by Liz Tyner
‘But not what you received.’ He stared at her. ‘And perhaps I have lived half of my years and became who I will always be. And have no wish to change.’
‘I want your honesty. And if I hate your actions—’ Her lips almost locked on the last word. ‘You will have earned it.’
He took both of her hands and held them at his heart, pressing them into his shirt. ‘If you truly wish for a marriage of truth, then I can attempt it. It feels like a new jest for me. But it may send us in different directions. But we’ve already started them and I do not like the feeling that my wife of only a few days is already preferring to stay home with a book or a knitting needle rather than be out with me.’
He dropped her hands and moved to his chamber. He heard her footsteps behind him.
She walked into his room. ‘If you wish me to return to my father, I will as soon as a babe is on the way.’
He saw her from the corner of his eye. He didn’t recognise her. He’d been concentrating on revenge so much that he’d not bothered to look at what was happening in front of him.
Fox turned and put his hand out, sliding the puff of sleeve back into place, but it slipped down again. Then he gripped her shoulders. He could feel the bones.
He took her hand and led her to the mirror and stood behind her. He reached up to brush her cheek. They both watched his hand move.
‘You’re fading away.’ He dropped his hand from her face and gripped her shoulders so that she looked at her form in the mirror and couldn’t turn away.
‘See how thin you look. You do not need to think about your size. Are you eating at all?’
‘Of course. It is just not the same as what I’m used to and I don’t like it as well.’
He turned and stalked to the hallway. He didn’t wait for the bell pull, but hit every other tread as he bounded down the stairs. He clasped the railing to stop his descent when he saw the wide eyes of the butler.
‘Send for a physician. Do not let him stop until he is with my wife.’
He turned, moving up the stairs.
His mother had talked about her cough at length when they’d met and how almost every servant in the house had succumbed. And she sounded fine.
He remembered watching Rebecca’s bottom while he lay in bed at the vicarage. A healthy one with a lot of movement. Then he thought of how she’d looked on the wedding day. This had started before the cough.
She’d changed while they waited for the banns to be read. He’d noted it, but understood that she would be the type of person to take those vows seriously, and marked it as the reason and forgotten about it.
That had been an error.
He stepped back into the bedroom. He didn’t tell her the physician was on the way.
She still stood at the looking glass, but she worked to corral the stray strands of hair that had escaped from the pins.
‘You wed me to keep a roof over your father’s head.’
Her eyes wavered a moment. ‘I did not truly think your father would toss us out.’
‘Have you ever known him not to make good on what he said?’
‘No. He’s very much in control of the village. But he had also promised my father another home, somewhere else. We did not know where.’
‘You really did not wish to marry me.’
‘It’s—Well, you had proposed before and it had meant nothing. You’d lived through one scandal after another. But I didn’t know what else to do. You seemed likeable enough and I knew very well that, as your wife, my father would be protected by the earl. He said he thinks of me as a daughter. And if nothing else, my father would be able to have a room at the earl’s estate and still have the people around him he’s known all his life.’
‘You would sacrifice for him. By marrying me.’
She turned to him. ‘What other options did I have? None. I could possibly marry the new vicar, but he looked a bit like a bland pickle and his voice grated on my ears.’ She shrugged. ‘And I liked you. You have a pleasant voice. And you seemed agreeable enough while you were healing. I just didn’t realise it was all healing and you were too ill to move. I thought you were a quiet man who liked stillness.’
She put her hand on her cheek. ‘Then I saw you get out of the carriage and I didn’t recognise you. I’d never seen someone dressed so fine. You were there with the high hat on and the black clothing and I’d never seen such. Not even in portraits. And I could not change my mind then. Your father would have been so very angry and it was too late.’
He’d never expected someone to feel forced to marry him.
‘I’ll make it better for you, Rebecca.’
‘You don’t need to. I’m fine. I just haven’t been very hungry.’
He held her until the physician arrived and he hoped she had not made herself so thin that she’d become ill.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘The physician says you must return to your home in the village.’ The doctor had said he truly wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with her or what to do to treat her.
Fox walked to the bell in the sitting room and pulled it. He sat down at the desk, removed the topper from the ink and began to write.
‘What are you writing?’ she asked.
‘Instructions for the servants for after I leave. I’m taking you to your father’s.’
He heard her intake of breath and turned. For a half second, he saw concern.
‘I want you to be happy,’ he said. ‘Simple as that. And starving yourself is not going to make anyone happy.’
‘I’m not starving myself.’
He looked at the paper in front of him, but he thought about what he’d told her. No one in the world deserved happiness more than Rebecca. She’d spent her whole life thinking of what others might need.
‘I need to live here,’ she repeated. ‘A wife should be with her husband.’
‘Very well.’ He tossed the pen aside. He used his smile and put all his sincerity into it. ‘But a brief visit to your father would be good for him, and you could see your old friends.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ She whirled around so he couldn’t see her face. ‘You’re sending me away. My father and your father both will be hurt to think our marriage is already failing.’
He would try one good work. One very large good work. His lips curved up, but the movement was habit. He was too worried about Rebecca to feel the smile.
