Chapter Twenty-Three
The morning sun streaming through his bedroom windows felt like tiny daggers piercing directly into Alexander's brain.
He lay very still, hoping that if he didn't move, perhaps the pounding in his head would cease, or better yet, perhaps the memories of the previous evening would prove to be some elaborate, brandy-induced dream.
But no. The memories remained stubbornly real and horrifyingly detailed.
He had told Ophelia she was beautiful. Multiple times.
He had called her annoying in what he'd apparently thought was an endearing manner.
He had confessed to falling in love with her.
He had sat on the floor of his bedroom, defeated by his own boots, while she helped him like he was a child.
Alexander pulled a pillow over his face and seriously considered suffocating himself with it. Death seemed preferable to facing Ophelia after everything he'd said. She probably thought he was pathetic. A duke who couldn't hold his liquor, rambling about feelings like some lovesick poet.
A soft knock at the connecting door interrupted his self-recrimination.
"Alexander? I know you're awake. I can hear you bringing the catastrophe upon you from here."
Her voice held amusement, which somehow made everything worse. She was laughing at him. Of course she was. He'd made an absolute fool of himself.
"I'm dying," he called back, his voice muffled by the pillow. "Please send my regards to society and tell them I've expired from acute embarrassment."
The door opened anyway, because apparently his wife had no respect for his desire to die in peace. He heard her footsteps approaching his bed, then felt the mattress dip as she sat beside him.
"I brought headache powder," she said gently. "And tea. And toast, though I suspect you won't want that yet."
He peaked out from under the pillow. She was dressed in a soft morning gown of pale green, her hair loosely pinned up, and she was smiling at him with such warmth that his chest tightened.
"You're not running away screaming," he observed suspiciously.
"Why would I run away?"
"Because last night I apparently lost all sense of propriety and dignity and spent several hours telling you things that should never have left my brain."
"You mean telling me you think I'm beautiful and that you're falling in love with me?" She helped him sit up, handing him the glass with the headache powder mixed in water. "Yes, how terrible. I'm absolutely scandalized."
He drank the mixture, grimacing at the taste. "I called you annoying. Repeatedly."
"You also called me perfect. I've decided to focus on that part."
"I couldn't get my boots off."
"That was actually rather endearing."
"Endearing?" He stared at her. "I was on the floor, defeated by footwear."
"You were human. Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to see you be genuinely, imperfectly human?"
She touched his face gently, and he found himself leaning into her palm despite his mortification.
"I meant it all," he said quietly, meeting her eyes despite the difficulty. "Everything I said. The brandy just made it easier to say."
"I know. I meant what I said too."
"The part where you called me impossible and overly formal?"
"The part where I said I was falling in love with you."
They looked at each other for a long moment, the morning light making her eyes appear more gold than brown, and Alexander thought about kissing her but wasn't sure if that was allowed now, in the sober light of day.
She solved the problem by leaning in and kissing him softly, just a brief press of lips that somehow managed to convey affection and amusement and promise all at once.
"There," she said, pulling back. "Now drink your tea and stop hiding. We have breakfast to attend, and the servants are already gossiping about finding us both disheveled in the library last night."
"They found us?" Horror crept into his voice.
"Apparently Mrs. Morrison went to check the fires and saw us on the sofa. She's been smiling all morning, which is frankly more terrifying than her usual disapproval."
Alexander groaned, but he did drink his tea, and eventually he managed to dress and make his way downstairs, where breakfast proved to be less awful than anticipated.
They sat closer than usual, Ophelia's hand occasionally touching his on the table, and if the footmen noticed and smiled, well, Alexander was too focused on his lingering headache to care overly much.
They were just finishing when James appeared with the morning post, including a thick letter addressed to Ophelia in what looked like her mother's hand.
"From home," Ophelia said, opening it eagerly. As she read, her expression shifted from pleasure to concern to something like frustration. "Oh dear."
"What is it?"
"My mother writes that Charles and Edward are miserable.
They've been fighting constantly since they returned, apparently over who was more at fault for the vase incident.
Robert is threatening to come check on me himself, convinced you're keeping me prisoner.
And the news of the village incident has reached them, somewhat garbled.
They seem to think you threw Lord Harrington into a fountain. "
"I should have," Alexander muttered. "It would have been satisfying."
"She says Father is worried sick, and even Henry has expressed concern, which for Henry means he wrote an entire paragraph about the situation instead of just a sardonic comment."
She set the letter down, looking troubled. "I need to write to them, let them know I'm well. That we're well."
"Of course. Write whatever you like."
"I want to invite them to visit."
Alexander's tea cup stopped halfway to his mouth. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I want to invite my brothers to visit. To see that we're happy, that things have changed."
"The brothers who destroyed priceless artifacts and insulted me repeatedly in my own home? Those brothers?"
"The brothers who love me and were trying to protect me from what they saw as an unhappy situation. Yes, those brothers."
"Absolutely not."
"Alexander..."
"They called me a statue! Edward suggested I had no feelings! Charles played catch with a three-hundred-year-old celestial sphere!"
"And they feel terrible about all of it. Mother says Charles has written three separate apology letters but keeps burning them because he can't find the right words."
"Good. Let him suffer."
Ophelia moved her chair closer to his, taking his hand. "We're different now. We're happy. Don't you think they should see that? Don't you think they deserve to know their sister isn't miserable?"
"Can't you just write and tell them? Perhaps include a sketch of you smiling as proof?"
