“What is all of this?” Jacob asked, looking at the sheets of paper and canvas strewn about on the hedges. He raised his head to look at the windows, then his eyebrows as he stared at Silas. “What happened?”
“Esther.” Shaking his head, feeling like a dolt, Silas started gathering up the artwork. “I am not sure what came over her. I found her flinging her work out the window.”
“Ah.” Jacob did not say anything until he had an armful of Esther’s paintings, the rest in Silas’s hands. “Grief manifests itself in strange ways, I suppose. When my grandmother died, my mother spent hours at the pianoforte. She played from sunrise to sunset, not weeping or speaking to any of us.”
“I expected tears,” Silas said with a shrug, leading the way back inside as the first raindrops began to fall. “Silence, perhaps. But destruction?”
“Did she say anything when you saw her?” Jacob asked.
Perhaps it was disloyal to Esther to speak of what passed between them in private. But Silas was at a loss, and he had sworn to help her, to comfort her. He had thought himself doing a fine job of it until he found her thrusting her paintings out the window. Besides, Jacob was his friend, and practically a clergyman.
They started laying out her art on flat surfaces in the music room. “She called herself baggage,” he said at last. “Told me to stop treating her like a child. Esther seemed to think that I did not want her here.”
"Ah.” Jacob straightened after laying a painting of a bird across a chair. “Did she ever tell you about the day we came to visit, and she realized you had asked it of us?”
What a strange change of topic. “No. She has told me precious little of how she has passed the time since our marriage. She did not even write to me. Not really.” Those single lines on her sketches had not given away much of her feelings or doings. “Why do you ask?”
Jacob released a weary sigh and his jaw tightened for a moment. “It did not please her. I thought, at the time, it wounded her to know we came at your behest and not due to any attraction her company held for us.”
Puzzled, Silas sat in an empty chair. “Why would that upset her? Doubtlessly, many a man asks people to look in on a wife when he is gone. It was the most natural thing in the world—”
“Hope had a thought on the matter, when I escorted them home.” Jacob crossed his arms and lowered his eyes to the floor. “Esther does not feel as though any of us care for her, would not even trouble ourselves with her, were she not related to Isaac.”
“What?” Silas glowered, feeling the bridge of his nose wrinkle. “I am married to the woman. To save her reputation from harm. That has nothing to do with her brother.”
“Doesn’t it?” Jacob asked. “Would you have married her if she were a nobody? Sent her to stay at the Everlys’ after the gossip started in London? There is some truth to the idea.” Then Jacob started for the door. “Come, we have left the girls alone too long.”
“Do me a favor,” Silas said wearily. “Don’t mention the paintings.”
“I will not say a word.” Jacob clapped a hand to his back. “It sounds as though you need to talk to your wife, Silas. And not about Isaac, or mourning, or reputations. Talk about her. Show her that she matters to you for who she is. That she isn’t a piece of baggage, as she said, to be tossed about at your will.” A humorless chuckle escaped him. “And since she’s your wife, I think it is rather important you two get to know one another.”
Silas said nothing, and when they rejoined the ladies, he made excuses for Esther that were skirting the truth. She was overtired and had withdrawn to rest. It was the best he could do. Long after his friends took their leave, Silas continued to mull over Jacob’s advice and determined his friend had a point. Silas barely knew Esther as the woman she had become.
Although he wanted to take his friend’s advice, his wife gave him no opportunity that day. She sent for a dinner tray.
He kept to his study, writing out questions to ask the solicitor of the baronetcy. Isaac’s name in the lists made his death officially accepted, and there would be legalities to see to in order to settle his estate. Silas would assist as he could, to ensure Esther received what was due her and things were handled properly.
It neared midnight when he finally took himself to bed, weary in body and soul. He began tugging at his cravat and undoing buttons before he even made it to his room. All he wanted was to fall into bed and the oblivion of sleep.
His valet came up and helped him finish the job of preparing for bed, and after his man withdrew, Silas climbed between his covers and blew out the light. Though his eyes were heavy, sleep eluded him for a time. He could not stop thinking of Esther, of the pained expression on her face when he caught her throwing things out the window. What had possessed her to turn to destruction? Why not speak to him?
She knew he grieved, too. Jacob had to be on to something. There was more to Esther’s pain than her brother’s loss. Shutting Silas out as she had would not help either of them, though.
When his eyes drifted closed, while he hung between wakefulness and sleep, a muffled sound from the next room brought him back to alertness. It was Esther, of course. And it sounded as though she was crying.
Sitting up, Silas turned on his side to stare through the darkness at the door joining their rooms.
Dare he go to her?
He rose and walked across the room, the sound of her sobs growing louder as he neared the wall between them. His hand made it as far as the handle, resting against it, before he froze.
What if he frightened her by walking into the room? What if she grew angry at him for breaching the doorway without her permission? As her husband, most would think he did not need permission. But trespassing upon her in any way did not seem advisable. Not given that their last words exchanged had been unkind.
He’d called her a child. Going into her bedroom to offer her support as she cried might reinforce in her mind that he thought her no better than one.
