Chapter 24
“Is this what you wanted?”
Stephen was standing in front of his father's portrait, as he often did. But this time, he could not help but argue with it.
“Is this the victory? A house full of rules and one man to keep them?”
The old face did not move. How could it? That, somehow, made the fury worse.
“She left. And I could not stop her.”
He imagined the voice he had known all his life: If you could not stop her, you did not try hard enough. If you could not convince her, you were weak.
“I tried,” he said, and then corrected himself with a bitter little laugh. “No. I told the truth. About the vow. I told her in time to harm her most.”
He pushed away from the mantel and paced once, twice, and stopped in front of the canvas again and lifted his chin like a man called to answer for himself.
“She said we could be a ‘sweet family,’” he said quietly. “She said it as if the words were a warm room we could step into together. And I put my foot in the doorway and told her no. In your name.”
The fire flared and settled. The old man’s cheek caught the light and then lost it. Stephen felt, absurdly, that even the flames colluded.
“You still haunt this room,” he said. “You still sit between me and anything that might soften me. Even dead, you do not stop talking.”
He tried to look away and found he could not. His anger and his grief bent his neck back toward the frame.
“Say I break it,” he murmured. “Say I throw the vow into the fire. What then? I become what you wanted anyway, a man who takes what he wants and justifies it later? I turn my love into a weapon to win her back? I beg and promise and call it courage, and in ten years I look up and discover that I have stared my way into your features.”
He let the thought sit. It made his stomach go cold.
“I swore an end to you,” he said. “Not a mirror of you with kinder words.”
Memory rose: his sister’s small, brave smile. He had made the vow at a deathbed with a rage so clean it had felt like holiness. He had fed it for years.
“She asked me to be brave.”
The request burned. He could not tell whether it was because it was unfair or because it was true.
“I do not know how,” he admitted, finally. “I know how to refuse. I know how to endure. I do not know how to break my word and live with it.”
He dragged both hands through his hair.
“You would despise this, this counting of costs, this… conscience. You did not tabulate pain; you tabulated profit. I am not you. And yet here you are, telling me what a man ought to be.”
He stared until his eyes watered and the paint blurred. Then he blinked the tears back to where they belonged and spoke more evenly.
It was suited for a man of his standing to shed a tear, no matter how tumultuous his heart felt on the inside.
“She is my wife,” he said. “I love her. I will not deny it. But I cannot give me what she wishes, either.”
He breathed.
“I will not chase her to her estate at midnight, and I will not drag her back so that, in a week, the same fear sits down again between us.”
He faced the portrait squarely.
“You win tonight,” he said, bitterly. “Or the vow does.”
He glanced at the desk.
“I do not know who I am without the vow,” he said, “You cannot make me cruel. Only I can do that.”
The portrait regarded him with all its perfect indifference. He let it.
He turned away and took the chair he had avoided, the one that faced the empty space where she had stood. He drew paper toward him and began.
Maria,
I have done the cowardly thing and told the truth too late.
I will not insult you by asking for your patience for what I cannot promise to change.
I love you. If there is a future where I am not ruled by a dead man, it will be because I learned it, not because I panicked.
If you wish to speak to me, a word will bring me.
If you do not, I will honor that more than I have honored anything.
He signed his name. The letters were even. He sanded the ink, folded the sheet, and sealed it. He rang for a footman.
“Your Grace.”
“Take this to…” he began, and faltered. Suddenly, he did not feel as impassioned as he did a few moments ago.
The footman extended his gloved hand. “Your Grace.”
Stephen’s fingers tightened.
He could send it. It would be a decent act. It would not be a change.
The footman waited patiently.
“You will… not deliver it,” he said, finally handing over the letter.
“Your Grace?”
“You will burn it,” Stephen said, “At once.”
The footman looked surprised for the span of one blink.
“At once, Your Grace.” He reached for the letter.
Perhaps this was what was for the best.
Maria barely got a wink of sleep the night before. Violet found Maria already in the small morning room, sitting very straight in a chair by the window with a cup she had not touched.
Violet paused at the threshold.
“You have been up long?”
“A little,” Maria said, “I could not sleep.”
Violet crossed to her. “I hoped you might. Come, at least try the tea while it’s hot.” She poured and set the cup in Maria’s hands, then took the seat opposite. “I have waited all night not to ask, and now it is mornin’. I am going to fail at not asking.”
You have always been terrible at not asking.”
“True. But I try to be excellent at timing.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Maria… what happened?”
