“Then what do you want from this marriage?”
If her bluntness surprised him, he didn’t show it. Nor did he take long to consider it.
“A chance to move forward. With you.” His eyes darkened, like the glowing heart of an emerald under moonlight. Mesmerizing and tempered on the cusp of passion. “What do you want, Lana?”
She took a shaky breath that mimicked the tripping of her heart. Surprisingly, she didn’t need long to consider her own answer as the words came from her heart without complication.
“I think I would like that too. My whole life has been rooted by obligation and expectation, yet I tire of the stillness. I wish to see what exists beyond the borders. With you.”
The back of his fingertips traced her face, blazing a path from her cheek, along her jaw, to her chin and curving around the other side. With each pass he closed the distance between them, leaving mere inches between his lips and her need to claim them.
“After meeting you, it’s a good thing I specialize in heart troubles. I feel I’m about to lose mine.”
In that instant the strength of his emotions overwhelmed her, plunging her to heady yearning. She gathered her courage to receive them as the tide swept her away to deeper currents from which he beckoned. He was not for the faint of heart. She’d never fainted a day in her life, but she felt light-headed.
She tilted her head as his warm breath fanned her face. His green eyes dissolved to desire, taking her right along with him. Finally, she would know what it was like to kiss her husband.
The auto jerked to a stop and the door opened to a blast of frigid air. Svetlana jumped, knocking Wynn in the face with the brim of her hat. Embarrassment scorched through her, but she quickly cooled it by flicking the blanket from her lap. No one, aristocrat or servant, was about to make her feel guilty about the almost kiss. Proper decorum was too cumbersome for the back of an auto. Especially when one’s husband looked as Wynn had.
“Welcome home, Your Graces.” A footman stood holding the door open with his eyes staring politely ahead.
Grunting, Wynn unpeeled his arm from around her and whacked away the stiffened peacock feather threatening to take his eye out.
“Impeccable timing, McNab.” He glared at their chauffeur. “Drive slower next time.”
McNab bobbed his head from the front seat. “As Your Grace wishes.”
Wynn climbed out and offered his hand to help Svetlana down, then hooked her hand into the crook of his elbow. They crossed the gravel drive to the gloriously imposing presence of Thornhill. With the tumultuous gray skies behind her, the castle resembled a medieval lady rising on her solitary throne of steel.
“Did you mention something about war widows and wives?”
So he had been listening. Or partially listening. Svetlana lifted her heavy black skirt and stepped over the mud puddling at the front entrance.
“Perhaps a charity ball. We’ll send invitations to the neighboring gentry and all proceeds will go to the war benefit.”
“It’s not feasible to write all the affected families a cheque.”
“No, but perhaps it can ease their immediate suffering while helping to establish a more permanent venture. Such as a training center. Of course, that only alleviates half of the problem.” It would take time and thought to devise a more concrete plan of action, particularly time when her thoughts weren’t consumed by wanting five more minutes in the back compartment of the Renault.
They shrugged out of their overcoats, hats, and gloves and handed them over to the waiting servants who would whisk them away to be brushed free of possible dirt and stored among cedar closets lined with lavender sachets. It felt good to be wearing tailor-made, clean clothing again. Any scuffs were buffed out. Holes were immediately mended. Inches taken in or out. How had she survived last winter with barely a shawl on her back? A patched shawl that too closely resembled Mrs. Douglas’s. First thing in the morning Svetlana would put together a donation box of warm items to be distributed in the village.
Their butler, Glasby, glided across the floor of the Stone Hall, so named for the smooth river stones lining the three-story space that always set guests’ jaws dropping. He held out a post platter stacked with several envelopes.
“Her Grace the Dowager Duchess is having tea in the library along with Princess Marina and Mrs. Varjensky.”
“My mother has not joined them?” Svetlana asked.
“No, Your Grace. She claims a headache and is resting in her chambers.”
“Another protest at the lack of a proper samovar, no doubt. Thank you, that will be all.”
Inclining his head, Glasby glided away as Wynn filed through the post. Svetlana scanned the addresses on the envelopes, hoping against all odds that she might see a familiar script written from Father or Nicky telling her they were alive. Or Sergey. She’d all but convinced herself that she’d imagined seeing him on Armistice Day outside the Paris townhouse. But no letters ever came for her.
She brushed off her pang of sadness. “Shall we go into the library?”
“I’ll join you later. I have a few things to attend first.” Wynn strode toward his study with a thick cream envelope stamped with a London address clenched in his hand.
“Is anything the matter?”
Entering his study, he closed the door without a backward glance. The sound of the shutting door reverberated among the river stones, echoing back the loneliness of the hall in which she was left.
* * *
The paper dropped to Wynn’s desk as if the report were written in damning lead ink. All feeling drained from his legs, and he sagged into his chair like a boneless bag of abject emptiness. The slivers of hope he’d clung to on the precipice of despair had sharpened to knives with each word of the report, twisting deep and thoroughly gutting him.
A glutton for agony, he read the damning words again.
Coroner concludes death of Lieutenant Harkin caused by operative trauma under care of Dr. Edwynn MacCallan with crisis arising several months post operation. Ill-advised surgery was undertaken without physician gaining further consent from supervisor and patient.
Despite agreed upon medical practices of the hospital, Dr. MacCallan proceeded to his own advantages and ensured his reputation for aggressive and malignant theories which prove detrimental to the sacred oath of caretaking.
“Aggressive and malignant.” Daggers into his soul.
They now thought him an arrogant butcher with no care of destroying those entrusted to his care, as if his Hippocratic oath meant nothing. As if he didn’t mourn every life that couldn’t be saved. Did they truly think his arrogance stripped him of human decency in the delicate balance of life and death?
He dragged his hands through his hair as his mind railed against the accusations. Harkin had shown no signs of post-op complications, although many could lay dormant for months. Wynn yanked open the desk’s bottom drawer where he kept correspondences and pulled out the third envelope down. A letter from Harkin dating two weeks before his death stating that the physicians at St. Matthew’s Hospital in London had cleared him with a full bill of health. Surely if a complication had lain dormant, they would have discovered and diagnosed it.
Despite the letter’s false claim, Wynn had made sure to gain Harkin’s permission before the operation. He had been scared, as most patients were, but never once had he voiced disagreement.