Ravishing the Heiress (Fitzhugh Trilogy #2)

No, she did not wish that he’d come to her instead. She did not want to be used for only that purpose. But she could not help envying his lovers. She, too, would like to know what it was like to be touched and kissed by him—when he was sober. There was a physical grace to him, a manner of movement that was swift and easy. She could not help imagining what it would be like, someday, for him to suddenly notice her not merely as his wife, but as a woman, a desirable one.

But she always cut those reveries short, whenever she discovered herself in the middle of one. Perhaps there was nothing she could do about hope springing eternal, but she would not water or tend it. She would prune it harshly, ruthlessly, the way she would a weed in the garden.

After dinner, she sat in the drawing room, studying. She’d decided to take her mother’s advice and create a beautiful garden. But the pleasure garden would have to wait until she had first restored the more utilitarian kitchen garden. The estate had one such, but with the departure of the head gardener nearly a decade ago, it had grown wild.

She pored over an old diagram for the walled garden, consulting her handbook on horticulture. Salsify she’d eaten. Celeriac she hadn’t, but had at least heard of. But what in the world was a scorzonera? Or a skirret? Or a cardoon, for that matter?

She was searching for couve tronchuda in an encyclopedia when her husband surprised her by striding into the drawing room—she’d thought he’d remain out until long after she was abed.

“Good evening,” she said.

Perhaps it was the light, but he looked…strapping. Her heart stuttered.

“Evening,” he answered, standing with his hands behind his back. “I was at the village pub tonight. We’ll have twenty able-bodied men here tomorrow to dismantle the north wing—or at least to begin the work.”

“So soon!”

Her father took forever on his decisions. Even when he agreed to a change in principle, he’d still dither for years over the specifics of its implementation. She had not remotely anticipated that Lord Fitzhugh would set about the overhaul of Henley Park this quickly.

He looked about the drawing room. She’d had makeshift new curtains and carpets brought in, but it was still a dismal place—there was no point in replacing the curling, water-and soot-stained toile wallpaper until they had a new roof and better chimneys. “Not soon enough,” he said. “At least fifty years too late.”

When they’d first arrived in the country, she’d worried that he might re-embrace whisky. But it was sobriety that he clasped tight and did not let go. During the day he, like she, threw himself into his duties. At night, instead of turning to the bottle, he turned to the outdoors. Sometimes she, waiting beside her window in the dark, would see him return, hunched over before the manor, his hands on his knees, breathing hard with exertion.

All because of this cursed house, half of which someone should have demolished fifty years ago.

But his voice was calm. What had been done had been done. There was no use pointing fingers at the dead or at forces beyond his control that had sent agricultural prices stumbling in their lifetime.

“And this is for you.” He handed her a brown-paper package that he’d hid behind his person. “I stopped by the general merchandiser’s. But the selection was paltry. I chose the least terrible of the lot.”

She was astonished. “You didn’t need to.”

Inside the package was a rather plain music box that must have sat on the shop’s shelves for the better half of a decade. Even with the obvious signs of recent cleaning, its corners and creases were still encrusted with dust. When she opened it, it played a few tinny, scratchy bars from “Für Elise.”

“As I said, it’s not much good.”

“No, it’s fine. Thank you.” It took a great effort for her to not hug the music box to her chest. “I will keep it well.”

“I’ll do better next year.” He smiled. “Good night.”

“Good night,” she answered.

Some hopes were weeds, easy to eradicate with a yank and a pull. Some, however, were vines, fast growing, tenacious, and impossible to clear. As she played the music box again, alone in the drawing room, she began to realize that hers were of the latter kind.

She would never stop hoping.

The last thing Millie expected to see was her husband on the roof of the house, stripping the slate tiles alongside the men he’d hired. He was in old tweeds and a woolen cap. She’d nearly mistaken him for a village lad until someone addressed him as “milord.”

“What are you doing, Lord Fitzhugh?”

“I’m supervising the men.”

“You seem to be working with the men, if my eyes don’t deceive me.”

He tossed a tile at an older man, who passed it to another, who in turn slid it down a long chute set at forty-five degrees. The tile was caught on the bottom by one of two waiting men and, after passing through a few more hands, carefully placed in stacks.

“Your eyes do deceive you!”