“I cannot believe it,” his wife whispered. “He made it through the entire war to end this way. It cannot be, Silas.”
“I felt the same. But, Esther, the War Office has rarely been wrong. They do not send notice to family, or print their lists, unless they are very certain.” Silas looked down at the top of her head, realizing her hair had fallen victim to their way of sitting. Half of it was as it had been when he saw her, but on the other side of her head curls had come loose to cover her cheek and neck. Without thinking, he reached up and brushed them aside. “I am sorry, Esther. I wish I had reason to doubt the news.”
Esther’s eyes filled again, over the brim, until the tears were falling once more. She raised the handkerchief and buried her face in its blue and green stained lace. “What shall I do without him?” she asked, her voice plaintive.
At least he could reassure her on that score. “You must know, Esther. You are safe here with me. I will care for you the rest of our lives. I promise.”
“Because you loved Isaac like a brother,” she said somewhat raggedly. “Of course, you will look after his sister.” Her chin jutted forward; her pale pink lips pressed firmly together.
He needed to correct her implication, but it did not seem the right time or place to do it. Nothing in his thoughts for her, before or after their wedding, was particularly brotherly. Silas had every intention of their marriage being real, in every sense. That was supposed to be something they discussed when he came home. But Isaac’s death changed everything. Nothing concerned him except Esther’s well-being, Esther’s need to mourn her brother.
“Esther,” he said quietly, cupping her damp cheek in one hand. “My dear wife, I will look after you because you are mine to protect and care for. Even now, when all the world is dark and you must mourn. I am here to see to your needs.” He sealed his words, pressing a kiss upon her brow. “You have but to command me, my lady.”
She sniffled into the handkerchief and peered up at him, tears still trembling upon her lashes. “Me? Command—? Silas, you are in mourning, too.”
“I have already had more time to think on things,” he said, attempting to sound strong, hoping all his years pretending to be made from marble would aid him when he needed such a showing the most. “I will manage.”
Her eyes searched his, perhaps looking for a chip in his stone. “You forget, Silas,” she said, raising her hand to his cheek as he had touched her but moments before. “I made promises, too.” Then she amazed him by producing a smile. It trembled, wavering like a flag in an uncertain breeze. “Have you looked after yourself at all? Have you slept or eaten?”
“Those were not my main concerns.” He had done neither since boarding that boat in London. He hadn’t been hungry and had had no food with him. The fishermen might have shared with him whatever repast they had, but he did not bother with it. And he had remained awake on deck, all the night long, even when he was offered a cot to sleep upon.
She pulled away from him, gently, and his arms immediately felt the loss. The ache returned full force, burrowing deep inside his chest, while she walked away from him. She moved as though she had not fallen to the ground, her walk certain and her shoulders squared.
The bell pull was her destination, and she gave it a fierce tug before turning back to look at him. “I am feeding you, my lord. And then I am retiring to my room.” She raised her hand to her brow, her skin pale again.
His mind rebelled at the idea of her leaving, of being without her. Isaac’s loss had been a hole in Silas’s heart, gaping open wider and wider with each moment he was upon the boat. Holding Esther had not healed that hurt, but it had soothed him. Did she not feel the same with him? Her grief, raw and newer, pulled her away.
Respecting her desires had become his purpose, as he told her. If she needed rest, he must understand and see that no one disturbed her. Silas rose from the sofa. “Please, do not trouble yourself. I will see to my needs. Might I escort you to your room?”
She stared in his direction, momentarily looking beyond him. “We must tell everyone what has happened, mustn’t we?” Her voice trembled again, and her body sagged beneath the weight of that realization. “Over and over again, we must tell people, and accept their condolences.”
“No,” he said, already stepping forward to take her in his arms again, to steady her. “I will write notes to our friends. They will tell others. And you need not see anyone unless you wish it.”
“That is not how things are done.” Her words were heavy, her emotional fatigue fully evident. “I must write Hugh, and I must receive callers—”
“No. You are a countess. You needn’t do anything that makes this more painful.” He must ease her burdens somehow, though it added to his own. “I will see to it all. Just rest, Esther.”
Despite his insistence, her bearing weakened further. “You will not let me care for you?”
How could he? What a question. He knew what Isaac meant to her. Silas knew his duties as a husband. He would care for her. Nothing would disturb her peace. He bowed. “I am your servant, my lady. Not the other way around.”
The door opened behind him at that moment, the summoned maid at last appearing. “My lord, my lady.” She curtsied in the doorway and waited for their directions.
Silas spoke before Esther could. “The countess wishes to retire. Please send her maid up and send Bailey to me in my study.” Esther’s eyes met his once more, a helpless, lonely look within them that made his heart ache.
“Yes, my lord.” The maid curtsied and disappeared again.
“I shall take my leave of you.” Esther’s words held her weighty sorrow and she moved to leave the room, walking completely around him. Politely rebuffing his offer to escort her to her room. He longed to reach out, to touch her one more time.
“Rest well, my lady.”
“I must, for you have commanded it.” Her answer puzzled him, but she curtsied and left him behind without another word.