The silence around him pulled Silas from his thoughts. His wife no longer wept, at least not so as he could hear. Perhaps she had fallen back to sleep.
He stepped away from the door, listening intently. If he heard another sound, he would knock. She could then choose to answer him or not, let him in or not.
No further noise came from Esther’s room.
She had accused him of treating her like a child, of not valuing her. As he carefully sat on the edge of the bed, he thought back on how things had been between them since the incident with the statue. Everything he had done, each action taken, had been for her benefit. Yet he had never stopped, even once, to ask Esther what she wanted or if she approved of his plans. He wrote letters to her guardian, he gave commands to the servants, requested things of his friends, and told Esther to remain behind without explaining why he thought it for the best.
Used to doing as he pleased, accustomed to being obeyed, Silas had not considered that Esther might have objections or see things differently than he did. And until that afternoon, she had held herself to his high standards, acted with dignity befitting her position as countess and wife. Even then, as Jacob had said, people grieved in different ways. She had not been childish. Pain governed her actions. Remorse filled his heart. While he might know how to be an earl, he had no practical knowledge of how to be a good husband. Esther had put up with his arrogance long enough. He ought to give her tenderness and understanding, and he needed to ask her forgiveness.
Silas found it impossible to fall asleep, continuing to listen, in the event she needed him after all.
Chapter Twenty
In Silas’s boyhood, he used the size of Inglewood Keep to his advantage in avoiding his grandmother. He had slipped from one room into another when he heard her step or ducked into a hallway or servants’ stairway when he knew she sent someone looking for him. As a man in search of his wife, he cursed the size of his ancestral home.
Esther had not come down to breakfast, and when he asked, he learned she had le
ft her room. Waiting an hour at the table, in hopes she might come looking for him, proved fruitless.
It seemed he must go on the hunt for the missing countess. Her sitting room was empty except for her forlorn and rejected paintings. He checked every common room and then decided to search the gardens. Though the skies were gray, no rain had fallen yet. Perhaps she had even walked in the direction of the beach. Hadn’t she told him she enjoyed walking along the sand?
He took the time to pop a hat upon his head and pull on gloves, then he went out of doors with the singular purpose of finding his wife. That afternoon the seamstress was to come and measure Esther for mourning gowns, and he had determined to find her and speak with her before then.
Halfway down the garden path leading to the beach, the breeze brought a snatch of conversation to him.
“…know how you must be feeling.”
His hackles rose. Silas knew Lord Neil’s voice well, having been exposed to its taunts and sneering commentary for most of his life. His mind reached back to the day he had arrived home, finding Lord Neil with his wife in the library. He had never bothered asking what the younger son of a peer was doing in their house. He had nearly forgotten the matter altogether.
Apparently, Lord Neil made it something of a habit to visit Silas’s wife.
Grinding his teeth together, Silas turned in the direction of the words he had heard, listening for more.
“Thank you for your condolences, Lord Neil,” Esther’s voice said, almost a whisper on the wind. “You are a most attentive neighbor.”
Attentive? Silas’s fists clenched as he turned around another hedge. Just how attentive had the offensive lord been to Esther since her arrival?
“My lady, we have known each other so long. Please, do call me Neil.”
The slimy eel! What was he doing, attempting to put himself on familiar terms with another man’s wife? Silas stopped walking, surprise at his own temper freezing him in place. He barely heard Esther’s reply over the sudden rush of blood in his ears.
Esther’s tone was firm, her words clipped. “That is too familiar, my lord.”
The relief that filled him was irrational, but Silas discarded that thought and instead took the last steps around the hedge obscuring his wife, the interloper, and the garden’s largest fountain from view.
“Esther,” he said, relishing the use of her name perhaps more than necessary. “Here you are. I have been looking for you to ask if you wished to take a walk with me.” His eyes flicked briefly to Lord Neil and then back to his wife. “But I see you are already enjoying the fresh air.”
Though she did not appear precisely glad to see him, Esther did cross the little courtyard to his side at a quick pace. “Thank you, my lord. But I have had my fill of the outdoors this morning. I think I shall retire to the library for a time.” Her eyes briefly met his, then she passed by him, leaving the scent of mint and flowers behind her.
Silas watched her until she went around the hedge, disappearing from view. Then he met Lord Neil’s haughty stare, but he did not say a word, listening as Esther’s steps faded away on the paving stones. When he could no longer hear her, and Lord Neil’s smirk grew too wide, Silas spoke at last.
“Lord Neil. I will speak bluntly, and I ask you do not mistake my meaning. I have never liked you. Not as a boy, and not as a man. Truthfully, you remind me of an eel. Slippery, slimy, and always on the hunt to make trouble for those around you. So understand me when I say this: you are never to set foot upon my land or in my home again.”
The irritating lord drew back, almost as though Silas had thrown a punch rather than words in his direction. A sneer curled the man’s lips.
The earl gave him no time to answer. “And furthermore, if I ever hear of you speaking to my wife again, even if it is so innocuous a subject as the weather, I will call you out. Do I make myself clear?”
