Chapter Five
Three months later
F elix wiped the blood from his cheek and stripped off his ruined glove before entering his London townhouse.
His muscles ached, and soon his right eye would be black and blue.
But the other fellow was worse off. He snickered as he stepped inside the cool entryway and closed the door.
Perhaps that monster would think twice before he kicked another child.
Hopefully, the lad Felix had championed would remain in Felix’s employ.
He’d left the boy in the mews with his groom and instructions to find him some paying work to do.
The child had been ready to bolt, though, eyes darting all about, arms wrapped around his too-lean frame.
Felix slouched toward the stairs, but didn’t make it up two steps before a knock echoed behind him. His butler, Mr. Clarkes, appeared, but Felix waved him away, opened the door himself.
His grandfather grinned from the other side. “You look like hell.”
Felix stepped aside, ushered him in. “What are you doing here?”
“In town to talk with Beckett.” Caro’s brother-in-law, a fellow radical. Naturally, they’d be planning. “About the Corn Laws.”
Felix led his grandfather into his study and sank into a chair, gestured for the other man to do the same.
When his grandfather did with a groan, he said, “Those laws are an opportunity.”
“An opportunity for riots.”
“To fan the flames of change.”
“ Hm .” He’d been at the center of movements fueled by human fear. Had the scars to show for it, could still hear the despair in the men’s voices, understood well how it gathered violence in their fists. “Let me know if they need a body in a fight. I’ll be there.”
“You always are.” His grandfather chuckled.
“Things seems to have quieted down a bit in the last year. The battle more intellectual than physical now. But… I’m not sure you should be in the fray anymore.
You have a wife.” Not a hint of humor in those last four words.
“Where is she? And why is your eye swelling?”
Felix busied himself making a fire though it was too damn hot for one. “She’s at Hawthorne. And the eye was a bit of a public service.”
“Usually is. And I know.”
“Know what?” Felix fumbled with the tinderbox.
“Where your wife has been the entirety of your marriage.”
Hell. “Grandfather, you—”
“Do not Grandfather me. I want to know why you’re living apart.
” He rolled forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he pinned Felix with a glare he’d long since learned to run from.
“And I want to know why your wife, Viscountess Foxton, is living alone, with no servants, in a house that is falling apart.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Windows broken. The roof only just fixed.”
The house was old. And neglected. He knew that. But not unlivable. “She’s not alone. The servants…” But, tinderbox forgotten, fire abandoned without a single spark in the grate, Felix had begun to panic. “She’s not alone… is she?”
“She’s got a maid. A single damn maid, Felix!” His grandfather creaked to his feet, palms pressing against his thighs to help him stand. “I do not know what is happening between you two, but you are close to shaming me.”
“You’re not… lying?”
“No.”
“Embellishing?”
“No!” Grandfather spat the word. “Your wife is living with a single maid in a huge house falling down around her head. And here you are”—he stabbed Felix in the upper arm with his finger—“living safe and dry in London. Do you have any defense for that?”
“No. We… she wanted to live there.”
“And you let her?” His grandfather was roaring now, but Felix barely heard him. A river rushed between his ears, blocking almost every sound out. He only barely heard his grandfather say, “You let her go to that place? It’s been abandoned for decades .”
“I didn’t know…. how bad… it was.” The last time he’d been there it had been pristine.
But for the odor of death, of despair, but for the darkness.
But before that, it had been a child’s ideal—sun and gardens and smiling faces around every corner.
His home. He’d felt… fine letting Caroline go there because she deserved sun and space and smiles, a welcome place to grieve in, and… “I didn’t know. I didn’t think.”
“That much is quite clear. You get her back here. Now . Viscountess Foxton cannot remain in that place. Your wife, our Caro —she cannot stay there. Do you understand?”
God, he did. He took a hesitant step toward the door. “Is it really that bad?”
“Go see for yourself.”
His grandfather was a crafty man. He’d done his best to see Felix and Caro married. He could be bluffing now. Had to be.
Felix crossed his arms over his chest. “She married me for Hawthorne. Has some mad idea to renovate it, to be left alone.” And he was glad to let her have what she wanted.
Best for him, too. He’d almost kissed her on their wedding day.
