“Not as well as you know your wife, you mean.”
He wasn’t sure why the conversation kept circling back to his wife. “Certainly I know her daily itinerary as well as I do my own, and I know her character. But she is an opaque one, Lady Fitzhugh; I’m never sure what she is thinking.”
“What about me? Can you tell what I’m thinking?”
He recognized the half-defiant, half-rueful look on her face. She knew she’d overreacted, but wasn’t yet ready to admit her error. He smiled—with relief. “I think you, or part of you at least, would rather we talked about something else instead.”
“Maybe, if I could be assured that your wife hasn’t somehow managed to wedge herself into your heart.”
“The very idea of it is silly. If I love her, then what am I doing here with you?”
His reasoning apparently passed muster. She smiled a little sheepishly. “Shall we talk about a honeymoon of our own? A place to go when your six months have ended.”
“We’d be in the dead of winter, wouldn’t we?”
“Yes,” said Isabelle, her eyes lighting up. “So we should head somewhere warm. The weather in Nice would be perfect. But Nice is so crowded in winter; we won’t wish to bump into everyone. Majorca would be just as lovely—or Ibiza, or even Casablanca.”
An unhappy sensation stole over him. Christmas at Henley Park had become a grand tradition, an extended embrace of family and friends. He did not want to curtail the festivities to head to parts unknown—some of his fondest memories of recent years had come of those gatherings. And he could scarcely stomach the idea of deserting his wife right after Christmas.
Perhaps in his way, he’d become as opaque as his wife. Isabelle chatted avidly on the possibilities—apparently there was a sturdy supply of scenic places on Spain’s Mediterranean coast—not once noticing that his enthusiasm didn’t quite match hers.
But that was all right, he supposed. He had become too comfortable in his existence. All creatures of habit needed to be shaken out of their habits once in a while, so as not to become too rigidly set in their ways. He only wished Isabelle hadn’t thought to make such a major production out of the beginning of their future. He was committing adultery after all, and it seemed that they ought to go about it with more silence and discretion.
Isabelle, however, was Isabelle, exuberant and passionate, full of insuppressible vitality. And why should he begrudge her a little speculation, or a most likely delightful excursion to a place with palm trees and a warm ocean?
If only the thought of Millie spending January alone didn’t distress him so, as if he was about to leave the door of the greenhouse open on the coldest day of the year and would return to find all the carefully nurtured plants inside withered from cruelty and neglect.
Helena could not believe her eyes: Andrew! He stood on the platform of the rail station, waiting, not twenty feet from her.
She sent her maid Susie to buy a paper, and some roasted nuts from street hawkers outside the station. Once she was sure Susie had been swallowed by the crowd, she made her way to Andrew and tapped him on the shoulder.
The ecstatic surprise on his face was almost—almost—worth their long separation.
“Helena,” he said reverently, his quiet voice largely lost in the noise of a busy rail junction.
His coloring was a more diffuse version of hers, his hair ginger, his eyes hazel—it had been one of their earliest topics of conversation, two redheads in families full of raven-haired siblings—hers—and blond cousins—his. He was dimpled, a little rumpled, round-shouldered from all his hours sitting before a desk, and just a hair shorter than her, something he joked about good-naturedly.
Everything he did was good-natured and honest. In a cynical world, he was the rare creature, one of both intelligence and genuine sweetness.
“Andrew.” She longed to take his hands in hers, but she dared not in public. They shook hands instead, holding on to each other’s fingers a second longer than was completely appropriate. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Yes, to Bodley to read some manuscripts.” He’d spent a great deal of time at the Bodleian Library at Oxford even when he’d been a student there. “And you?”
“Venetia is officially returning from her honeymoon today. I thought I’d be on hand to welcome her back to London.”
“How terribly exciting. I haven’t had the chance to congratulate her in person.” He bit the corner of his lips. “But I suppose she wouldn’t really wish to see me anymore.”
“What are you talking about?”
He’d removed his right glove when he’d shaken hands with her. Now he twisted that glove uneasily. “I thought—your brother—you didn’t know?”
“Fitz?” Her heart was already sinking. “What does he have to do with any of this? Please don’t tell me he’d called on you.”