Chapter Seventeen
Five days later, amidst a flurry of well wishes, the Duke and Duchess of Southwick, along with the Marquess and Marchioness of Kensington, Jack, and—of course—the newest addition to the family, Lord Henry Ambrose Pierce Buxton, all departed Summerwind House in a long line of carriages.
In the quiet lull that accompanied their departure, Abigail busied herself with packing and by the next morning she, too, was ready to depart.
“We’ll be sad to see you go, my lady.” Her eyes suspiciously damp, Mrs. Robbins personally held the door of the town coach open so that Abigail could place her cats safely inside.
“But I know you’ll be doing good work in London, and the people there will be grateful for your return.
Thank you again for taking care of my nephew. ”
Two nights ago, after the men had ensconced themselves in Stephen’s study to do whatever it was men did and the women had gathered in the drawing room to gaze starry-eyed at baby Henry, a frantic pounding on the door had yielded a surprise guest: Mrs. Robbins’s sister, Alice, and her nine-year-old nephew who had been bleeding from his temple after being struck by an icy snowball while playing with his siblings.
Try as she might, Alice hadn’t been able to get the blood to stop. After the wound had soaked through four towels, she’d made her husband drive her and their child from the village to Summerwind House where she knew, courtesy of her sister, there was a doctor in residence.
Within minutes, Abigail had cauterized the wound and stemmed the bleeding. Wrapping the boy’s head to prevent infection, she’d given his parents strict orders to monitor him through the night and bring him back immediately if he vomited or showed signs of dizziness.
“Is there no doctor in the village?” Abigail had asked Mrs. Robbins, after her sister left.
Mrs. Robbins had shaken her head. “No, not for the past year. Some people call on the local veterinarian if he’s available, but most do their best to treat whatever ailments they encounter by themselves.”
“What if it’s an emergency?”
“They go to London, if they can. Or . . .” Here, the housekeeper had trailed away, but her meaning had been clear.
Without a doctor, the villagers either tended to their own injuries .
. . or they died. A tragic, but not unusual circumstance in the countryside where good medical care was difficult to come by.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” Abigail replied, and Mrs. Robbins gave a startled laugh when she threw her arms around the housekeeper and hugged her tight in a display of affection not ordinarily shown between a lady and her servant.
“Has he . . . has he come back yet?” Ending the embrace, she looked past Mrs. Robbins to the stables, searching the white front courtyard for a red mare after waking up to a note Stephen had left her saying he was going for an early ride, but would try to return in time to bid her farewell.
With a dark-gray sky promising snow, she’d already delayed her trip longer than she probably should have.
But it didn’t feel right to leave without saying goodbye. Not this time.
“Perhaps he was delayed?” Mrs. Robbins suggested, striving for a cheerful tone.
She smiled faintly. “Perhaps. I’ll send a letter when I’ve safely reached London.”
“Please see that you do, my lady. Your presence will be sorely missed at Summerwind House.”
Susan released a low, muttering meow of miffed complaint from under the seat when Abigail climbed up into the carriage.
Waiting until the team of horses had settled into a brisk trot on the open road before opening all three of the carriers, she invited the orange matriarch onto her lap while Cleo and Ferdinand entertained themselves by chasing sunspots on the floor.
“One final trip,” she promised Susan, “and then we’ll home. For good this time. No more traveling. No more looking over my shoulder. I will be able to devote my entire focus to what truly matters. My work as a doctor. Won’t that be wonderful?”
Susan’s tail twitched.
“I’ll still be married, but with personal and financial freedom. I couldn’t ask for more. Don’t you agree?”
Susan gave a banal side-eye.
“It’s not as if Stephen and I will be completely estranged. I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities for us to enjoy each other’s company as . . . as friends. There’s nothing wrong with that, is—ouch, Susan! That hurts!”
Slowly retracting her claws from Abigail’s thigh, Susan pushed off her lap and landed on the carpeted floor with a soft thump.
Sauntering over to Cleo and Ferdinand, she swatted the latter on his head for absolutely no reason other than she was a cat before jumping up onto the opposite seat, curling into a ball, and promptly going to sleep.
