Chapter 17
“I was beginning to think Your Grace had dismissed breakfast entirely.”
Eric looked up from his untouched plate.
Adelaide stood in the doorway with the morning sunlight spilling around her, one hand still resting against the frame as though she had only just arrived.
She had changed into a pale blue morning gown, her hair loosely gathered at the nape of her neck, and she regarded him with the sort of cautious curiosity usually reserved for nervous horses.
He had awakened before dawn. Ordinarily, even that would have guaranteed solitude. Apparently not today.
“I was hoping to enjoy it quietly,” he admitted.
She crossed the room anyway. “I noticed.” The chair opposite him scraped softly across the floor as she sat. “I’ve been told I possess an unfortunate tendency to interrupt quiet.”
“So I’ve discovered.”
A footman stepped forward to pour her tea before retreating once more. For several moments neither of them spoke. Eric occupied himself with cutting into toast he had no intention of eating.
Sleep had eluded him again. Each time exhaustion finally threatened to claim him, he had found himself standing once more on the cliff above the river.
Only this time it had not been Violet standing at the edge.
It had been Adelaide. He had seen the same impossible distance between them.
The same stretch of empty air. The same certainty that he was too late.
By the time he forced himself awake, his heart had been pounding exactly as it had the afternoon before.
He had spent the last five years carefully arranging his life so nothing and no one could ever again matter enough to destroy him.
Then Adelaide had arrived. Elise had smiled.
The house had filled with voices. And he had begun, against every sensible instinct, to imagine that perhaps loneliness was not quite so necessary after all.
The cliff had reminded him precisely why it was.
“You appear determined to convince that toast it has offended you,” Adelaide observed.
Eric blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“You’ve been glaring at it for the better part of a minute.”
He looked down. “I imagine it has learned its lesson.”
“I should hope so.” A faint smile tugged at her lips. “It was only bread, after all.”
He almost smiled in return, but instead he quietly reached for his tea. “You seem disappointed.”
“I am merely conducting research.”
“On bread?”
“On husbands.”
He looked at her over the rim of his cup. “And what conclusions have you reached?”
She rested her chin lightly upon one hand. “They’re curious creatures.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“They become particularly strange after frightening their wives half to death beside scenic overlooks.”
The words were lightly spoken, but Eric felt his grip tighten almost imperceptibly around the porcelain. “I’m sorry.”
She tilted her head. “You’ve already apologized.”
“Not sufficiently.”
“You still haven’t explained what happened.”
His eyes dropped to the table.
“I don’t believe,” she continued gently, “that I have ever seen anyone look so…” She searched for the word. “…terrified.”
She had seen it.
He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, Adelaide was watching him with unmistakable concern. “I’m afraid,” he said quietly, pushing back his chair, “I’ve developed something of a headache.”
She frowned. “You don’t look well.”
“I don’t feel particularly well.” That, at least, was true. He rose before she could ask another question. “I believe I’ll spend the morning in my study.”
She stood as well. “You needn’t hide from me, Eric.”
The words stopped him, but he did not turn around. “I know.” His voice came more quietly than intended. “I simply…”
The sentence refused to finish. He inclined his head instead. “I hope you’ll excuse me.”
Without waiting for her answer, he left the breakfast room. He walked steadily through the corridors until he reached the portrait hall in the west wing, closing the heavy corridor oak door behind him with deliberate care.
Only then did he allow himself to walk to the very last portrait, covered by a heavy sheet, wrap his hands around it, and tug.
As the sheet fell and pooled around his feet, his eyes drifted, almost against his own will, toward the portrait that hung there.
Violet smiled back at him, and his mother and father did as well.
Untouched by time.
***
It had been more than a day since breakfast.
He had avoided luncheon, dinner, and breakfast again, sending excuses through servants until even the excuses had begun sounding absurd. He had remained in his rooms, then retreated to the library when his bedchamber grew unbearable, carrying the same thoughts from one locked door to another.
