Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Alexander extended a hand and watched the way his fingers shook in the cold light from the breakfast room windows. Such frailty and weakness; he hated that both belonged to him. Yet no matter how much he attempted to prevent it, he could not.
He craved laudanum to ease it, but knew the delirium that followed would only make things worse. He was here for his wife, to end this arrangement once and for all. He could not allow his mind to be clouded.
The door opened behind him, but instead of his wife, he found Oliver, the head footman. The other man bowed. “Your Grace…” he uttered, sounding hesitant.
“Oliver.” Instead of standing by the window, he took a chair. “Where is she?”
“Ah, I believe she is—she has been a little delayed this morning answering letters.”
“Answering letters?” Alexander’s brows furrowed. He glanced at the small writing desk in the corner of this room, where he presumed she handled most of her correspondence.
“She overslept this morning, Your Grace,” the footman quickly corrected.
“Very well.” He waved a hand. The staff had all behaved a little oddly to him since his arrival. But he had traveled overnight to arrive, and he did not have the patience to delay much longer. Already, he could feel the nausea in his stomach.
Damn this juice of the poppy!
He pinched the bridge of his nose, but when he looked up, Oliver had gone.
Very well. Willing his hands to stop shaking, he poured himself some of the cooling coffee. Evidently, his little wife was ordinarily down at this time.
Could she be avoiding him?
It seemed unlikely. The last time he’d met her, she’d been a shy, nervous little thing, and she obviously looked up to him a great deal.
A rather irritating fact, but one he understood.
So many people saw his title and immediately presumed he was someone to be revered—when, as far as he was concerned, the opposite was true.
Guilt ate at him when he recalled her face as he informed her that her father had passed. Then, she had wanted more from him than he could offer her. Then, he had been a disappointment.
The coffee was black and strong, just bitter enough to cut through the worst of his cravings. For now, at least. Like a phantom, they would return in the darkness, plaguing him until he felt he would get no rest. Until, in the dark, he saw things that could not be true.
Such as Helena.
Grimacing, he banished the thought and strode to the bell pull. To his surprise, Mrs. Jones was the one who came to the door.
“Well?” he pressed impatiently. “Where is she?”
“Your wife, sir?”
He looked at her, the way her brow rose slightly, her body tensed as though preparing for a blow. Was he that much of a monster? With a sigh, he collapsed back into his seat and sipped his coffee again. “What is it you are not telling me?”
“Your Grace?”
“I take it she is usually down at this time?”
“Ordinarily, yes,” Mrs. Jones said, keys jangling at her waist as she took a few steps into the room and straightened the place setting a fraction. “But today, I believe she has been a little delayed. Her dress tore.”
“Her dress tore,” he repeated flatly.
“Yes. So, as I’m sure you understand, she must change.”
“Yes,” he agreed dryly. “I must certainly understand. Unanswered letters, sleeping in, and now, a snagging of fabric. Tell me, Mrs. Jones, is my wife avoiding me?”
Defiance flashed in the older woman’s eyes. “Your Grace, I hardly see how you think I would know the answer to that question.”
“No, of course not.” He pinched his nose again. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw another of his past mistakes coming to haunt him. His wife. Helena. The former Lord Blackmoor, Lydia’s father. So many mistakes. Each one catastrophic.
“Very well,” he muttered. “I will continue waiting here. Let her know that I wish to breakfast with her.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Mrs. Jones curtsied, though with rather less enthusiasm than she had in the past, and closed the door behind her with a definitive click.
Alexander took another sip of coffee, trying to stem his impatience.
Of course it made sense that she, his estranged wife, would not be overly eager to see him again.
But at the same time, he had business to return to in London.
His clubs were expecting him back in a matter of days, and he had promised to attend a masquerade next week.
Not to mention a meeting with his man of business to discuss his investments and estates; for his own survival, he kept busy.
These periods of nothing, where his mind was free to wander, he inevitably thought of other things.
His childhood in this house.
Helena.
The loss that still clawed him open, as terrible and ruinous as addiction…
The door opened again, revealing the butler. “Ah, Philips,” Alexander said in relief. “Is Her Grace—”
“You have a caller, Your Grace.”
A caller. So not, presumably, his wife, but someone else. But a distraction, in whichever form it came, was welcomed. He rose immediately.
