“This man you only mentioned today is your dearest friend. Interesting. And of course I wouldn’t meet a dearest friend.” After wiping my fingers free of crumbs, I dipped my brush into the brown paint I’d mixed for the Demerara sea. “The red sky does not hold enough dread. I think this Roman soldier should wish himself dead if there was a jaguarete in the distance. Yes, this large cat will pick his flesh clear to the bone.”
With torch secure in his palm, Felton clapped about it. “Ahh. Your poetry now has a homicidal bent. I take it you missed me a great deal and the loneliness has driven you mad.”
I snorted a giggle. “Jane frightens more easily.”
A tentative smile spread on my foolish husband’s face. “But I’m not Jane. I know you to be a gentle flower.” He sighed, making his shirt buttons flutter as he wobbled. “Except in your art, I truly do not wish to meet the fate of your lone soldier.”
After offering him a shrug, I continued imagining the jaguarete. “Perhaps a chase scene by disappointed villagers would be more appropriate. More people for you to help.”
“Cecilia, my friend was in need. He’s been injured in the war.”
The jaguarete was not close enough to the Roman guard. I stippled in the hint of a second one in the jade grasses for good measure. One of them would do the deed. “Which war, Felton? The one started in 1812 that prevented my youngest sister from joining us but has allowed your cousin Gladstone to return to and from Demerara several times? Or this thing in the Peninsula that has everyone so bothered.”
“The Peninsular War. The Duke of Repington was hurt in the Battle of Badajoz. He was very kind to me when my first wife died. I’m greatly indebted to him.”
Part of me wanted to be snide and ask if it was boredom or neglect that took the first Lady Gantry, but their love according to Jane was deep and abiding. Her death weighed heavily, nearly destroying him.
A horrible loss was nothing to mock. “Was your lengthy visit successful?”
He frowned like it was none of my business, this new secret friend he felt compelled to visit. “It was, but my friend is different. Something is amiss and his motion is stunted by horrid back pain.”
So many questions popped into my head with this moment of unexpected honesty. I covered over the second jaguarete with jade grasses. Perhaps the soldier should live.
“Cecilia, I know you’re angry. I overstayed. I was out of the country for most of my trip, then in Bath with my friend. I didn’t write because I didn’t know how long I’d be away. The girls are mad at me too.”
“They’re getting older, Felton. They are pained by your leaving. You must consider their needs. Then, if you have a spare moment, you should consider what I want.”
“What is that?”
“My family, which means my sister’s company above all else.” I held my breath before blurting the next. “And a formal parting for us.”
His eyes widened, his cheeks reddened. “What?”
He’d heard me with his perfect ears, but I needed to say it again before my nerves abandoned me.
Raising my chin with my mother’s pride, I sought and held his gaze. “Lord Gantry, I want a formal separation. I want you to have yours and me mine, without all the guilt. I want to be on my own.”
Blinking as though I’d shoved the burning candle in his face, he shook his head. Then I waited for him to exhaust his logic and reasons before accepting what I had during all these months alone. We weren’t a great adventure, we merely ate wonderful food and, upon occasion, enjoyed a bed. He and I weren’t meant to be.
CHAPTER9
FELTON—WIFE, I HAVEAPROFESSION
Felton paced in Cecilia’s studio, back and forth, back and forth. The candle sent smoke everywhere. “No. Cecilia. You’re joking.”
She shook her head. “No. End us.”
He dunked the candle in the bucket of water near the table. “I’ll wear the toga if you will rid yourself of this notion.”
“What? Wanting my sister here with me is wrong?”
He flicked the knife and it tumbled,thwack, and hit the table. The blade impaled itself half an inch into the wood. “Not that part. Your sister should be in London. She’ll be, the minute she’s found. It’s the foolishness of a separation that needs to be tossed away.”
“I can’t keep reminding myself that this marriage is an accidental one with no expectation of closeness or accountability.”
There was closeness, and now that he’d quit the Department of War and the Colonies, they’d have endless accountability.
Cecilia’s agate eyes of topaz and bits of red and green looked wet, a flood of tears. “Felton, you had a life and children before you knew my name. I’ve nothing here but a borrowed closet for my art.”
