But she wanted more. More of the incandescent pleasures, more of the stark hunger in his eyes, more of this connection, this intimacy unlike any she’d ever experienced.
They were good friends, weren’t they? The best of friends. She ought to be able to walk into his room and ask him the reason for his absence this evening—and the reason for his absence from her bed.
But she couldn’t, because it was all a sham, their friendship, at least on her part, a disguise for her true feelings, an awful solace for not being his one and only.
A thing without wings.
CHAPTER 17
After eight years, how did a woman take over a man’s life overnight?
And why couldn’t it be a simple case of lust, an itch that could have been scratched on any post?
Instead Fitz felt split in two, his other half on the far side of the door. But he couldn’t open that door, walk inside, and make himself whole again. He could only wait for the end of the night.
In the morning he rode and took his time bathing and changing. She should have already left the breakfast parlor when he descended at last, but she was very much there, in her customary spot, a stack of letters and a cup of still-steaming tea before her.
Once upon a time he’d dreaded it, the prospect of sitting across from her at ten thousand breakfasts. Today he could not think of anything more felicitous. She was daily sustenance, like bread, water, and light.
“Good morning.”
She looked up and did not smile. “Good morning.”
She thought he’d rejected her. But it was not true. He’d stepped back because he could not in good conscience continue to mislead her—or himself.
“You’ve a letter from Mrs. Englewood,” she said.
It was to be expected. He pulled out the letter and sliced it open. “She is back in town.”
A few days ahead of schedule. This, too, was not entirely unexpected.
“She will want to see you,” said his wife.
“She does. I will call on her in the afternoon.” He took a sip of his coffee. “And what do you have planned for the day?”
“Nothing much. A call on Venetia in the afternoon.”
How he envied Venetia. “I’m sure she will be delighted to have your company.”
“As I’m sure Mrs. Englewood will yours.” She rose. “Good day.”
Isabelle’s parlor suffocated.
It shouldn’t be the case at all—Fitz had made sure that the house was well ventilated. And it had rained midmorning. The sky was clear, the window was open, the white dimity summer curtain danced in the light breeze.
Yet he felt as if he’d been locked into a cupboard.
She talked about her sister, her niece, her children, gesticulating with great animation—as if by the motions of her arms and hands she could stir the air enough to save him from asphyxiation. As if she knew her house was choking the air from his lungs.
“From everything you say, you enjoyed Aberdeen very well,” he said. “You should have stayed longer.”
Why must you return so soon?
“I missed you.”
She waited a beat, waiting for him to echo her statement. When he didn’t, for a brief moment, it seemed as if she’d ask outright whether he shared her sentiment. And what would he do if she did? He could not lie. He’d tried; but in the end he’d thought only of Millie.
Millie, his mainstay, his solace, his coveted companion of the night.
His lack of a response was a void, an absence, an empty chair at dinner that everyone tried not to notice.
Isabelle broke off a piece of cake. “So…what did you do while I was away?”
A less awkward question, but not by much. Slept with my wife. Which I’ve given up.
“I’ve kept busy.”
“Well, tell me more. I want to know how you spend your days in the course of an ordinary week.”
But this had been no ordinary week, had it?
“It will bore you.”
“It won’t.”
“Well, yesterday I looked at some advertising prints for Cresswell & Graves.”
Of all the things he could mention, why must he bring up this particular episode? Why did he keep remembering Millie’s quick kiss on his cheek? How happy she’d seemed.
Isabelle glanced at him with some astonishment. “You have hirelings to do that sort of thing for you, surely? You don’t need to get your hands dirty.”
He understood her reaction: It was not good form to be actively involved in business. But he could not quite put out his irritation. “I’m not exactly working in the factories.”
“But advertising is”—she grimaced—“vulgar.”
“It makes a significant difference in profits.”
“Profits are vulgar, too. Profits are what shopkeepers and merchants think about.”