“Show them to my study,” he declared, already moving. Perhaps it was his steward or one of his tenants. He would receive them there and discuss whatever needed to be discussed, and he would be able to stop thinking.
But when he reached his study, he found an entirely different room awaiting him. Before the arrival of a woman in his life, his study had been neat, perhaps even a little plain. Heavy wooden furniture from the last century, and two rather stern paintings on the walls. A bookcase on one side.
Now, it looked as though a whirlwind had passed through, making a mockery of the room’s former purpose.
Novels cluttered his desk; pairs of gloves, not necessarily matching, had been deposited over the back of the high-backed chair, and a new, elegant armchair had been placed before the fire, only to then be covered in various papers.
Why she had chosen there instead of the desk made very little sense.
He would not be having his meeting in here, evidently.
When he left the room again, he found Samuel Godwin, his old friend, approaching down the corridor.
“Not here,” Alexander said by way of greeting, though he wanted to sigh in relief at the sight of a friendly face. “We can talk in the drawing room. Why have you come?”
“Why? Because I knew you were returning to our part of the country, and I thought I would drop by.” Samuel doffed his hat in a low bow. “Your Grace.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous is that you are in a bad mood even upon seeing me.” Samuel followed him into the room. “Are you telling me you are in this terrible mood despite your wife being the best-liked lady in York?”
Alexander felt a little flare of irritation he couldn’t place. “It’s hardly a varied society here.”
“And yet, she has been making the most of it. And, as I’m sure you’ll know by now, quite the prettiest girl I have had the pleasure to lay my eyes on.” Samuel winked, and Alexander felt another rush of irritation.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been usurping me,” he muttered.
“Me?” Samuel grinned and finally sat, resting his ankle on his knee. “Not I, Rayment. You see, I have no strong wish to lose my head. You are not a man prone to sharing. Besides, I doubt she would look twice at me.”
Alexander inhaled sharply, searching for patience. “It hardly matters. I’m going to take her back and get the marriage annulled.”
Samuel’s teasing smile fell. “Tonight?”
“Yes. Why do you think I traveled here at such a godforsaken time? The sooner we return to London, the better.”
“But Rayment.” Samuel leaned forward, a frown on his face now. “She is holding a soiree tonight.”
“My wife?”
“The very same.”
“Tonight?”
“Did she not mention? I can only presume she arranged it to celebrate your returning home.”
This time, alongside the irritation, he felt a burst of disbelief. That little mouse, organizing a soiree in his honor? Surely not.
“I have yet to speak with her since my return,” he said shortly.
“My advice would be to do so, then. But half the village is invited—there is no chance that you can whisk her away tonight. At the very least, you will have to leave it until tomorrow morning.”
“I see.”
Samuel relaxed again, leaning back in his chair. “This may be good for you. Perhaps you’ll even learn how to enjoy yourself.”
“I know how to enjoy myself, Godwin.”
“Oh, naturally, all while scowling at assembled company. I’ve been around you when you are supposedly having fun, and let me tell you, there is no enjoyment to be had in watching you, unless it is with the purpose of mockery.”
Alexander scowled. “You have an impudent tongue.”
“And you are grave beyond your years.” Samuel grinned at Alexander’s frown. “I know, I know. Life has been terribly hard. But you have a wife now, and if I do say so myself, she is a beauty.”
Alexander tried to think back to his last memories of her. To his chagrin, he could not bring her face to mind. At the time of their marriage, he had been so riddled with guilt, so determined to do right by her without giving her the hope that he would provide her a life with him.
All he could remember was that once she had recovered from the worst of her grief, she had been shy and uncertain.
“I may have a wife now,” he said, rising, “but I won’t have for long. If all you came to do was plague me, I might as well do something productive with my time.”
“You may say it, you know,” Samuel smirked.
“Say what?”
“That you are glad to see me.”
Alexander nearly smiled for the first time since arriving in York. “Fine. I am glad to see you.”
His old friend nodded decisively. “I knew it! Now go and see your pretty wife, and see if the sight convinces you to change your mind about this ridiculous plan.”
“It won’t,” Alexander said with a sigh. He had seen plenty of pretty girls since—but he didn’t want to think about that. “Nothing will change my mind, Godwin. The sooner everyone here accepts that, the better.”