Thank God she’d stopped him. Once begun, he might not have been able to stop.
That posed a problem. Especially since sparks of that almost kiss remained in him somehow, lingering in the crevices of his skin, threatening ignition.
Threatening his long-curated ability to resist her.
He dreaded what he might do when he saw her once more.
“I know you are full of tricks, old man.”
“Today, I’m full of rage. You had better see to the safety of your wife, Felix Canterbury, or I’ll strip you of everything unentailed.” His hands—fists. His eyes—blue coals. His usually genial lips—a slash like a knife blade across his face. He was angry. Serious. Truthful.
Felix cursed and made for the stairs. He needed a bath then to pack. “I can be there before nightfall. But I cannot guarantee she’ll listen to anything I have to say.”
“She’s your wife.”
In name only. “She has a plan .”
His grandfather groaned. “Good God, not again. Good luck with that, son. And, Felix?”
Felix stopped on the stairs, looked down at the man who’d raised him from the time he was eight.
“Will you be fine?” Grandfather asked. “To return to Hawthorne?”
“Of course.”
His grandfather gave a curt nod then pulled something from his pocket, shoved it at Felix’s chest. “I found that. Keep me updated, Felix!” Then he was gone before Felix could finish.
And Felix was repeating himself in the empty foyer.
“Of course I can. It’s a house. Nothing more.
” The house his family had died in. “It bothers me not.” What did bother him was his own foolishness.
Of course, Hawthorne would be dilapidated.
He’d pushed that little undeniable fact away because it was convenient, hadn’t he?
He could not be around his wife, could not trust himself not to kiss her when she didn’t want that, so he’d let her go without a single protestation.
Without having his man of business, at the very least, investigate how bad the house was, tend to his wife’s needs while there.
He should have sent her a butler to take care of everything for her. Something. Some one . Any one.
He looked at the object his grandfather had shoved at him before leaving.
A book. Christ. He remembered. It creaked open, the childish penmanship and drawings jumping off each page.
The summer after he’d come to live with his grandfather, he’d barely been able to move.
He’d thought of nothing but what he’d lost.
Until Caroline. They’d written a story page by page.
First her, then him, then her, then him.
He flipped the pages now, slowly. It had been years since he’d thought of this.
A miracle it still existed. His entries in the story had been short at first. A sentence or two, an attempt to appease the stubborn girl and send her away.
But later entries stretched into paragraphs and pages.
Reading their progression like walking down a long hallway that started in darkness, each step taking you closer to the light at its end.
Caro’s entries had been funny, energetic things to make him laugh.
He remembered one about an army of rabbits in a garden, hopping so high they landed on the roof of the house.
He laughed now. Just one loud knock of the stuff before slapping his palm over his mouth.
No wonder he’d been halfway to something horrible with her back then.
He’d been wise to disappoint her request. She’d always been the easiest little thing to love.
He was a bloody nodcock.
Marriage settlement or not, she could not remain in the situation his grandfather had described. Before they’d married for convenience, they’d been friends, Caro the one person other than his grandfather he cared for enough to hurt for. He wasn’t about to let her suffer.
Suffering was his lot in life. Caro deserved comfort. And as his wife, she would be safe. Even if she clearly did not care to be.
In an hour he’d washed the blood and muck from his limbs and mounted his horse with only a lightly packed valise in tow. Felix rode Troy south out of London. They made good time, and when they reached the long, tree-lined drive that would end at Hawthorne, Felix was… not anxious.
He slowed Troy, watching the dappled shadows on the rutted road disappear beneath the horse’s hooves.
Difficult to breathe. Just a bit. Not really if he pushed his lungs hard, focused.
Twenty-two years since he’d last stepped foot on this drive.
The shadows danced, then merged, becoming fever-hazed memories.
His skin once more burned with illness. His mother’s wails in his ears.
Until they were no more. Silence for so long, then muffled footsteps.
My God, the boy yet lives . Him. They’d meant him.
He still lived. But that meant others had not.
He almost turned Troy around.
Troy snorted, feeling Felix’s nerves.
Nerves? Me? Never. Yes, the memories were heavier here. But he simply would not let them bother him. He possessed full mastery over his every emotion.