Over breakfast, he read the accumulated letters, three from his sisters, two from Colonel Clements, two from Hastings, and a half dozen from other classmates. “You replied to all of them?”
“I’m not quite finished with the latest letter to your sisters, but the other ones, yes.” She glanced at him. “Don’t worry, I didn’t say you were deliriously happy.”
There was a mutable quality to her face. Every time he looked at her he was disconcerted: She never quite looked like what he thought she looked like.
“They wouldn’t have believed you anyway.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, her tone calm, matter-of-fact.
Something about her composure defused tension, even when the subject was highly flammable.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Me?” His question surprised her. “Yes, I’m well—well enough at least.”
“Why aren’t you crying over your fellow?”
“My what?”
“The one you had to give up to marry me.”
She added another spoonful of milk powder to her tea—they were out of fresh cream. “It’s different for me. We did not have any history—it was largely wishful thinking on my part.”
“But you love him?”
She looked down into her cup. “Yes, I love him.”
The pain that had been dulled by an excess of whisky came roaring back. “We are in the same boat, then—neither of us can have the one we want.”
“It would seem so,” she said, blinking rapidly.
It was a shock to realize she was holding back tears, even as he adjusted his opinion of her from bland deference to quiet strength: When he’d lost all his bearings, she’d been the one to guide him back from the wilderness.
“You’ve conducted yourself far better than I have,” he said, his words awkward and tentative, at least in his own ears. “I don’t know how you do it, putting up with me when it has been just as difficult for you.”
She bit her lip. “Don’t tell anyone else, but I am secretly a laudanum fiend behind your back.”
It took him a moment to realize she spoke in jest. He felt himself smiling faintly. The sensation was strange: He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled.
She rose. “I’d better finish the letter before Mr. Holt from the village arrives. He will be”—she hesitated—“he will be coming with whisky.”
Millie would have liked to decline the whisky for her husband. But she had told him the day she poured out every bottle—the aggressiveness of her action still astonished her—that the choice was his.
So it must be.
She took delivery of milk, bread, eggs, butter, fruit, and salading. There was a box of tinned sardines, potted meat, and tinned plum pudding—everything manufactured by Cresswell & Graves. And there was the whisky.
“The spirits are no longer needed,” said Lord Fitzhugh.
Millie had become accustomed to the bearded, wild-haired, slovenly drunkard. The young man who stood before the cabin was clean-shaven and sharply dressed. He was still too gaunt and too pale—behind his eyes was a grief as old as love itself. But Millie had to force herself to tear her gaze away: He had never been more striking, more magnetic.
“Very good, sir,” said Mr. Holt. “I’ll carry the rest inside. And—I almost forgot—there is a cable for you.”
Lord Fitzhugh took the cable and opened it. His expression changed instantly. “There is no need to unload anything. If you could wait half an hour or so and take us down to Woodsmere, I’d be grateful.”
Mr. Holt touched the brim of his hat. “Anything, milord.”
Millie followed him back into the house. “What’s the matter? Who sent the cable?”
“Helena. Venetia’s husband has passed away.”
“Of what?” Millie was incredulous. Surely her kind, beautiful sister-in-law could not have been made a widow so young. Mr. Townsend had been in perfect health at the wedding. And in Mrs. Townsend’s recent letters there had been no mention of any illnesses on his part.
“Helena didn’t give the cause of death, only that Venetia is devastated. We must go back and help with the arrange-ments.”
We. It was the first time he’d referred to the two of them as one unit. She couldn’t help a leap of her heart. “Of course. I’ll start packing right now.”
Twenty minutes later, they were on their way. The lurching and swaying of the cart couldn’t be easy on his still fragile person, but he endured the discomforts without complaint.
In some ways, they were not too unalike. They both put duty first. They were both reserved by nature. And they both had a greater capacity to bear private pain than either had suspected.
“Thank you,” he said when they were still a mile from the village. “If you hadn’t disposed of the whisky when you did, I’d be in no shape to be of any use to my sister. I’m glad you had the resolve and the fortitude.”
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.”