Maria lifted the cup, then set it down without drinking.
“It was late. I should not have arrived like that.”
“Arriving was not a crime,” Violet said gently.
“It was a poor choice,” Maria murmured. “My apologies, again.”
Violet waited a beat. “What did Stephen say?”
“That is precisely the difficulty,” Maria said. “What he said. And what I said. And… what we did not say until it was too late.”
“That sounds like a great many words that are not the ones I need.”
“Do you need them?”
“I need them because I am worried,” Violet replied simply. “Nicholas is worried, too. He asked me if you were ill. I told him you were tired. He asked me again.”
“Tell him I am tired,” Maria said, looking away.
“He will not be satisfied,” Violet said. “Nor am I.”
“Please do not make me say it yet.”
“All right.” She sat back. “Then tell me what you can say.”
“I left because staying felt… impossible,” Maria’s shoulders moved once.
What else could she say, even?
“And returning here felt possible?” Violet nodded slowly.
“For last night,” Maria said. “
“Then we succeeded,” Violet’s eyes warmed.
“Yes,” Maria whispered.
“Did you quarrel?”
Maria considered that. “We told the truth. Well, he did anyway.”
“A truth about what?”
Maria’s mouth pressed into a line. “Violet.”
“Very well,” Violet said, accepting the boundary, “When you are ready.”
Maria reached for the cup again as if to occupy her hands. She took a small sip, then set it down.
“How early does Nicholas rise?”
“He is awake,” Violet said. “He is pretending to read dispatches so that he does not come in here and blunder.”
“Do not let him blunder,” Maria said, and the corner of her mouth attempted humor. “He is very poor at it.”
“I shall try.”
There was a knock; both women looked up. Nicholas appeared in the doorway.
“Good morning,” he said carefully.
“Good morning,” Maria returned, just as careful.
“You slept,” he said.
“A little,” Maria said.
“Good,” he said, “Will you tell me why you came? You need not, but…”
“She need not,” Violet cut in.
Nicholas looked at his wife.
“I am aware.” He looked back at Maria. “You left your husband’s house at midnight.”
“I did.”
“I am not asking to scold,” Nicholas said. “Only to know how to help.”
“You help by letting me sit here and drink tea and not decide anything for a few hours.”
Nicholas nodded.
“I can do that.”
He did not move. Violet shot him a look. He accepted it and sat, perched like a large, well-meaning bird on the edge of the opposite chair.
“I will be in the library,” he said, rising again almost immediately. “Summon me if you need me. Or, if you prefer I stay, I will stay.” He looked helplessly between them. “I don’t know which is correct.”
“Library,” Maria echoed.
Nicholas inclined his head and retreated, closing the door without a sound.
Violet turned back. “Pay him no mind.”
Maria drew a breath. “I do not wish to make him choose sides he does not understand.”
“There are no sides,” Violet said. “Only a sister who is hurt and a brother who would like to fix that pain.”
Maria’s eyes shone, but she blinked them clear. “When I am ready, I will tell him.”
“Tell me first,” Violet said softly.
“Both of you shall have to wait,” she sighed again.
“Fine then,” Violet replied. “But this evening, we shall go out for a walk. I expect you to be ready for it.”
Peter found Nicholas in the study three mornings later, still wearing yesterday’s coat, the curtains drawn against a gray London noon.
Stephen was sitting at the desk, though it no longer looked as if he’d done anything there for hours. The untouched breakfast tray had gone cold; a half-empty decanter stood guard beside a ledger he hadn’t opened.
“You look abysmal,” Peter said, setting down the paper he’d brought. “I mean that in friendship, not criticism.”
“I’ve slept,” Stephen blinked up, eyes bleary.
“Liar.” Peter moved closer. “You look as though you’ve been drafted into the wars. Have you eaten?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That explains the charming hollow under your cheekbone.” Peter lowered himself into the opposite chair. Stephen almost rolled his eyes at how dramatic that was. “You haven’t left this room since Tuesday, have you?”
“I went riding yesterday,” Stephen said, rubbing a hand over his jaw.
“Did you, though?”
Stephen’s silence answered for him. It was a lie, of course. He had not mustered the energy to do much at all since Maria had left.
Peter sighed.
“She hasn’t written?”
“No.” Stephen leaned back. “And I hope she doesn’t. I’ve caused enough damage.”
“You could go to her,” Peter watched him for a moment.
Stephen’s mouth twitched.
“And say what? That I regret telling her the truth? That I’d rather she live chained to my grief than free of me?”