Lord Neil stared, his face pale, for a long moment. Then he put his nose in the air and squared his shoulders. “Abundantly. Though I think your wife is capable of finding her own friends.”
Silas stepped forward and it pleased him when Lord Neil flinched at the movement. “Oh, the countess is immensely capable and certain to find friends wherever she may go. But we both know, Lord Neil, that is not your intention here. I will not see her hurt, by you or anyone else. Now. Get off my land.”
After a brief hesitation, Lord Neil backed away, not daring to look away from Silas. He exited the fountain’s courtyard.
It was difficult to tamp down on the elation he felt at ridding himself of that particular pest. Silas let out a sharp breath and then made his path to his wife. They needed to talk, and that she had hinted where she might be found indicated she might think the same.
∞∞∞
There was already a fire built up in the library and its comforting heat as well as the crackle of the flame gave Esther a measure of peace. She paced before the fire. Would Silas come? She had been unable to issue a true invitation for a meeting with him, given Lord Neil’s odious presence, but she had faith in her husband’s intelligence. Given her distance the day before, telling him outright where she would be ought to bring him to her.
Assuming he even wanted to speak with her after her immature display.
The long day and night proceeding her fit of grief and temper had given Esther ample time to think, and to regret her actions. It was not Silas’s fault that they were in this terrible position. He had only meant to help, to save her and her family from disgrace, by marrying her. Truly she was an ungrateful chit to use his honorable intentions as fuel for her temper.
She stopped her frantic walk before the shelves, staring at the reds and browns of the leather covers without really seeing them. What would her mother have said about her behavior? Her lack of decorum and dignity?
“Have you a sudden interest,” her husband’s voice said from behind her, “in philosophy?”
Then his step came across the room to her, until he stood behind her. “My grandfather collected most of those volumes,” he said, his hand stretching into her field of vision, pointing at the shelf at which she had stared.
Esther shook her head. “I cannot say I have ever wanted to study the subject.” Then she took in a shaky breath, trying to gather her courage, before turning to face him. One thing she had heard her mother say was that one must always offer an apology in a sincere and direct manner.
“Silas—”
“Esther—”
She stopped, raising a hand to cover her mouth, when they spoke in the same moment.
His cheeks pinked and he ducked his head, the smallest of smiles appearing on his handsome face. “I beg your pardon. Ladies first.”
That smile, the gentle tone of his voice, made her heart tremble. She balled her hands into fists at her side, trying to find the words she had been preparing since the first hours of the morning.
As sincerely as she knew how, Esther said, “I wish to apologize to you.” His eyes came up, though his head remained bowed, giving her a rather charming view of him. “You were right yesterday. I was acting like a child. I have been all out of sorts, even before we learned about Isaac. I have felt as though my life was spinning out of control, like the wheels of a runaway carriage. The reality, of course, is that I have not exercised the best judgment. I really must be more thankful that you have done so much for me.”
His dark eyebrows drew down and wrinkles appeared in his forehead. “What do you mean?” he asked, his tone low and rich in timbre. “What have I done but be a nuisance to you?”
He actually sounded as though he meant it.
“You have saved me, time and again, from my impetuous actions.” She had found her artwork that very morning, when a maid had asked if it was to be displayed in the music room.
“Ah. Such as when you rescued me from a falling statue.” His smile changed to one of self-abasement. “Because I was too busy thinking about my own concerns to look before me and see the danger. Or did you mean a diffe
rent impetuous action? Like when you stepped onto the log to cross the brook when I was proving to be an annoying companion. Or perhaps you mean something else entirely.”
Esther shook her head. “All of those things, I suppose.” But that wasn’t right. He explained each moment as though he were somehow to blame for her actions. “Regardless of what happened,” she said, trying to unmuddle the apology. “I am sorry for my behavior. I also wanted to assure you that I will not be acting in such a way again. Yesterday, walking out on your friends, was inappropriate.”
“Not at all. We are all mourning, Esther. As you told me not long ago, those who are in such a state need not excuse themselves.” He spoke kindly, as though what she had done was no more than forgetting a handkerchief or using the wrong spoon for her soup. A minor mistake.
Why would he not allow her to acknowledge her failings?
“Silas,” she said, waving a hand before her in a helpless manner. “Please. Do you not understand? I wish to change. I wish to make amends.”
His smile turned gentle and he caught her hand in both of his. “Esther, will you sit down with me for a moment?” He tugged her toward the couch nearest the fire, releasing her to gesture to the furniture. “Please?”
Flummoxed, Esther sat down, folding her hands tightly in her lap. Had she somehow bungled her apology as she had everything else?
Silas sat next to her, turning toward her so that their knees nearly touched. “My dear wife, your apologies are not necessary, though I thank you for them. We are understandably out of sorts, and I think that has led to some confusion. For both of us.”
She shook her head. “I do not understand.”
“Precisely.” One corner of his mouth went up and she smiled, albeit weakly, in return. “Esther, I do not want your apologies or your promises to change. I believe I am the one at fault for the way we rushed into our marriage, and then I went away. We were near strangers, bound together, but too far apart to come to know one another. In these last several days, I have wondered if I ought to have taken you to London with me.”
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