“Six months,” she repeated faintly, as if he’d said sixty years in Siberia.
On any given day, he could recite her schedule by the minute. Yet her heart was like a walled garden, invisible to one not granted entrance.
“I know the real reason you’d prefer our pact never come to pass,” he heard himself say. “You wanted to postpone it several months ago, before we even learned of Mrs. Englewood’s plans to return.”
She stared at him, as if afraid of what he was about to say.
“You don’t mention him but I haven’t forgotten. There was someone you had to give up to marry me.”
She gave a queer little laugh. “Oh, him.”
He closed the distance between them. She never wore perfume, but her soap smelled of the lavender from their estate—along with a hint of something softer, sweeter. So that when combined with the warmth of her body, the other-wise austere scent of lavender became subtle. Interesting. Sultry, even.
He placed one hand on her shoulder. She trembled almost imperceptibly at his touch—he hoped it was surprise and not revulsion.
“Millie—I think I may safely call you Millie, no?”
She nodded.
“We are friends, Millie—good friends, furthermore. We’ll get through this together. And when it is all said and done, I won’t be the only one free to pursue old dreams. You will be able to go after yours with all my best wishes.”
She looked away. “I scarcely know what to say.”
“Say yes, then.”
“You won’t—you won’t require that we begin tonight, will you?”
His pulse raced. Of course not, but the very thought of it made him hot everywhere.
Then he realized why she would think him capable of such an abrupt, indelicate demand: His fingers hadn’t been content to remain in one place, but had roamed up the column of her neck to explore the tender place just beneath her ear.
In a motion that might be called a caress.
He hastily withdrew his hand. “No, not tonight.”
“When, then?” Her voice was barely audible.
He stared where his hand had been, her smooth, bare shoulder, her slender throat, her dainty earlobe. “A week from tonight.”
She said nothing.
“Listen to me: It will be fine. And who knows? You might conceive right away.”
She averted her face, but even from this oblique angle, for him, who’d studied the subtle gradation of her expression for years, it was easy to see she was trying very hard not to grimace.
He was hesitant to touch her again so soon, but it was unthinkable that he should not comfort her.
“It will be all right,” he said, pulling her into a loose embrace, “I promise.”
It would be all right for him, not for her.
Could he not understand what he was asking of her? To become his lover knowing that she would be set aside at a specific date, knowing that even as he lay with her, his heart and mind were already contemplating his blissful future with Mrs. Englewood?
Tell him. It’s nobody’s fault but your own if you don’t tell him.
He kissed her hair.
Stop. Don’t touch me.
But she loved their rare instances of physical contact. When he’d lifted her and spun her around, when he’d danced four waltzes in a row with her, when he’d wrapped his arm around her shoulder upon the airship. And of course, that night in Italy. Those were the memories she savored over and over again, every detail polished to a high sheen, each sensation savored to the full.
Even now her body yearned to be closer to him. She wanted to press her nose into his skin and inhale hungrily—he always smelled as if he’d just taken a walk across a sunny meadow. She wanted to rub her palm against his jaw to feel the beginning of stubbles. She wanted to slide her hands underneath his shirt and learn every single shape and texture, with the fierce dedication she’d once put into mastering the Grandes Études.
There is no one else. I love you. I have loved only you. For pity’s sake don’t make me do this.
He kissed her on her ear, a close-lipped, chaste peck. Desire charred her all the same. She was burned to the ground, reduced to rubble.
“It will be over soon,” he murmured. “It will be over before you know it.”
And for the rest of her life, she would be only an afterthought in his and Mrs. Englewood’s radiant happiness.
I can’t. I can’t. Leave me alone.
“I will be the most considerate lover. I promise.”
A small sob escaped her despite her best efforts to the contrary.
He embraced her more tightly. She could scarcely breathe. She wanted him to never let go.
“All right,” she said. “Six months, a week from tonight.”
“Thank you,” he whispered.
It was the beginning of the end.
Or perhaps, it was only the end of something that was never meant to begin.
CHAPTER 5
The Honeymoon
1888 
There was a giant in Fitz’s head, tirelessly wielding a sledgehammer the size of Mount Olympus. He twitched, the floor hard and cold against his aching body.
“Get up!” shouted the giant, his bellow like a nail driven through Fitz’s skull. “For the love of God, get up!”
It wasn’t the giant who yelled, but Hastings. Fitz wanted to tell him to shut up and leave him alone—if he could get up he wouldn’t be on the floor like a common drunk. But his throat seemed coated in sand and grit; he couldn’t push a word past.
Hastings swore and gripped Fitz by the back of his shirt. They were of a similar height but Hastings was brawnier. He dragged Fitz along the floor, the motion making Fitz’s stomach queasy and his head hurt, as if it were being batted against a wall.
“Stop. Goddamn it, stop.”
Hastings didn’t care. He hauled Fitz into something resembling a vertical position then dunked him, fully dressed, into a bathtub full of scalding water.
“Jesus!”
“Get clean, get sober,” growled Hastings. “I can only keep Colonel Clements waiting for so long.”
Colonel Clements can go fuck himself.
Then Fitz remembered, as the sledgehammer came down again, that it was his wedding day. Time stopped for no one, least of all a young man who only wanted to hold on to what he had.
He wiped a wet hand over his face and opened his eyes at last. He was in a bath with peeling brown wallpaper, straggly scum-green curtains, and a dented mirror frame that was missing the mirror inside. His town house, he realized, cringing.
Hastings had no sympathy for him. “Hurry up!”
“Colonel Clements—” He sucked in a breath. It felt as if someone had stuck a fork into his right eye. “He isn’t supposed to be here until half past ten.”
The wedding was at half past eleven.
“It is quarter to eleven,” Hastings said grimly. “We have been trying to get you ready for the past two hours. The first footman couldn’t even make you stir. The second you threw across the room. I managed to get you into your morning coat and you had to eject your ill-digested supper all over it.”
“You are joking.” He had no recollection.
“I wish I were. That was an hour ago. Your morning coat is ruined; you’ll need to wear mine. And if you ruin mine, I swear I will set my dogs on you.”
Fitz pressed damp fingers into his temple. It was quite the wrong thing to do: Barbed wires of agony dragged through his brain. He hissed with pain. “Why did you let me get so drunk?”