Except here.
“Oliver!”
In the front hall of Bexton Manor, Crispin strode forward and shook his hand and then embraced him.
“Welcome, welcome, dear friend. Didn’t expect you tonight, but it’s no trouble at all, and I am so happy you’ve arrived. Just let me introduce you to the gentlemen. We’re all in here.” Crispin guided him towards the billiards room. “Having a tournament. Will you join us? A glass of whisky? Oh, I better keep my voice down. The ladies and children are abed.”
Oliver craved distraction, but he didn’t think he could tolerate the privileged—dare he say smug?—bonhomie radiating from all the titled gentlemen in the billiards room. Crispin was different, of course, but at the moment Oliver felt far too vulnerable to exchange polite remarks with strangers with whom he could have nothing in common.
After pouring him a glass of whisky and making introductions, Crispin changed his tack. No one ever understood Oliver as well as Crispin did.
“No, after a long journey, I’m sure you want some peace. Shall Catesby show you to your bedchamber? Or will you retire to my study? Stretch out your legs in front of the fire?”
Oliver thanked Crispin for the whisky and said he would make his own way to the study.
“I’ll come join you when this lot are done putting balls in pockets,” Crispin whispered in his ear as he clapped him on the back.
Those words gave Oliver some succor as he walked to the study, but as soon as he sank down into his accustomed chair, his dark thoughts returned. If he had been in Crispin’s company, Oliver might have been able to reason with himself, banish his guilt.
But not tonight.
Tonight, he was a wife-killer.
He had married two fragile women—each damaged in different ways—and he was complicit in their deaths.
One wife dead through neglect. He should have known the depths of Violet’s unhappiness and found a way to free her instead of burying his head in the sand.
One wife dead from bearing his son. Because he had foisted his desire on Emily. Because he had wanted to bed his wife like a normal husband would. Because he had wanted children and thought he could create something like the chaotic amity of Bexton Manor at Crossthwaite.
He should have known better. Oliver Hartwell was not fit for family, for fathering, for husbanding anything except sheep.
Nathaniel was three years of age now. Sickly like his dead mother. Silent and withdrawn like his wretch of a father. Fated either for an early death or a lifetime of loneliness.
And Oliver felt powerless to force a change in his son’s destiny or his own. He was doomed to stand by and watch as his little boy dwindled and diminished.
He had not cried since his own boyhood, but in this familiar chair, alone in the one place where he had found friendship and affection, Oliver abandoned himself to self-pity and despair.
He drained his whisky and wept.
Henrietta threw the counterpane to the side. She couldn’t find sleep and the longer she lay in her bed, the farther away it seemed. She kept thinking of what Geoffrey had said this afternoon.
She was dwelling on it, and Henrietta was not a dweller.
She sat up. She needed company. Ellen and Amelia and her mother had surely fallen asleep long ago. There was nothing for it except a visit to Zephyr.
She lit a lamp. Should she dress? No. Just a dressing gown over her nightdress and she would lace up her boots. None of the guests would be about this late at night. She’d nip out to the stables quicker than lightning.
She crept from her room and descended the stairs. On the next floor down, she saw light coming from under the door of her father’s study. Papa was up. They could play draughts. That would be even more comforting than a visit to Zephyr. She might mention what Geoffrey had said, and her father would tell her what to make of it.
She opened the study door and saw a figure in a chair, dark head bent, narrow shoulders shaking, and immediately knew to whom the head and shoulders belonged.
Mr. Hartwell. He had arrived!
Her niggling little hurt was instantly blotted out by the excitement she always felt in his presence. True, she had beenholding back her most fetching dinner dress for his first night at Bexton Manor and now he was going to see her wearing her oldest dressing gown and boots, her hair in a messy plait. Of course, it wouldn’t make any difference to him how she looked, but her own vanity suffered a small sting. Only a small one, though, because it was just so wonderful Mr. Hartwell was here.
He raised his head, and the light from the fire revealed the tears streaming down his cheeks.
It was as she had always suspected. Mr. Hartwell felt very deeply. His manner might be restrained, but that was because he felt so much and so strongly, he had no choice but to tamp down all his emotions lest he be swept away by them.