Though the room remained full of her presence—her artwork, her scattered belongings—it felt as empty as a tomb. Silas went to the painting of Inglewood Keep, standing before its gray skies and shadowed building. Was this how she saw his beloved home? Cold and dark?
Was that how she saw him?
He turned his mind away from the thought. It was selfish and self-serving. What mattered was Esther’s needs and mourning Isaac Fox.
Chapter Seventeen
The man Esther married had no use for her. Except to command her, as he did all the people in his life. Or perhaps he still saw her as a child, dependent upon him and his care. Yet she had plainly seen, once she looked for it, all the marks of grief heavily upon him. Why could he not understand that it should not be a matter of him caring for her, but the two of them helping each other? She had lost her brother. Silas had lost his closest friend.
She did not leave her room again that day, alternately crying into her pillow or pacing near the window. She stared out the balcony doors at the sea, but never stepped foot outside. The rain had come to stay, falling in sheets all around Inglewood Keep.
Losing Isaac had always been a possibility; the moment he declared he was going to war she had known it might happen. Loss had touched everyone she knew. Some no longer had brothers, such as she, others had lost friends, cousins, and lovers. Every battle had its casualties, and the news of the victories and defeats always went to London first.
Then they would wait, the whole of the country, with bated breath. Wait for the lists of the dead and wounded. Wait for a letter from a loved one to prove they yet lived. The whole kingdom knew loss by now; an entire generation had been born to expect it.
She had no appetite, but Esther took a tray in her room for dinner, requesting only broth and tea. Having mourned before, she knew the dangers of growing weak in sorrow. Did Silas? Was he caring for himself at all?
Esther was abed by the time the sun went down; if the sun still existed beyond the clouds filling the sky and sea. She laid in the d
arkness with her body curled tightly around a pillow. She cried again, a rip in her heart refusing to let her sleep.
Never would she see her brother walk through another doorway or stroll with him upon the beach. He had always made her laugh with his antics. Silas teased, but Isaac found joy and mirth in everyday occurrences.
Isaac had never even written back to say what he thought about her marriage to his closest friend. He had not blessed the union nor lectured her for her foolishness, though she had anticipated that letter and concocted a dozen responses to it in her mind. Her words would remain unwritten and unsaid.
At some point, she realized Silas had not gone to bed. Not having meant to listen for him, the sudden awareness that he had never entered his own room surprised her. Her ears had been listening for his footfall for some time, or for the sound of the door in the hall to have opened and shut, without her realizing it.
How she had paid attention to anything other than her own sorrow, she could not be sure.
Esther rose and felt about for her robe. Finding none, she took up the shawl she had left on the chair near the fireplace. Once wrapped in the elegant warmth of the cloth, she lit a candle and exited her bedroom. The house was still and silent, as it had been all day. There was no one about to ask after Silas. A small clock on a hall table showed the time—a quarter past midnight.
She bit the insides of her cheeks, her bare feet hesitating on the cold wood floor. Her husband had proclaimed he would take care of her, and not the other way around. Yet she could not, in good conscience, leave him to his own devices if he neglected his health.
I am a countess, she told herself firmly. Pressing her lips together and throwing her shoulders back, Esther walked down the hall to the stairs. There were only a few rooms in the house she could imagine Silas using as places of refuge; the library, his study, and perhaps the parlor adjacent the dining room.
She did not enter the parlor, as no light appeared under the door. She stepped into the library but withdrew when she saw no fire in the hearth. Then she went to Silas’s study, a room she had never stepped into before. Even on her tour of the house. Here she at last saw light under the door, a sure sign of life within.
Briefly Esther hesitated before the door, her fingers hovering over the handle. Silas did not want her to trouble herself over any of the necessary details of mourning and saw it as his duty to care for her. As though she were a child.
“If I am ever to be more than that, he must see me as capable,” she whispered to the door, as though it might impart the wisdom she needed to prove herself to her husband.
Esther pushed the door open and stepped inside, striving to maintain a noble bearing without knowing exactly what that meant. She kept her chin tilted at a confident angle and pretended the study was a ballroom. Her eyes swept over the room, noting the dark furnishings, the tall bookshelves, and a large fireplace glowing dimly, illuminating very little.
She stepped further into the room, her brows pinching together when she did not see her husband at once. “Silas?” she called, keeping her tone low so as not to startle him. The crackle of the fire answered her, but there was no other sound. Perhaps he slept on the sofa pulled near the hearth—
A dark form moved away from the window, causing her to catch her breath. Silas stepped into the light, his face pale and his hair practically standing on end as though he’d ridden through a windstorm. He wore no coat, and his cravat had gone missing as well.
For a moment, Esther worried he might be inebriated. Isaac had gotten roaring drunk at the news of their mother’s death, a thing which she had reprimanded him for with all the righteous indignation a girl of fifteen could muster.
Silas’s eyes met hers in an exhausted, sorrowful gaze and her body relaxed. The man was not drunk but overcome in another manner entirely.
“You should be sleeping,” he said, his voice barely carrying across the room to where Esther stood.
