Jess was still in the parlor when Hester joined her, three hours and three glasses of claret later.
“I was told Baybury called this morning,” her sister murmured.
Wincing inwardly at the sound of Alistair’s title, she nodded and took another drink.
Hester paused by the table and frowned down at Jess. “Claret for breakfast?”
Jess shrugged. She’d begun imbibing as a young girl, after the cook took to slipping brandy into her tea when her body ached too much to allow sleep. It swiftly became apparent to her that liquor dulled emotional pain as well. In the early years of her marriage, she’d had no need to drink. But once the consumption had dug its greedy talons into Benedict’s lungs, she’d turned to the comfort found in a bottle and hadn’t yet turned away.
Hester took a seat on the settee beside her. “I have never seen you look more melancholy, and there is no good reason to drink spirits first thing in the morning.”
“Don’t fret over me.”
“Did he throw you over, Jess?” Hester asked softly.
Of course Hester would leap to the obvious and most sensible course of action. She had been raised by the same parents as Jess, after all. Women of the peerage served one vital purpose—to bear heirs, as many as possible.
Reaching over, Jess squeezed her sister’s thin hand. “No. And he won’t. He loves me too much.”
“Then why do you look as you did when Temperance died? Does he wish to delay the wedding?”
“On the contrary, he hoped I would elope with him.”
“You refused? Why?” Her eyes glistened. “Dear God … Please, don’t say you stayed for me! I couldn’t bear it. You have already given up too much on my behalf.”
“I did it for him, because it’s best for him. He needs time, even if he refuses to acknowledge that need. The man I intended to wed no longer exists. The man he will have to be now has different needs, and goals to which I am an impediment. It is the former who clings to me so stubbornly. And so I’ve asked him to spend some time living the life of the latter. If that man wants me and if he can love me wholeheartedly, with no regrets or recrimination, then we can be happy and I will gladly marry him. But he can’t know that yet. He still believes he can be Alistair Caulfield.”
“He will come back for you, won’t he?”
Jess’s heart ached. “For a certainty. He’s wanted me a long time. Since before I wed Benedict.”
“Truly?” Hester brushed at the wetness on her long lashes. “I find that wonderfully romantic.”
“He is the world to me. I cannot tell you what he’s done for me … how he’s changed me. He knows me as well as you do. All my secrets and fears and hopes. There is nothing to hide from him and no reason to try if there was. He accepts my faults and shortcomings as a means to bind us closer together.”
“And what of the errors of his ways?”
Jess found her sister’s question very telling. “There are plenty of those, as everyone knows, and he goes to great pains to tell me about them.”
“He does? Why?”
“He wanted anything that might later turn me away from him to be disclosed from the outset, before our attachment to one another grew and the possibility of separation became too painful.” All his best intentions, for naught.
Hester’s face took on a wistful cast. “I would never have guessed Alistair Caulfield would be so …”
“Mature?” Jess smiled sadly. “His circumstances have been more difficult than anyone would expect. His maturity comes from cynicism and a jaded outlook. His is far older than his years.”
“What will you do now?”
“Focus on seeing you hale and hearty. Rejoin Society in truth.” Restless, she stood. “I need new gowns.”
“Your mourning is over.”
Was it? Perhaps she would be in mourning still, but not for her former husband. “Yes. It’s time.”
“It is,” Hester agreed.
Jess looked at the wine on the table, her fingers clenching against the need to reach for it. That dependency would have to be addressed, as well. She had no right to ask Alistair to conquer his demons while still clinging to her own.
“We’ll need to eat a hearty breakfast to sustain us through the volume of shopping I intend to accomplish today.”
Hester rose to her feet like a graceful wraith. “I would love to see you in a berry-hued gown.”
“Red. Also gold.”
“Astonishing,” Hester said. “Father would have an apoplectic fit.”
Jess almost laughed at the image that came to mind, but Hester gasped, then slumped against her. Jess barely caught her unconscious sister before she hit the floor.