“You intend to remain in here until the household forgets you exist?”
Eric looked up sharply.
Adelaide stood inside the private library with one hand still wrapped around the brass door handle.
She had entered without waiting for permission, exactly as she had the first day they met, though this time there was no impatience in her face.
There was anger, certainly, but something more troubled beneath it.
He set his glass down on the table beside him. “I don’t recall inviting you in.”
“You did not.”
“Then perhaps—”
“No.” The refusal came so promptly that it silenced him.
She closed the door behind her and crossed the room, her gaze briefly sweeping over the decanter, the half-empty glass, and the books he had not opened during the long hours he had spent among them.
Adelaide stopped before him. “You frightened me beside that cliff, disappeared before I could understand why, and have since made a remarkable effort to avoid every room I enter.”
“I have not avoided every room.”
“You left the drawing room when Mrs. Graves informed you I was coming downstairs.”
He looked away. “That may have been coincidence.”
“It was not.” She sat on the edge of the chair opposite him. “I have been patient.”
“I noticed.”
“No, you have mistaken patience for permission.”
His gaze returned to hers as she leaned forward slightly. “I will not force you to tell me every private grief you possess. But I will not allow you to punish yourself in solitude while pretending it has nothing to do with me.”
“I am not punishing myself.”
Adelaide looked pointedly toward the whisky, and Eric sighed. “You are relentless.”
“Yes.” Something in her answer nearly drew a smile from him, but the expression failed before it fully formed.
Adelaide noticed and her voice softened. “Please?”
That single word did what anger could not. Eric looked toward the windows. Rain had begun tapping faintly against the panes, leaving thin silver trails across the glass. “My sister died at that cliff.”
Adelaide did not move.
The silence allowed him to continue.
“Violet was seventeen.” The name felt strange aloud. He had spoken it before but never like this. Never with the intention of telling someone the whole truth. “She was expected to marry a man my father had chosen. She despised him.”
Adelaide’s expression tightened, though she did not interrupt.
“The night before she died, I heard them arguing.” Eric lowered his gaze to his hands. “She told him she would not marry. He told her she had no choice.”
The rain strengthened against the windows. “I was outside the study door. I heard every word.”
“You were young,” Adelaide said quietly.
“I was his heir.”
“That is not the same as having power over him.”
“It was with my father.” He rose abruptly and crossed toward the fireplace, unable to remain seated beneath the steadiness of her attention.
“He listened to me. Not always kindly, but he listened. I could have gone inside. I could have challenged him. I could have asked him to reconsider or spoken to Violet afterward.”
His throat tightened. “I did none of it.”
Adelaide came to stand near him. “What happened the next morning?”
“She left the house before anyone woke.”
The memory returned with merciless clarity. The open door. The overturned chair in Violet’s room. His father shouting for servants while Eric already knew where she had gone, though he could never explain how he knew.
“They suspected she fell off the cliff.”
Adelaide drew in a quiet breath, and Eric fixed his gaze upon the fire.
“For years I have wondered whether one word might have changed it. If I had gone into that study, perhaps my father would have listened. If I had spoken to her, perhaps she would have waited until morning. I had every opportunity to interfere, and I chose comfort.”
“You chose silence.”
“Yes.”
“You could not have known what she meant to do.”
“I should have.”
Adelaide’s hand closed gently around his. The contact startled him enough that he looked down. She did not release him. “You were her brother, Eric. Not her jailer, not her father, and not the man who arranged her marriage.”
“I might have stopped it.”
“You might have tried.” The honesty of the answer struck harder than reassurance would have.
She drew him back toward the loveseat, and he followed with less resistance than he expected.
They sat close enough that the skirts of her gown brushed his knee.
Her hands remained clasped around one of his, warm and steady.
“You cannot spend the rest of your life punishing yourself for failing to foresee another person’s despair,” she said.
His voice came rougher than intended. “I left her alone.”
“And now you leave everyone before they have the chance to leave you.”
