The pleasure she derived at his compliment was frightful. She looked down at her hands, so as to not betray her emotions. “I was afraid you might do mortal harm to yourself.”
“That would probably need more than a few weeks of drinking.”
She almost could not bring herself to speak of it. “I was talking about the rifle.”
He looked genuinely puzzled. “What rifle?”
“You were staring into the barrel of a shotgun.”
“You mean the dummy rifle I found in the shed?”
Her jaw dropped. “It was a dummy?”
“Very much. A child’s toy.” He laughed. “Perhaps we should introduce you to some proper firearms, so you can tell the difference next time.”
Her face heated. “This is terribly embarrassing, isn’t it?”
Now that he was sober, his eyes were an unearthly blue. “It is, for me: that I should have behaved in such a way as to cause anyone to doubt my will to live.”
“You’d endured a terrible loss.”
“Nothing others—including yourself—haven’t endured.”
He was inclined to gloss over heartbreak and affliction—again, like her.
The road turned. A gorgeous vista opened before them: a wide, oval lake, as green as the emerald peaks that framed it. All along the banks, late summer flowers bloomed, their reflections, white and mauve, like a string of pearls around the lake. On the distant shore stood a pretty village with ivy-covered cottages, their window boxes still aflame with geraniums and cyclamens.
“Well,” she said, “at least the honeymoon is over.”
“Yes.” He tilted his face to the sky, as if marveling at the sensation of sunlight on his skin. “Thank God.”
CHAPTER 6
1896
Fitz stood outside Isabelle’s house.
The day before, he’d hesitated in front of her door because he’d needed to cope with both an exorbitant hope and an equally strong fear of disappointment. But that was yesterday, before they’d committed themselves to a future together, a future once thought to be lost. Today he should enter her home with a spring in his step and no uncertainties whatsoever.
But last night he had discussed the matter with Millie. And sixteen hours later, he remained unsettled by her burst of panic, her horror at what he’d proposed. She’d agreed in the end, but the sense of rejection had lingered, as if all their years of mutual affection and common purpose counted for nothing.
He rang the bell and was duly admitted. In Isabelle’s sunny parlor, they embraced a long time before taking their seats. She was well; the children were well. She’d taken them for a tour of the British Museum in the morning. Alexander couldn’t get enough of the suits of armor. Hyacinth had been fascinated by the mummies, especially those of animals—and was already plotting to preserve General, their elderly cat, for all eternity, when the latter gave up the ghost.
“I can guess where she might have come by her mischief,” said Fitz.
Isabelle chortled. “I dare say she will quite surpass me as a miscreant.”
The tea tray was brought in. She rose and went to a side cabinet. “Tea is such a silly drink for a man. Can I offer you something stronger?”
He had not touched a drop of “something stronger” since the Lake District. “No, thank you. Tea is fine.”
She looked a little disappointed. There was much she did not know about him—or he her. But they had time for catching up on the past later.
She sat down again and poured tea. “Yesterday you said you needed to speak to your wife. Did the conversation go well?”
If the conversation had gone well, then he ought not feel this strange hollowness inside. Yet he could not report that it had gone ill, since he did obtain what he wanted.
“Well enough,” he said, and gave Isabelle a highly abbreviated version of what he and Millie had agreed between them.
“Six months!” Isabelle exclaimed. “I thought speaking to your wife would be a mere formality.”
“It’s never quite so simple when you are married.” Or so he’d begun to realize.
“But you’ve been married almost eight years. If you haven’t managed to procreate in that much time, how will six more months help?”
He’d anticipated this question. “We have seldom attempted to procreate. I had my needs met elsewhere and Lady Fitzhugh, as far as I could tell, was pleased to be left alone.”
“How seldom?”
“We spent a few nights together during the honeymoon.”
Technically, he was not lying, but he was deliberately creating the wrong impression. He did not want anyone, especially Isabelle, to think that there was anything irregular or incomplete about his marriage. Millie would be mortified.
It surprised him how easily he thought of her as Millie—perhaps he’d done so for a while now, without quite realizing it.
Isabelle’s reaction was ambiguous: Disappointment dragged across her face, followed by a flitter of relief. For him to have never bedded his wife would have been a terrific statement of faithfulness to her; but it would also mean that in trying for an heir, he’d be taking on a new lover, which Isabelle could not possibly want.
“I know you don’t care for the arrangement, Isabelle, but you understand that Lady Fitzhugh and I must do our duty at some point. I believe you’d prefer to have this out of the way, rather than for me to go back to her periodically, once we are together.”
“This is mind-boggling,” said Isabelle unhappily. “You should have taken care of the matter of your heirs much sooner. It was a complete dereliction of duty on your part.”
“It was,” he admitted. “But then I never imagined you’d come back into my life and change everything.”
“I don’t like this.”
He took hold of her hand. “We must still be fair. Lady Fitzhugh deserves the same freedom that she has given me. However, without an heir, she will never pursue that freedom. It will bother me to think of her alone and untended—and it will taint our happiness.”
“But six months is such a long time. Anything could happen.”
“Six months is not so long compared to how much time we’ve spent apart, or the number of years that await us.”
Isabelle gripped his fingers. “Remember what I’d told you in my letter? Captain Englewood and I caught the same fever. He was as hardy as a mountain goat. Yet in the end, I lived and he did not.
Her eyes dimmed. “You should not be so trusting of fate, Fitz. Life turned against you before and it could turn against you again. Don’t wait. Seize the moment. Live as if there is no tomorrow.”
He’d already tried that, in the Lake District. But tomorrows had an inexorable persistence about them: They always arrived. “I’d dearly love to, but I’m not temperamentally suited to living that way.”
Isabelle sighed. “Now I remember: I could never change your mind once you’d made it up, especially when you are set on being dreadfully responsible.”
“I apologize for being such a stick-in-the-mud.”
“Don’t,” said Isabelle. She pressed his hand into her cheek, her eyes tender again. “It’s what I’ve always liked about you—that you can be counted upon to do the right thing. Now enough of this high-mindedness. Let’s talk about the future.”
He was relieved. “Yes, let’s.”
She rose and retrieved a folded newspaper from a writing desk. “I’ve been looking at advertisements of properties for let—a home in the country for us. At the moment, they all sound terribly idyllic. Let me read you a few that I find particularly enticing.”