“I cannot. Not with you down here, all alone.” She relocated her attention to the hollow of his throat, exposed along with a triangular patch of skin beneath his neck. She had seen her brother thus before, had seen all the boys without their coats and even shirts when they snuck off to go swimming, many summers before.
She averted her eyes; Silas wasn’t a boy any longer and he certainly wasn’t a brother. She went to the desk, resting her candle to its surface.
“Esther, I am well enough. I am trying to take care of you.” He came across the room, slowly, to stand directly next to her. “I know this is tearing you apart.” The atmosphere in the room changed when he stood close, her every sense heightening and the skin on the back of her neck tingling with sudden awareness.
“For the moment,” she said, her fingertips brushing the polished surface of the desk, “my sorrow is at rest. That is the way with mourning. It is like a thunderstorm, drenching you one moment and the next turning into a misty fog.”
His hand reached out, large and strong, covering one of hers. “I haven’t much experience with it, to be honest. These last two days I have not been myself. If I have done anything wrong—”
She shook her head, staring down at their joined hands. “You have done perfectly. But this isn’t something that either of us should do alone, and sending me off to my rooms only makes me somewhat anxious for your well-being. Have you eaten anything today?” She forced herself to look up again, taking in the haggard expression he wore. She saw a dark shadow along his jawline, too. He still hadn’t taken the time to shave.
“I think I had coffee.” He let her keep one hand and used the other to rub at his eyes. “I couldn’t stay awake otherwise.”
Esther threaded her fingers through his. “Let us go to the kitchen then. I find myself a little hungry.” In truth, she needed nothing, but she easily guessed he would not submit unless he fulfilled a need for her. Esther reached for her candle, but he moved first, his whole body shifting closer to hers in order to take it up in his hand.
He paused mid-motion, his body twisted toward hers, his warm breath stirring the hair atop her head. She hadn’t bothered to put it up in papers, too tired to worry about her appearance, it was only in a braid that barely reached past her shoulders. She had cut it all off a few years ago, attempting to mimic a hairstyle she had seen on a fashion plate. Her hair wasn’t really curly enough, so she gave up and worked to grow her hair out as quickly as possible immediately after.
Why on earth was she worrying about her hair?
Silas cleared his throat and picked up the candle, then put a more comfortable distance between them. “I apologize for my lack of proper wardrobe,” he said, his voice thick in her ears.
“Nonsense. I am in my nightdress.” She tried to say it lightly, but the last syllable came out as a squeak. She cleared her throat. “There is no one about to see either of us, and we might excuse each other the impropriety given our situation.” Saying it so clearly, without stumbling over a single word, restored some of her confidence. “Come. The larder awaits us.” She dared a glance up at him, seeing the smallest twitch of his lips as encouragement.
Esther tugged at his hand, leading the way out the door and into the dark halls. Her bare feet made no sound on carpet or stone, but she sincerely regretted her lack of slippers when her skin made contact with the cold floor. Silas wore sensible footwear that clicked upon the hard surfaces, a soft sound magnified by the silence surrounding them.
Arriving in the kitchen, Esther released his hand and went in search of the lamp she knew the staff kept upon the table. Securing that, she returned to him to light it from the candle, then turned up the wick.
“There, that is better. Sit down and I will find us something to keep the wolves at bay.”
“Wolves?” he asked, perplexed.
“The growling sort that live in hungry bellies,” she said, taking the lamp into the pantry. She reached for a loaf of bread, then started when she turned to find Silas directly behind her. He held out his hand for the loaf, which sh
e gave him with a gracious nod of her head. Then she handed him a block of cheese, a cured ham, and a tin of cake.
“Cook will not take kindly to you pilfering her stores,” Silas said, some lightness returned to his expression. “Isaac and I stole biscuits once, and jam. When she found out she made the pair of us put on aprons and cook a new tray of biscuits. I am not sure who suffered more during that punishment—the cook or us.”
She did not bother trying to hide her amusement. “Isaac tried to hoodwink our cook with the trick at home, too. But he enlisted my help. When we were caught, I cried and cried. I never did anything wrong, you see, that I didn’t feel terribly guilty about later. My tears saved us from severe punishment.”
Silas chuckled, then finally stepped back, allowing her to exit the small space as well. They laid their spoils upon the table. His voice altered from teasing to solemn. “I suppose tears will save us again. No one can be angry at us at present, can they?”
“No. Grief excuses many strange behaviors, I should think. Such as walking around without a coat and cravat, or in one’s nightclothes. Rest assured, it grants us pardons when we steal food from our own kitchen.” She pulled in a deep, steadying breath, feeling that heaviness in her chest that preceded tears. “I believe that is in part what our mourning period is for. It sets us apart from society and allows us to behave in a manner the more refined would not tolerate.”
“Esther.” He reached out and touched her cheek, startling her into meeting his eyes again. There was compassion and understanding there, a match to her feelings in every way. “What do you need from me?” His fingertips travelled from her cheek to her jaw, sliding to just beneath her chin. “You have but to name it.”
Her breath shuddered and she leaned slightly forward. No one had ever touched her like that, caressed her. It both soothed her and stirred a longing within she could not name.
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