Staring at her husband for a moment, Ivy noted his thoughtful expression. “Thank you,” she murmured.
He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “Our poor boys. I fear they’ve both taken after me in the looks department?—”
“Our sons are quite striking in appearance,” she argued. “There are a dozen young ladies who would be happy to wed them once they set their minds to marriage.”
Robert winced. “I know I wasn’t a handsome bloke?—”
“You didn’t need to be,” she interrupted. When she noticed his questioning glance, she added, “You’ve always had a sort of charisma about you.”
“Charisma?” he repeated in surprise. He dropped his spoon to stare at her.
She countered his stare with one of her own, her eyes finally narrowing. “An aura of…power, I suppose is what it is. As if you can command a room just by standing there,” she explained. “It’s probably due to your Scandinavian ancestry. Or maybe from a Roman centurion,” she teased. “It was very effective. Still is, I think.”
Robert settled back in his chair, his gaze darting about as if he was confused. He cleared his throat. “I certainly don’tfeelpowerful,” he murmured.
Having lifted a finger to direct the footman to clear the soup bowls, Ivy stared at him. “Why ever not?”
He waited until the footman had left the dining room to say, “I’m getting old, Ivy. I’m not the same man I was.”
She inhaled softly. “I don’t know what you’re seeing in the mirror these days, but you don’t appear to have aged one whit since the last time I saw you,” she said.
“Have you considered wearing spectacles?” he asked, a smirk appearing to lighten his stark features.
Once again tittering, she waited until the footman and Graves had delivered the next courses—she had elected for several to be served together to shorten the meal time—beforeshe said, “I cannot believe finding some old letters would have you fleeing Gladstone Hall to come to Ritchfield Park.” She swallowed. “But I’m glad you did.”
“You are?” he asked in surprise.
“Well, of course. I shouldn’t want you to spend your Christmas alone in that huge house,” she replied. “I recall it was rather drafty in the winter.”
“Still is,” he murmured. He selected a slice of beef and placed it on her plate before he helped himself to another for his plate.
Ivy watched as he filled her plate with a variety of food, her eyes rounding with each additional serving. “I am not with child, so I rather doubt I’m going to be able to eat all this,” she warned.
He shrugged. “We have all night.”
Her brows furrowing, Ivy tucked into her meal, secretly glad the meat wasn’t the texture of shoe leather and the vegetables weren’t mushy. “So... what exactly was it about the letters that bothered you so much?”
About to eat some beef, Robert put down his fork and shook his head. “Nothingbotheredme,” he claimed. “They were merely... reminders, I suppose.”
Ivy paused her fork in midair, the peas on it threatening to roll off the tines. “Reminders?” she prompted.
“Of us. Of how happy we were,” he explained, one shoulder lifting in a shrug. “Which had me wondering what happened to... to drive you away? To keep us apart except during the Season?” He sighed as if he was exasperated. “It feels as if it’s been ten years since we were truly... together.”
Ivy stopped chewing and nearly choked. She took a long draught of her wine. “Actually, ithasbeen ten years, and as I recall, it’s always beenyouwho has left me,” she said in a quiet voice.
Robert stiffened, as if he was preparing for an argument. “I leave London, yes. We used toallgo to York every year after Parliament was finished. The entire family. Then ten years ago I went back to York—I had to, what with the mines and all—and you weren’t with me. You stayed in London,” he accused.
Despite her desire to keep their conversation light, Ivy decided to argue her side of the matter. “As did the girls because that’s when Charity started finishing school,” she stated, referring to their oldest daughter. “I wasn’t about to leave her alone in London,” she explained. “We talked about it at the time.”
Robert straightened in his chair. “Oh. I’d quite forgotten about that,” he whispered. “But... you stayed again the next year,” he accused.
“Because by then, both Charity and Grace were in finishing school,” she replied. “And I stayed another three years until they were both done with school and their come-outs, and then there were their betrothals, and their weddings?—”
“And yet you continued to live there, even after they were wed,” he accused.
There it was. The words describing exactly when their estrangement had begun. The acknowledgement that something had gone wrong.
But how had this been her fault?