Eric went still. Adelaide’s face softened immediately, though she did not take the words back.
For several moments neither spoke. He saw compassion in her expression, but no pity. There was no horror, no careful distance, and no polite attempt to make the tragedy smaller than it was.
She simply stayed.
He had spent weeks resisting the tenderness he felt toward her, treating every laugh and quiet look as a danger to be managed. Now, with her hands wrapped around his and her eyes bright with sorrow for a girl she had never known, restraint felt less like wisdom and more like cowardice.
Adelaide squeezed his fingers. “I know what you require.”
He managed a faint, exhausted smile. “Another lecture?”
“A ride.”
He blinked. “A ride?”
“You have spent two days shut inside dark rooms. I intend to place you beneath an open sky.”
“It is raining.”
“It will stop.”
“And if it does not?”
“Then we shall be wet.”
The absurdity of it finally pulled a laugh from him, and Adelaide smiled. “There. Already improving.”
The rain did stop, though only after leaving the countryside washed clean and shining beneath the afternoon sun. They rode without destination, following narrow lanes beyond the estate until Wolverton disappeared behind the trees.
At first, Eric spoke little. Adelaide seemed content to allow silence where it was needed, filling the rest with accounts of Elise’s disastrous arithmetic lesson and Theodore’s insistence that Italy had improved his character.
By the time they reached the lower woods, the pressure behind Eric’s ribs had eased. He found himself laughing again, and the sound no longer felt borrowed.
Near the edge of a beech grove, they encountered Mr. Higgins crouched beside a fallen log with a basket at his feet.
Adelaide reined in her mare. “Should we be concerned?”
Mr. Higgins looked up. “Only if you dislike mushrooms.”
“I distrust any food that must be hunted from damp soil.”
“A regrettable prejudice.”
Eric dismounted. “What are you searching for?”
“Chanterelles.”
Adelaide peered into the basket. “They resemble shriveled ears.”
Mr. Higgins straightened with offended dignity. “You have wounded them.”
“I shall apologize before supper.”
Eric watched as she questioned the old man about every variety in the basket, listening with genuine interest despite her teasing. Mr. Higgins, who ordinarily distrusted prolonged attention, soon found himself explaining soil conditions and tree roots with increasing enthusiasm.
“You encourage him,” Eric said.
Adelaide looked over. “He is charming.”
Mr. Higgins turned noticeably red.
Eric stared. “I have never seen that happen.”
“Neither have I,” Mr. Higgins muttered.
Adelaide’s delighted laughter followed them back onto the lane after they left him to his mushrooms.
Eric rode beside her for several quiet minutes before speaking. “There is a village celebration in two days.”
“What are they celebrating?”
“I believe harvest, music, ale, and any other excuse they can collectively invent.”
“That sounds promising.”
“I wondered whether you might attend with me.”
She glanced over. “As your duchess?”
“As my wife.”
Something warm passed through her expression. “I should be delighted.”
Eric hesitated before adding, “I think the village ought to see what an extraordinary prize I have somehow acquired.”
Adelaide nearly dropped her reins. “That may be the finest thing you have ever said.”
“I regret it already.”
“You should not.”
They reached the stable yard near sunset.
Eric swung down first, but his boot slipped against the damp stirrup. Before he recovered, Adelaide had dismounted beside him and caught him. Her hand slipping expertly around his waist steadying him.
He leaned almost helplessly against her shoulders for one startled moment until he realized just how close they stood together. The heat of her hand burning a hole through the back of his riding coat and tunic.
Adelaide looked up, a mischievous smile slowly appearing. “I see the great horseman requires instruction.”
Eric stared at her. Her cheeks were flushed from the ride, her hair loosened by the wind, and her hands still rested around him as though holding him there was the most natural thing in the world.
The sight was so unbearably endearing that his answer deserted him entirely.
Adelaide’s smile widened. “Good heavens,” she murmured. “I have finally rendered you speechless.”