Chapter 24 #3
But he had come home late enough that he had chosen not to disturb her, and this morning there were shadows beneath his eyes.
He had been living and breathing the preservation of the barbicans for weeks.
Surely he was entitled to one breakfast in which he did not have to pick through the remains of it for her benefit.
So Tamsin instead asked, “Do you want more toast?”
By the third night, something had changed.
Not dramatically, of course. The first night after the vote, her husband worked late and told her not to wait for him.
The second, she woke once in the darkness and reached instinctively toward the other side of the bed before remembering he had not come in before she fell asleep.
The third night, she did not wait up for him.
That seemed more practical.
Roman was busy. He had neglected other matters while Micklegate’s barbican occupied his attention; now there were letters to answer, estate business to review, accounts requiring decisions.
He explained as much when she asked whether he would join her in the drawing room after dinner the fourth night. “I am afraid I have some parliamentary business to look over. It might be some time before I seek rest.”
“Of course.” It was completely understandable, and she reacted as an understanding woman.
Her husband did not appear to understand this. “You need not wait up for me.”
“Very well.” Showing her disappointment would be selfish. She made herself smile. “Thank you for telling me.”
His expression changed at that. Slightly. Tamsin wondered afterward whether she ought to have said something else. She could hardly think what.
So she read for an hour, spoke with Matilda when she called the following afternoon, helped Daphne decide whether the pale blue ribbon or the cream better suited her gown for the Christmas assembly, and went about the hundred small occupations that filled a day whether a husband was present for them or not.
Roman was at home, in any case.
That was what made her feeling of discomfort difficult to name.
He was at breakfast nearly every morning; he asked what she intended to do with her day; if she mentioned an errand, he remembered it later and asked how it had gone.
When a note came from Anne concerning Daphne, he raised an eyebrow and asked whether Tamsin required anything from him before she had even broken the seal.
She had smiled. “No. But thank you for asking.”
He had nodded and returned to his paper.
They were learning. That was what Tamsin told herself.
When they dined, Roman listened when she spoke. When they had company, he sought her eyes across the room with the same quiet familiarity which made her feel the two of them shared some private language. Once, passing behind her chair, he rested his hand briefly against her shoulder.
The touch remained long after he’d removed it.
And every night, sooner or later, Roman went to his room and stayed there. Sometimes she heard him enter and she waited, but he did not breach the doorway. Tamsin stopped expecting otherwise.
She wanted to ask him why; she had nearly opened it herself, but then heard her husband sigh on the other side. She did not want to be a bother. Not when he spent his days as busy as he did.
It was astonishing how quickly a person could become accustomed to something she did not like.
After all, she had been doing it all her life.
The thought came to her one evening nearly two weeks after the vote, and it disturbed enough that she put down her book.
The drawing room was quiet, her mother-in-law yet to return from Leeds.
Roman had gone to his study after dinner.
He kissed her cheek before leaving, a brief touch of his lips accompanied by an apology about correspondence.
She had told him there was no need to apologize.
And there wasn’t. What sort of wife would she be if she expected such a thing?
She certainly would not want to become a woman who demanded every hour of her husband’s company.
Roman had important matters of his own to attend to, along with obligations to many others.
He had interests which did not include her, as she had friends and occupations of her own.
After all, Matilda had visited twice that week. Tamsin had spent an afternoon with her sisters. There had been calls made and calls received, household things requiring her attention, and the new novel she had been enjoying until approximately ten minutes ago.
She was not neglected. That was important. She picked up her book again and read half a page before realizing she took not a single word. Her gaze flickered to the clock on the mantel, ticking on with extraordinary confidence.
What might Roman be doing at this instant? Writing, presumably. Perhaps still disappointed about the Micklegate issue.
She did not know if he was disappointed still. Or hurting, or angry.
Her stomach twisted unpleasantly. Athena raised her head from Tamsin’s foot, attentive as always.
“I am all right, sweet dog,” Tamsin said, reaching down to offer the dog a pat. “Merely thinking too much about his lordship.”
Athena rose and put her chin on her knee to make it easier to receive the reassuring affection. The dog’s large eyes gazed up at her with the deepest of sympathy.
“You would know if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?” Tamsin leaned closer to the dog and whispered, “Or if something was wrong with your mate. Apollo keeps him company. I do not suppose the two of you have shared confidences about Roman?”
The idea of dogs somehow talking about the humans in their midst made her smile. If only there was someone who could talk to ask such things. It had been nearly two weeks, and she did not know how Roman felt about the loss of something which had mattered so deeply to him.
He had told her how the council voted. He had told her what would happen to the barbican. He had answered when she asked whether his friends had remained with him afterward.
He had never told her how he felt. And she had stopped herself from asking.
The realization was uncomfortable.
Tamsin had believed she was giving him room to think and recover himself.
She had thought she was being patient. Roman was not a man who offered feelings easily, and she knew better than most that a person could be made miserable by having someone tug constantly at a part of oneself not prepared to be exposed.
So she must wait for him to come to her. And she had waited. And somewhere in the waiting, she had learned not to expect him.
Tamsin looked toward the door. She could go to his study; it was only down the corridor, perhaps twenty steps away.
The thought was so obvious she laughed. This was her house too. Roman was her husband. She required no invitation to knock upon his study door and ask whether he wanted company!
Yet she remained in her chair. If Roman wanted company, surely he would come to her. The thought seemed reasonable.
Reasonable thoughts often caused her to stumble.
Tamsin had built her life from them. Her father was forgetful, so she remembered.
Anne was overwhelmed, so Tamsin helped. Leopold did not think ahead, so Tamsin did his thinking.
The children needed things, and there was no sense leaving children to fend for themselves.
There had always been a perfectly understandable reason why someone else could not and Tamsin could. She had become very good at needing nothing in return.
With a wince, she snapped the book in her lap closed. Athena snorted and pulled back, head tilted to the side.
“My apologies, Athena. I had a thought that is not quite true anymore.”
The realization had come quite abruptly. She wanted Roman. She needed him.
She wanted him to come into the drawing room because he had finished his work and wanted to tell her something.
She wanted him beside her at night, taking up too much of the bed and warming the sheets.
She wanted his absentminded hand at her waist when he passed her.
She wanted to hear the little arguments he believed were the correct ways to arrange everything in existence.
She wanted to know whether he was still grieving Micklegate. She wanted him to know when she was unhappy. She wanted to be missed when she was not in the room.
Tamsin swallowed.
Wanting was an alarmingly different thing from being useful.
There was no task she could perform to make Roman want to sit beside her. No household difficulty she could solve that would make him open the connecting door at night. No amount of patience would transform his absence into intimacy.
She had thought patience was what he needed. Perhaps it was, for a time. But giving someone what they needed could not require making herself disappear. She had things she needed, too.
A husband.
The clock struck ten and she looked toward the door again.
One more evening of patience. She would give him that.
Roman did not come to the drawing room that night, or open the connecting door between their rooms. Tamsin barely slept. Her mind was too busy thinking of all the things she needed, and wanted, from the man she had married.