Without another word, he turned and walked out of the room.
She heard his footsteps in the hall, swift and uneven. Heard him call for his coat. Heard the front door open and close with terrible finality.
He was gone.
He did not returnfor luncheon. He did not return for tea. He did not return all afternoon.
The sun set. The footman lit the fire in the grate. Still Viola waited.
She fell asleep on the sofa, wrapped in a woollen blanket.
Then, much later, the door opened, and he was back, suddenly kneeling on the floor beside her, bringing with him the smell of rain and fresh air.
“Have you been walking all day?” she mumbled, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Yes. I walked through all of London. I had much to think about.” He took both her hands in his cold ones and touched his forehead against hers.
An eternity must have passed before he finally spoke. “Forgive me, Viola. I did not know.” His eyes were red and held deep pools of grief. “I should have known. It was my responsibility to care for and protect you. I’d failed at that. I should have gone after you. I did not. I told myself I was respecting your wishes. It was but pride. I am sorry. I have failed you and the child.”
That brought tears to her own eyes. “No, you must forgive me for having believed, even for a second, that you did not care.”
“Ah, Viola.” He twisted his lips wryly. “How you must have hated me.”
It was true. For a while she certainly had hated him. Yet, for all her fury, even in those darkest moments, she had never stopped loving him. That was the cruelest part of it all; she had never been able to expel him from her heart.
“And all this time, you grieved alone, believing I had abandoned you and our child.” His voice was hollow. “No wonder you never wrote again.”
He sounded so immeasurably tired that her heart twisted.
“I should have known better,” Viola whispered. “I could have tried harder. Not given up as easily. I was so young and too deeply hurt to think clearly for a while. Then, later, I could have written again. But the chasm was too big, and both of us had moved on with our lives. I truly believed it was better that way. To leave the past behind. To move on, each on our own. I thought you were better off without me. You were leading a new, successful life. And now this.”
Silence fell between them once more.
She had had months, years even, to mourn and grieve and process what had happened. But for him, it was all brutally new. He seemed utterly at a loss.
Neither did she know what to do. How to comfort him. Whether to comfort him at all. Whether he even wanted comfort from the woman who had believed him capable of such cruelty.
She reached out tentatively and touched his hair.
He did not pull away.
She stroked it gently, as one might soothe a wounded creature, and said nothing at all.
There was no sound for a while, save for the fire crackling in the grate. They sat together in the flickering light, mourning at last what they had both lost.
Chapter Eighteen
The following days,Viola slept much and late, and Sebastian cancelled his meetings to stay home with her. They accepted none of the countless invitations that arrived daily, and the butler had standing orders to tell any caller that they were not at home.
They had reached a truce of some sort. It was tender and raw, more fragile than the forget-me-nots budding on the lawn of St James’s Park. It felt as though they’d flung open the doors of a long-shuttered attic to let in the sun and fresh air, only to discover a great deal of dust had accumulated, as well as haphazard, shrouded furniture they had no notion what to do with. Did one renovate and clean it or toss the entire bunch out altogether and start anew?
They were so very different, both in terms of character and interests, as well as in the way each dealt with their pain. She shouted it out into the world, whereas he buried his emotions deep within himself. Could two people so fundamentally different ever truly meet? She’d caught him more than once gazing at her, with a deep furrow between his brows, as if he were attempting to puzzle her out.
The things that occupied him day in and day out were a mystery to her. Politics and legislature, parliamentary debates, administration. Her eyes glazed over at the mere thought of it.
Awkward silences and unspoken words filled the space between them. But gradually Viola learned that, maybe, this did not matter so very much.
He was trying. She could see it in the way he sought her company, in the careful questions he asked about her day-to-day business, how he patiently listened to her answers, and in the small courtesies he extended without fanfare. He was here, and he sought her company. He appeared to be sincerely trying to understand her.
