’ safety rules. You can damn well stick by them.”
Devil save him from overly efficient foremen. “You’re fired.”
“Not today, lad. Maybe tomorrow.” He took the bottle from Benedict’s hand and steered him toward the center bench. “Now why don’t you tell me what’s wrong? Whatever it is, there’ll be a solution.”
What’s wrong.
Benedict should start with the bloody upcoming clearances—that was what was important—but it was Amelia on the tip of his tongue. Amelia, who had his insides twisted in convoluted knots and his heart feeling like lead in his chest.
He was on the verge of telling Oliver how much it hurt to be married to a woman he could never truly have. A woman whose heart would always be elsewhere. But before he could say anything, a terse female voice came from the doorway.