A maid arrived, with her mob cap sliding off her head. She straightened it. Fox returned to writing. ‘I am going to the country.’
Rebecca gasped.
He looked at the maid. ‘She’s wasting away to nothing.’ Fox stood. ‘Did you not notice?’
He might as well have spoken the words to himself.
‘Well, she did put her cake in the chamberpot.’ He could hardly hear the servant’s voice for the pounding in his head.
He folded the paper in half precisely. ‘Have the carriage readied.’ He folded the paper again. ‘Send the valet to my room and tell him to pack a trunk for me. Be certain he packs my favourite wear, this time. Not the rags I usually wear to my father’s. And not to pack lightly. Tell him to take the trunk to my father’s house and bring his own clothing. We will be staying indefinitely.’ He dropped the paper onto the table. ‘These instructions are for later. The butler will know what to do. But wait a moment before you leave.’
He crossed the room and went into Rebecca’s chamber and returned with her spencer folded over his arm.
He walked to Rebecca and put a hand at her waist. ‘My wife and I are going for a walk to the east. Send her clothing along. Have the carriage catch up with us. My wife will be staying in the country with me indefinitely as well.’
He held the spencer for her to put her arms into it.
‘I can’t wear it.’ She touched her chest. ‘It doesn’t match. At all. It’s old and it’s from my home.’
He lowered the cloth and looked at the drab brown, then shrugged and held it up again. ‘So… You’ll start
a new style and you’ll be warm.’ He leaned closer. ‘I once wore red gloves with a purple cravat. If someone sees you, they’ll just think I chose your clothes.’
As soon as she had her arms in the clothing, he hustled her out the door and down the stairs.
‘You hate the country,’ she said.
‘You did not think I’d let you go alone.’
‘I am fine alone.’
He stopped and looked at her until she lowered her eyes. No one in the entire world had ever needed him as much as Rebecca did. Him, with his long list of bad deeds and her with the matching size of good works.
*
They’d walked for a mile before the carriage caught up with them.
She sat beside him in the vehicle, but after a distance leaned against the corner. Even talking seemed to take too much effort.
He reached over and pulled her into his lap sideways, and propped his arm high to cradle her. She could stretch her legs a bit.
‘Try to sleep,’ he said. ‘It’ll make the ride go quicker.’
She breathed in. His arms gave her a boost of strength. ‘Do you want to spend time with your father?’
‘Absolutely not. You smell much nicer than he does.’
‘Lilacs. My mother’s scent. My father would save all year to buy her the perfume and she would share it with me. After she died, it made me feel closer to her.’
‘You must miss her.’
‘Not every moment. She’s still with me. In my heart. And I just know that she is aware of me.’
‘That’s not the way I feel about my sister. She’s gone. I’ve never once felt she is with me. Or that any part of her remains or can touch us.’
‘That must be sad.’
‘It is, but that is just how it is.’
She snuggled against him. ‘It would be beyond sad for me.’
‘Then I am pleased you believe differently than I do. I just wish you liked London more.’
‘Everyone moves so much faster. No one seems to have time to spare unless it is for buying something new. Even the servants. And they are quite particular about things.’
‘The servants?’
‘Yes. I saw ribbons that matched the maid’s hair and bought them and gave them to her. She was in tears the next day because the housekeeper saw them and accused her of stealing. When I explained to the housekeeper that I had given them to the maid, her shoulders tightened, her lips pruned into a sour shape and she nodded. I had to tell her I’d been saving a shawl for her or her feelings would have been hurt. I had been—but for Boxing Day. I gave it to her and she wore it when she was cleaning the rug. The next day the maid noted the housekeeper was lording it over all the staff that her shawl was quite the thing. So then I bought ribbons for everyone, but I knew if I bought shawls, too… And then I overheard a footman ask another if he had received a vail of any kind.’
‘Don’t worry about the servants. They are of strong stock and they will survive some jealousy over ribbons. Get them all confections or teas or some such.’
‘Oh.’ She straightened. ‘I must… I forgot. I had planned for the butler to have some spectacles. The housekeeper complained of him holding the list so far from his face… Would you mind? Would you mind—helping him get glasses?’
‘I will tell him to see that he purchases himself some spectacles and I will see that it doesn’t cause an uproar. I will tell him to let everyone know, if they will wear them, they may all have spectacles.’
‘Oh, they will all be wearing spectacles. You wait and see. You have to give one exactly the same as the others. But in the village, we could never give everyone alike. Funds were too scarce. We all knew that sometimes one had good fortune, another time, someone else did.’
‘Sounds simple.’
‘It is. But nothing is simple now. The staff is trying hard to be so perfect and win my trust. They watch me so close to see what they might do to please me. Even my smiles are watched. The food I eat.’
‘Only by me.’
‘Ha.’ She gave his waistcoat a tug. ‘Leticia was concerned about my mind because my cake was in the chamberpot.’
‘It seemed to me Cook has been preparing quite a lot of different dishes lately.’