"Alexander."
"What? It's a reasonable suggestion."
"They're my family. You're my family. I want my two families to at least try to coexist peacefully."
Alexander looked at her earnest face, remembered how she'd helped him with his boots, how she'd kissed him this morning despite his massive embarrassment, how she'd stood beside him in the village facing down Harrington.
"This is emotional blackmail," he said accusingly.
"Is it working?"
"Unfortunately." He sighed deeply, already regretting what he was about to say. "Fine. You may invite them for dinner. One dinner. Not a visit, not a stay, just dinner."
"Really?" Her face lit up with such genuine pleasure that he almost didn't mind the impending disaster.
"But I have conditions."
"Of course you do."
"First, they are not to touch anything in the portrait gallery, the music room, or my study. In fact, let's just say they're not to touch anything that predates this century."
"Alexander..."
"Second, Charles is specifically banned from any room containing spheres of any kind; celestial, terrestrial, or decorative."
"That's ridiculous."
"That's prudent. Third, no discussions of politics, estate management, or the relative merits of inherited versus earned wealth."
"What will you talk about then?"
"The weather. The roads. Absolutely nothing that could lead to anyone insulting anyone else's entire existence."
"You're being dramatic."
"I'm being protective of my remaining artifacts and my sanity." But he squeezed her hand to soften the words. "They may come to dinner. One dinner. And if they break anything, I'm sending them a bill."
"They won't break anything."
"Your confidence is touching but historically unfounded."
She kissed his cheek, which he supposed made the impending ordeal slightly more bearable. "I'll write to them today. Perhaps Friday?"
"Three days to prepare myself. How generous."
"You could try to enjoy it, you know. They're not bad, just... enthusiastic."
"Enthusiastic is one word for it. Chaotic agents of destruction might be more accurate."
But when she went to write her letter, he followed her to the library, ostensibly to read but really to watch her write, the way she bit her lip when concentrating, the little smile that crossed her face as she crafted her words.
"Do you want to add anything?" she asked when she'd finished.
"Yes, give it here." He took the pen and added a postscript:
Mr. C. Coleridge and Mr. E. Coleridge are invited to dine at Montclaire House this Friday at eight o'clock. Please note that the portrait gallery will be closed for cleaning, and we regretfully request that all guests refrain from handling decorative objects. Formal dress required. - Montclaire
"You're impossible," Ophelia said, reading his addition.
"I'm practical. There's a difference."
The three days that followed were marked by Alexander's increasing dread and Ophelia's attempts to reassure him.
They had settled into a new rhythm since their drunken confessions—still awkward at times, both uncertain of how to be affectionate in daylight hours, but trying.
He would take her hand at dinner, and she would sit beside him in the library in the evenings, reading while he worked on correspondence.
Small touches, tentative kisses, the careful construction of intimacy between two people who had started as strangers.
The servants had noticed the change immediately, of course.
Mrs. Morrison's unprecedented smiling had continued, and Alexander had caught several footmen exchanging knowing looks when he and Ophelia walked together in the gardens.
Even his valet, Sinclair, had commented that His Grace seemed "more settled" lately, which Alexander chose to interpret as approval.
"They'll be here tomorrow," Ophelia said on Thursday evening as they sat by the fire. She was curled against his side, a position that still felt new and slightly alarming but not unpleasant.
"Don't remind me."
"You might actually enjoy their company if you give them a chance."
"I might also enjoy having my teeth pulled, but I'm not eager to test the theory."
"Edward knows a great deal about horses. You could talk about that."
"Your brother Edward thinks the aristocracy is a parasitic institution that should be abolished."
"Yes, but he also knows about horses."
Alexander considered this. He did appreciate a good horse, and good horsemen were rare enough that even a Coleridge who knew his bloodlines might be tolerable. "What about Charles?"
"Charles is... Charles. He means well."
"That's not reassuring."
"He's very sorry about the vase."
"The vase can't be unbroken by an apology."
"No, but he offered to commission something new for the space. That was in one of the letters he burned, apparently."
This was news to Alexander. "He offered to replace it?"
"He wanted to, but he was too embarrassed to send the letter. He thought you'd see it as an insult, trying to replace something irreplaceable with new money."
Alexander was quiet for a moment, processing this. It was actually rather thoughtful, recognizing both the loss and the impossibility of true replacement. "And you said he burned multiple letters?"
"Three, according to Mother. He's not good with words when he's genuinely sorry. He gets tongue-tied, says the wrong thing, makes it worse. It's why he usually just blusters through."
"So his obnoxiousness is actually discomfort?"
"Sometimes. Not always, he can be genuinely obnoxious. But when he cares, when he's really trying, he becomes almost inarticulate with the effort of not saying the wrong thing."
Alexander found this oddly relatable. How many times had he stood frozen, wanting to say something kind to Ophelia but unable to find words that didn't sound stilted or formal? Perhaps he and Charles Coleridge had more in common than either would care to admit.
"I'll try to be civil," he said finally.
"That's all I ask."
"But if he breaks anything..."
"You'll bill the estate, yes, you've mentioned." She tilted her head up to look at him. "You know, you're rather endearing when you're being protective of your things."
"Endearing? I'm trying to be intimidating."
"That too. Endearingly intimidating."
"That's not a real thing."
"It is when you do it."
He kissed her then, because it seemed the appropriate response, and because he was still amazed that he could just do that now; kiss his wife when she was being amusing or beautiful or simply there.