Page 129 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

But she did not make their lists. She did not organize their correspondence. She did not quietly take charge because she could see six things which might be done more efficiently.

Once, standing in the doorway of Roman’s study while three gentlemen talked over one another, Tamsin identified precisely how she might clear up the entire conversation. The knowledge arrived fully formed. She could have done it—she could have done it very well.

Instead she looked at her husband. Roman caught her eye across the room, his expression harried. Tamsin smiled. He narrowed his eyes, plainly suspicious of her amusement…and she left them to it. But then he came out into the corridor, called her back.

“You saw something there. It was in your beautifully intelligent eyes. My lady wife, would you have a moment to assist? I know you are preparing for our departure, but⁠—”

“I suppose a moment would be all right.” She stepped into his study, and the men around her bowed, welcoming her to the conversation.

She helped him where she could before their departure from York. When Roman asked if she remembered Mrs. Milner mentioning her brother had once made a drawing of the barbican, Tamsin wrote to inquire. When Mrs. Sissons called and heard what was happening, she offered a valuable piece of information Tamsin carried to her husband. When Roman asked her opinion, she gave it. When he did not, she did not assume he had forgotten she possessed one.

Matilda came to visit before their departure, staying an entire afternoon, and carefully not saying how much she would miss Tamsin’s company.

“You can visit me in London,” Tamsin said at last. “You know you are invited at every single moment. I will send our carriage for you or have one from the estate bring you to us.”

“Mother would feel abandoned. And I think…I think there is one thing that my brother must resolve before I can contemplate such a thing.” Matilda sighed and embraced Tamsin at the door. “You are my dearest friend. I am happy for your happiness. I will try to visit. Perhaps in the spring.” Her smile turned sly. “You will want company more then.”

It was astonishing how much time remained in a day when one did not automatically adopt every unattended responsibility in sight. Her husband had to do the same, letting a great deal go into the hands of other men, trusting them to do all they could to save the history of York.

Walmgate and its barbican still stood. For now. No one knew whether it would continue to do so, and while their days were spent working hard in its defense, there were no defenses between the two of them. The door between their rooms stayed unlocked, with both of them passing freely between.

On the last night of January, Roman sat alone in his study long after the house had gone quiet. Tomorrow at first light they would leave for London—three days of hard road if the weather held, with barely a day to spare before Parliament opened—and Hartwell House already had the strange, hollowed-out feel of a place mid-departure, trunks strapped and waiting in the hall. The fire had burned low, the room cold. He had not noticed. His mother was already installed at the country estate, where she would be near Lyness and his wife, away from the social exhaustion of London as she much preferred. She hadn’t needed a companion, though she loved her daughters-in-law. She had needed permission to rest and find her own life again.

It had taken Tamsin’s gentle conversations with him for Roman to finally understand, and then give his full blessing to Mr. Conyers’s courtship.

Three letters lay before him. One required an answer he no longer had time to give properly and would have to wait for the road. Another contained information which ought to reach Salmond before Roman left York. The third was from a gentleman Roman had hoped might support them and who, after two pages of meandering cordiality, had declined to commit himself to anything whatsoever.

Roman read the last paragraph again, then reached for a fresh sheet of paper—he must act on Salmond’s instructions, the ones that mattered most, the ones he could not simply finish from an inn somewhere along the Great North Road.

The house was silent.

He knew this silence. For years, he had prized it—silence meant uninterrupted work. Or it used to.

He looked down at the papers covering his desk. There would always be another letter, another meeting, another man who required persuading, another thing Roman loved that he might fail to protect. His fingers tightened around the pen.

Micklegate had taught him that.

No.

Roman set his pen down. Micklegate had taught him something else. It had taught him what he became when he failed.

He had come home from that vote carrying defeat inside him like an injury and done his utmost to ensure no one saw it. He had shut Tamsin out because he had believed that was strength: because a husband ought to bring his wife certainty and security. Anything but the raw, humiliating truth he could not always mend what was broken.

Tamsin had told him what that had cost her. She had told him plainly.

I did not agree to be alone inside a marriage.

Roman stared at the blank paper. He had promised nothing that night—there had been nothing he could promise. He had not known how to become a different man merely because she had shown him the deficiencies of the one he was.

Perhaps he still did not.

But he knew what the old Roman would do tonight. The old Roman would remain at this desk until the letter was finished, then another, then another. Even tonight, with the carriage ordered for first light and three days of hard road ahead of them. He would go upstairs when the house was sleeping, or perhaps not at all. He would tell himself it was necessary. He would tell himself Tamsin understood.

And she would. That was the worst of it.

But he would not allow her to be lonely again.

Roman pushed back his chair, the letter unfinished. He looked at it for several seconds. Then he left it there.