‘Yes. She was trying to please me with everything from cockscomb soup to rosewater biscuits. I don’t want her to work so hard, particularly when it doesn’t even taste good. I have been taking a walk and spiriting food for the neighbour’s dogs. I pretend to be scratching their ears and I have oilcloth inside my reticule that the food is wrapped in.’ She sighed. ‘I like the dogs and I do not even know their names. They do not care what I say or do or how I look.’
‘You need to stop caring.’
She turned in his arms and looked at his eyes.
‘You care too much about what you say or how you look,’ he explained.
She rested against his chest, and his arms banded around her. Movable walls of comfort. A secure fortress. This just wasn’t how she’d expected him to feel, not that she’d ever given it much thought. She’d not known he could be shelter.
His chin touched the top of her head. ‘You must eat more.’
‘I’ve been just a few days without feeling hungry. A leftover from the sniffles. I was a bit plump. My mother was a great bit plump.’ She touched the cuff of the sleeve tip that hung from his coat, straightening with one movement, curling with the next. ‘Father said it gave him more to love. But her knees pained her and she couldn’t walk well.’
‘Are you concerned that will happen to you?’
‘I don’t think about it much. I just miss my home.’
‘It’s the first home you ever had. I had my mother’s home, my father’s home and school. Plus I spent a lot of time at my uncle’s house with my cousins. I stayed at Albany. The walls are just in different places.’
‘Neither of us feels at home in the house.’
‘A house is merely a place to keep the weather out and provide comfort. It isn’t a being. Besides, if I want a house in London at a more convenient location, as soon as this lease is out, I can move. I do not care what colour the walls are or where they are located within a residence.’
‘You just need doorways.’
He put his hand over her fist and pulled it to his lips. ‘To lead to you.’
‘Easily said.’ She touched the shoulder of his coat. ‘Even though I can feel nothing of you beneath the fabric, I can still tell the strength of you beneath your clothing. And it is all strange to me. A person I do not know.’
‘I would like it better if you could feel something of me.’
‘I’m afraid of what I might find. You’re so different. Down to the buttons on the clothing.’ She touched the button on his waistcoat. ‘The men in London have the nicest clothes.’
‘The men?’
‘Oh, yes. They’re elegant. The ladies’ dresses are fine beyond my imagination. And now I have them and I cannot get them to fit. The most costly dresses I could have imagined and yet…’ She looked at her skirt. ‘This dress. What if I spill something on it or get dirt on the hem?’
‘Don’t worry about something so trivial. Cloth is nothing compared to the person who wears it.’ He touched his face to hers. ‘Does that not sound like something you would say?’
‘It does.’
‘Then shut your eyes and go to sleep and see how long I can have the strength to hold you.’
‘How long do you think you will manage?’
‘As long as I need to.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Foxworthy watched her sleep. Rebecca woke as the wheels of the carriage stopped and the cab bounced to stillness. She looked up.
She patted his chest. ‘I believe we are at my father’s house.’
He lifted her, helping her to sit beside him. He yawned. Then shut his eyes and shook his arms. ‘Well, let us greet your father.’
He led her down from the steps and her father stepped out. In rumpled shirtsleeves and mussed hai
r, he appeared older than any other time Fox had seen him.
The cat rushed out and wound around Rebecca’s skirt. She cooed, scratching its ears, patting the head and causing a huge purr to hit the air.
The vicar rushed to Rebecca. His cheeks had sunk into his face and his skin reminded Fox of the way some leaves changed before they turned brown and fell to the earth.
‘Becca. What’s wrong? Your letter said you were well.’ Her father’s voice trembled. ‘Have you seen the physician?’
‘I’m fine.’ Her laughter infused the air, moving across to her father and wiping away the added creases seeing her had caused.
Foxworthy took Rebecca’s hand and lifted it. ‘She misses her father.’
Her father took a half step forward and his cheeks reddened, contrasting the pallor. ‘I miss her as well.’
Fox moved, stepping her to her father. ‘I hoped she might stay with you for a bit.’
The vicar’s eyes darkened.
‘My precious wife…’ Foxworthy raised his voice, overacting the moment, the same as the proposals which garnered him so much attention ‘…is missing her father beyond belief. If she were to stay away another minute, I might fear for her health.’
The words he said scraped him from the inside out, releasing something he’d never felt before. They took the feeling he’d had when his sister died and freshened it, strengthened it and cloaked him in it. His smile didn’t falter.
Fox pulled up Rebecca’s hand, putting his lips to it, and then snugged Rebecca to his side. His free hand went around her waist from the back and when he hugged her to him, the clothes folded against her body. As Fox pulled her close, her father’s smile grew.
‘Well, I am missing her beyond belief,’ her father said. ‘I’d thought myself sensible until the days after she married and then I realised I am just an old man.’
‘Father.’ She rushed from Foxworthy’s side, taking one of her father’s hands in both hers and leaving a chill beside Fox. ‘You are not just an old man. You are the vicar and a saint on earth.’
He ducked his head. ‘You do my heart good to see you, Rebecca.’
‘Then I trust you will need a few moments with her to share what she thinks of London,’ Fox said. ‘And I wish her to catch up on the things she has missed while she was away and I think she has missed most everything.’
