Throughout the ordeal, Lord Fitzhugh was a rock. Gone was the disconsolate drunk. Daily he was at his sister’s side as they settled Mr. Townsend’s affairs, the epitome of consideration and sense—and forcefulness, when needed. An inquest had very nearly taken place, which would have turned a private death into a public spectacle. His uncompromising stance before a police inspector made the difference; in the end the police accepted the explanation that Mr. Townsend must have suffered from an unexpected hemorrhaging of the brain.
They stayed in London for six weeks before matters relating to Mr. Townsend’s estate were resolved. It was a largely somber time, but there were moments Millie treasured. Miss Fitzhugh imitating Lord Hastings and making her sister laugh, however briefly. Lord Fitzhugh and Mrs. Townsend sitting together, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder. Mrs. Townsend taking hold of Millie’s hand one day and telling her, “You are a wonderful girl, my dear.”
The day before they left London, the women took tea together. Miss Fitzhugh was to begin her classes at Lady Margaret Hall. Mrs. Townsend, after accompanying her sister to the women’s college at Oxford, would go to Hampton House, their childhood home in the same shire, which Lord Fitzhugh had put at her disposal.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t wish to come to Henley Park with us, Mrs. Townsend?” Millie asked one last time. She and Lord Fitzhugh had been trying to persuade Mrs. Townsend to stay with them at the estate he’d inherited alongside his title—to no avail.
“I have troubled you and Fitz enough,” said Mrs. Townsend. “But thank you, Millie—may I call you Millie?”
“Yes, of course.” Millie was aflutter that Mrs. Townsend wished to use the more familiar address of her given name.
“You will call me Venetia, won’t you?”
“And call me Helena,” said Miss Fitzhugh. “We are sisters now.”
Millie looked down at her hands to compose herself. She’d been brought up not to expect such intimacy from her in-laws, who were sure to sniff at being related to the Sardine Heiress. But Mrs. Townsend and Miss Fitzhugh—Venetia and Helena—had been helpful and accepting from the very beginning.
“I’ve…never had sisters,” she said, afraid she sounded too gauche. “Or any siblings.”
“Ha, lucky you. This means you never had anyone tell you that you were actually found in a bassinet under an apple tree when your parents went for a walk in the country.” Helena raised an eyebrow at Venetia. “Or that if you ate black-colored food, you’d have black hair like everyone else.”
Venetia shook her head. “No, that was Fitz. He wanted you to eat the blackberries so he’d have more raspberries to himself. It never occurred to any of us that you’d try squid ink.”
Millie listened with a sense of wonder at the oddity and camaraderie of children growing up in the same household. The warmth of that conversation still lingered as she and Lord Fitzhugh traveled in her parents’ private rail coach to Henley Park.
This time it was he who read—Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume IV—and she who stared out of the window. Most of the time. The rest of the time she studied him surrepti-tiously.
He had not regained all the weight he’d lost during his three weeks of strenuous inebriation—his clothes still hung slightly loose, his eyes were set deeper, and his cheekbones more prominent. But he no longer looked unwell, only lean and grave. His hair, cut short, lent a further austerity to his aspect, a solemnity beyond his years.
He set down his book, dug his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a—
“Is that a dormouse?”
He nodded. “This is Alice.”
Alice was tiny, with lovely golden brown fur and curious black eyes. He gave her a piece of hazelnut, which she nibbled with great enthusiasm.
“She’s getting chubby,” he said. “Probably will start hibernating within the week.”
“Is she yours? I haven’t seen her before.”
“I’ve had her for three years. Hastings has been taking care of her recently. I just got her back.”
Millie was enchanted. “Did you find her yourself?”
“No, she was a present from Miss Pelham.”
Isabelle Pelham. Millie’s smile froze. Fortunately he was not looking at her, his attention wholly occupied by Alice.
No wonder he had not brought Alice on their honeymoon.
“She looks darling,” Millie managed.
He stroked the fur atop Alice’s head. “She’s perfect.”
He did not offer Alice for Millie to hold. And she did not ask.
It was not easy, remaining sober.
Some nights, when he could not sleep, when he missed Isabelle so much he could scarcely breathe, Fitz thought of things that might help him: whisky, laudanum, morphia. He thought especially hard of morphia, of the lovely torpor it would bring, the long forgetfulness.
The house had such things—he’d seen them when he’d first inspected Henley Park. So he left the house, to walk and run—mostly run—until he was overcome with exhaustion.
He also, once he put his mind to it, realized that there was an easier way of alleviating his loneliness: naked women. He took up with one of his new neighbors, a widow five or six years older than him, who was more than glad to have him service her repeatedly.