A beat of silence. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. “You should have seen your face. You looked so thoroughly bored and irritated when that imbecile prattled at you at supper, I truly feared you might poke his eyes out with your fish fork.”
Ah. So he had been watching her at supper, had he?
“As everyone knows,” she mimicked Mainwaring’s pompous tone, “fish forks are the last resort of the truly bored and desperate.”
He chuckled appreciatively. Then he regarded her thoughtfully. “How the deuce did you know that about the insane asylums in Dublin? That question you shot at me was more precise than any arrow fired at me by an MP.”
“Easy.” She yawned. “I read the newspaper.” It was a barefaced lie, but he didn’t need to know that, did he?
Silence.
“Put out the light,” she added drowsily, curling deeper into her blanket.
He did as she asked, though not before she caught the faintly puzzled look on his face. Then the room fell into darkness.
Chapter Eleven
Thus,the days passed. They had fallen into a routine that was both mundane and peculiar: living in domestic familiarity while maintaining the polite distance of strangers, barely seeing each other during the day, each going about their own lives. They ate breakfast together, for both rose early, and then they conversed with stiff politeness while he read his mail and she drank her tea. But most nights he returned late, when Viola had already gone to bed.
One morning, Viola went down to the breakfast room and found it empty; the butler informed her that Mr Fane had already left on an urgent matter pertaining to Parliament.
She drank her tea in silence.
There was one visit she had yet to do that she had postponed for as long as she could. It had been nagging at her since she’d arrived in London. The longer she pushed it away, the greater the weight became upon her shoulders, and she decided the best thing to do was to get it over with.
She sent a footman to Covent Garden for flowers. After he returned with a basket of what she had requested, she donned her pelisse and bonnet and gave instructions to have the carriage brought round.
“To St George’s church,” she told the coachman.
The church was empty. She walked along the side aisle, her eyes searching the wall.
Then she stopped.
There it was.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF THE HONOURABLE GEORGE EDWARD FANE LIEUTENANT IN THE 57TH REGIMENT OF FOOT THIRD SON OF THE VISCOUNT OF PENDERYN WHO FELL AT THE BATTLE OF TALAVERA ON THE XXVII DAY OF JULY MDCCCIX AGED XXIV YEARS
BELOVED BY ALL WHO KNEW HIM HE GAVE HIS LIFE IN THE SERVICE OF HIS KING FAR FROM HOME BUT NOT FROM HONOUR
THIS TABLET IS ERECTED BY HIS AFFLICTED FAMILY
She took the wreath out of the basket and placed it beneath the memorial tablet. Her fingers traced the cold marble.
“George, my dear. I am here. Lala.” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “I have come. Finally.” For the first time in nine years.
A vision of George flashed before her, in his red uniform, leaning nonchalantly against the mantelpiece, laughing at her.
“I am so…so…” Tired? Guilty? Full of regret? All of these.
“...sorry.” She nodded. “So very sorry.” She lowered her head. A tear slid down her cheek, and she swiped at it impatiently. “I daresay I should have come earlier, but I was rather busy, and so much has happened…”
The church bell tolled, slow and solemn, and when it stopped, its echo lingered in the silence.
Footsteps approached behind her. Someone stopped at her side.
Her head snapped round, and she drew a startled breath when she saw it was Sebastian.
He took in her stricken face, the wreath of flowers, the tears drying on her cheeks.
