Page 68 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

And he could not find the rest—not while the servants were present. Obviously that was part of the difficulty. Even he could not fool himself that it was all of it.

“We should probably retire,” he said lamely.

Something in her expression dimmed. Roman knew immediately that he had said the wrong thing.

Again.

“Yes,” Tamsin said quietly. “I think so. I am rather tired. It has been a long and somewhat trying day.”

He rose and offered her his arm. She thanked him, as she always did. They were perfectly civil.

He hated it.

They walked upstairs together, but in silence instead of speaking as they usually did. Every night until this one, Roman had enjoyed this portion of the evening, a thing he had not expected, given its simplicity. Escorting his wife to her chambers after dinner ought to have been a mundane act. Yet it was the perfect end to his day spent before others.

Marriage had already introduced rhythms into his life so gradually he’d hardly noticed their establishment. Dinner with his mother and Tamsin. The dogs sprawled wherever they pleased, now closer to his wife than himself. The household quieting around them. And then the last part of the evening.

Tamsin, on his arm.

They had separate bedchambers, as was proper, connected by a door. At some point after their servants departed, one of them usually opened it. No agreement had been made aloud, they had no schedule of any kind. It had simply begun. Sometimes Tamsin came to him. Sometimes he went to her. Sometimes they talked until Roman realized an hour had passed. Sometimes she sat beside him in bed with a book while he read something of his own. Sometimes they kissed until conversation became entirely unnecessary.

But there was always a goodnight kiss at her door first. Roman had not realized until that evening how he expected it.

At Tamsin’s door, they stopped. He could still repair this. Not fix it. That distinction seemed important, though he wasn’t entirely certain what repairing something without fixing it was supposed to involve. “Tamsin.”

A soft sigh preceded her, “Yes, Roman?”

He wanted to say her question had been unfair, because he knew a hundred things about her. Last evening, he had watched her amongst his friends and thought⁠—

What? That she’d belonged there? No. That sounded like he was granting her admission. That he’d been proud of her? Yes. But that wasn’t enough, either.

He wanted to tell her that yesterday she had understood something about him without requiring him to explain it, and today he had assumed the same understanding existed in the other direction.

But it hadn’t. And it was that realization which sat heavily in his chest. He, Roman Eastwood, Baron Hartwell, admired speaker in the Lords and among the citizens of York, did not know how to say any of it.

Tamsin’s eyes were heavy with fatigue. He could not ask her to stand in the corridor while he attempted to discover words he had never learned to use. At last, he gave up with, “I hope your head feels better.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Oh. Thank you. Good night, Roman.” There was no anger in her tone, only a measure of confusion.

“Good night, Tamsin.”

She entered her room and closed the door—without the kiss. That was significant in a way he did not like.

Roman stood in the corridor for another moment before entering his own bedroom, where his valet was waiting. He endured the ordinary business of undressing with considerably less patience than usual. By the time his valet had taken his coat, waistcoat, cravat, and boots and finally withdrawn, Roman wanted nothing so much as silence. Yet he found himself listening for any sound at all coming from Tamsin’s bedroom.

There were faint noises he had come to recognize. Eliza moving around his wife’s room. A drawer opening. Footsteps. The low murmur of Tamsin’s voice, though he could not distinguish the words.

Roman sat on the edge of his bed, waiting for the moment she was alone. Which was absurd.

They had argued.

But most married people argued. Presumably. At least, that was what he had been led to believe. His parents must have done so, though Roman could not recall witnessing it. Lyness and Lady Emily disagreed from time to time and still seemed positively delighted with one another.

Surely he and Tamsin would be perfectly capable of putting the matter aside. Nothing catastrophic had occurred. Tamsin had expressed her displeasure when Roman made a mistake. He had apologized. Tomorrow he would set things right by⁠—

He stopped that line of thought abruptly.

Tomorrow he would do nothing. She had asked him not to fix it, so he would not even try.