Left alone with her troubling thoughts, Abigail turned to the window and watched the passing scenery go by in silence.
*
“Where is she?” Breathless and bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow from when Vixen had thrown him in a flight of fancy, Stephen tracked snow across the front hall in his haste to question Mrs. Robbins. “Did she leave?”
The housekeeper nodded. “About an hour ago, my lord. She tried to wait, but with the impending storm—”
“I understand,” he interrupted curtly. “Thank you.”
“Are you all right, my lord?” Mrs. Robbins trailed after him as he stalked into his study and threw his torn greatcoat on the back of a chair. “Your forehead—”
“I’m fine.” Seeing the worry on the housekeeper’s face, he took a deep breath and deliberately softened his tone.
“You know how willful Vixen can be if she isn’t exercised consistently.
We flushed a deer out of a thicket and I was on the ground before I had time to watch it run away. Bumps and bruises, nothing more.”
Mrs. Robbins arched a brow. “If only we had a doctor here.”
“Abigail wanted to leave.” He sat down behind his desk and picked up a quill pen. “It was her choice.”
“Did she?” The housekeeper’s second brow rose to join the first. “Or was she told to leave?”
His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t have been eavesdropping again, would you, Mrs. Robbins?”
“Eavesdropping? Me?” Aghast, she spread her hand across her generous bosom.
“Never, my lord. But if I had been—which I wasn’t—I would have overheard the Earl of Lancaster telling the Countess of Lancaster to go.
A rather odd request to make, don’t you think, when it is so very obvious that he wanted her to stay? ”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “There’s more to it than that.”
“There always is, my lord. But in my experience, there doesn’t have to be.” She smiled gently. “Is there anything I can get for you? A fresh tea service, perhaps?”
“I’m fine,” he repeated, even though they both knew he wasn’t. “I would like to be notified when word is received that my wife reached her destination.”
“Of course, my lord.” Mrs. Robbins curtsied and left the study, closing the door in her wake.
Dropping the quill pen, Stephen leaned forward and buried his head in his hands.
He’d wanted to be there when Abigail left.
Not as a means to convince her to stay, but as a way to finalize her departure in his own mind.
He’d needed to see, with his own eyes, that she was willfully choosing to leave him .
. . again. And yes, Mrs. Robbins was right.
He had asked her to go. But she didn’t have to agree.
She could have fought back. She could have fought for them, as he had.
Because that was what it would take to convince him their marriage was worth more than cordial letter exchanges and the occasional dinner.
Her fighting for him. Her choosing him, as he’d chosen her.
Even now, he was doing it. By releasing her to pursue what her heart truly desired, he was forsaking his own happiness in support of hers.
Bloody hell, it was hard.
The hardest thing he’d ever done.
But it was right.
It was honorable.
It was good.
Because if he couldn’t be the husband she chose—not because of a betrothal contract, not because it ensured her an education, not because of some agreement between them—then at least he could be the husband who loved her enough to let her go.
*
February brought more snow to London, but by March, signs of early spring had begun to emerge.
Daffodils started to push up through muddy soil.
Robins with cheerful red breasts were seen flitting from tree to tree.
Icicles melted, the snow faded away, and while the nights were still cold, the days bloomed with a promising warmth carried in on a southerly breeze.
And yet for all the changes in the air, the dark cloud that had been hanging over Abigail’s head since she’d returned to the city remained undisturbed.
It was there in the morning, when she woke.
It was there in the evening, when she readied herself for bed.
It was there when it rained. It was even there when the sun shone so brightly that she had to squint when she went outside.
No matter what she did, the cloud remained.
Ever present.
Ever heavy.
Ever consuming.
To hide from it, she threw herself into her work as she never had before.
She saw more patients in two months than she had in two years.
Adults to infants. Wealthy to poor. Death’s door to skinned knees.
She treated them all. She read books. She wrote research papers.
She even took up knitting, as evidenced by the tiny sweaters now worn by Cleo and Ferdinand (Susan had shredded hers within minutes of it being on).
But it wasn’t enough. The perfect life she had spent the past eight years envisioning wasn’t enough.
Because he wasn’t in it.
Stephen.