Alice began her hibernation. He kept her in a padded, ventilated box and checked on her twice a day. Everything had changed. Alice remained the one familiar touchstone, a link to life as he’d known it.
Two weeks after they arrived at Henley Park, his wife sent him a message, wishing to see him in the library. Except at dinner each night, he hardly saw her at all, though he knew she kept herself busy during the day, as he did, with matters concerning the house and the estate.
The library, dour and smelly, was in the north wing, the worst part of the house. She was examining books for damage. He was surprised to see her in a day dress of russet silk. Since Mr. Townsend’s death, she’d worn mourning colors, a silent, somber ghost at the periphery of his awareness. But today the vibrant, autumnal hue of her dress made her the brightest object in the room.
“Good morning,” he said.
She turned around. “Good morning.”
For a moment he was struck by how young she looked without a dark, drab garment to age her. Had he passed her on the street, he might have thought her fifteen.
Had the Graves lied about her age? “Excuse me, but how old are you again?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen? Since when?”
She lowered her gaze, as if embarrassed. “Since today.”
Now he was equally embarrassed. He’d had no idea. “Happy birthday.”
“Thank you.”
An awkward silence fell. He cleared his throat. “I don’t have a present for you. Is there anything you’d like—and can be found in the village?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “A birthday is just another day. I think it’s terribly silly that people make such a to-do about it. Besides, your sisters have already sent books and a pretty box of new handkerchiefs.”
“If Venetia, with all her troubles, can remember, then I have no excuse—except that I didn’t know the date at all.”
“Please don’t worry about it—there’s always next year. Now, would you mind looking at some of the rooms with me?”
He’d already seen all the rooms, but since it was her birthday…“Lead the way,” he said.
She’d obviously examined each room multiple times, and had taken copious notes of all the damages. It was a guided tour of the north wing’s failings. As they walked on, she reported an ever rising estimate of how much it would cost to repair everything.
They were only on the third room of the next floor when he said, “We should dynamite this entire house.”
“That would be rather an extreme course of action,” said his wife. “But I would have no objection to getting rid of this wing.”
He stopped cold. “What did you say?”
“According to the ledgers and the plans, this wing was an addition undertaken at the beginning of the century—the original house’s wall, if I’m not mistaken, would have been right there. From what I can tell, there was no particular reason for the addition, except that the then-earl was jealous of his cousin’s newer, better house and wished to compete.”
And the family had been in debt ever since.
“I know you were jesting when you said to dynamite the house, but I’d like to submit for your sober consideration the idea of not renovating the north wing. It was poorly conceived and even more poorly built. Even if we patch everything today, we’d still need to be constantly vigilant against new leaks, rots, and cracks.”
The north wing was two-fifths of the manor. He stared at her a moment—she was perfectly serious. The girl had audacity. But of course she did: She’d singlehandedly pulled him back from the brink of a precipice.
“All right. Let’s do it.”
At his assent, she was the one who was taken aback. “Do you think we might need to petition parliament for something like this?”
He thought for a moment. “One doesn’t petition parliament before an accident takes place, does one?”
She smiled. “No, indeed one doesn’t. And our discussion never happened.”
He smiled back.
She dipped her head. “Now if you will excuse me, I must decide whether any of the books are worth keeping.”
It was only later in his room, gazing at a peacefully slumbering Alice, that Fitz realized he and his wife had just made their first joint decision as a married couple.
That evening Millie dined alone. Lord Fitzhugh sent a note saying he would take his supper at the village pub. Supper was probably a euphemism for a woman. Not that she begrudged him a little pleasurable distraction, but she wished—