Chapter 33
“Buttercup refuses to walk properly without Emily.”
Lady Merrow stood in the entrance hall of Sulton House, the massive dog planted firmly at her feet like a furry mountain of stubborn disapproval. Louise gripped the doorframe, unprepared for the sight of them both on her threshold at ten in the morning, three days after leaving Calborough House.
“Lady Merrow.” Louise dropped into an automatic curtsy while her heart performed acrobatics against her ribs. “This is unexpected.”
“Is it?” The older woman swept past her into the narrow hallway, Buttercup following reluctantly.
His great head swung from side to side, nose working furiously as he catalogued these new, unfamiliar scents.
“I distinctly recall promising Emily daily visits. Promises to children should never be broken.”
The dog’s tail, usually a weapon of mass destruction, hung limp as he investigated the faded wallpaper and worn floorboards. Everything here smelled wrong to him. No beeswax polish, no fresh flowers, no lingering scent of Aaron’s cologne in the air.
“Buttercup!” Emily’s voice exploded from the top of the stairs. She flew down with reckless abandon, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste.
The transformation of the dog was instantaneous. His tail became a blur of motion, and his whole body wiggled as Emily threw her arms around his neck. They collapsed together onto the threadbare rug. Emily laughed through tears while Buttercup attempted to lick every inch of her face.
“You came! You really came!” Emily buried her face in his fur. “I thought you’d forget me.”
The joy on her sister’s face made Louise’s chest constrict painfully. For this moment, Emily looked like the child she had been at Calborough House. Carefree. Beloved. Happy.
Then reality crept back in. Emily pulled away slightly, her small fingers tangling in Buttercup’s fur with desperate possession.
“You can’t stay, can you?” The words emerged so quietly that Louise almost missed them. “You have to go back home.”
Buttercup whined and pressed his massive head against Emily’s chest, as if he could push himself inside her and never leave.
“We’ll visit every morning as promised.” Lady Merrow’s voice carried forced cheer that fooled no one. “Though this house is rather more difficult to find than expected. Poor Buttercup was quite confused by all the turns.”
Emily nodded without looking up from the dog. Her fingers found his ear, stroking the soft fur in a repetitive motion that had become her new method of self-soothing.
“Would you like to show them the morning room?” Louise injected false brightness into her voice. “I believe Mrs. Fielding has managed some tea.”
The morning room looked even shabbier with Lady Merrow’s elegant presence highlighting every water stain and patched cushion. George sat hunched over his ledgers, still wearing yesterday’s shirt, ink stains on his fingers suggesting he’d worked through the night.
He lurched to his feet when Lady Merrow entered, swaying slightly from exhaustion.
“Lady Merrow. Forgive me, I wasn’t expecting callers.”
“Sit down before you collapse.” Lady Merrow commanded with the authority of someone used to being obeyed. “When did you last sleep?”
George blinked owlishly. “Tuesday, I believe?”
“Today is Thursday.”
“Ah. That would explain the hallucinations.”
Lady Merrow turned her sharp gaze on Louise. It lingered in the shadows under her eyes, the way her dress hung looser than it should, the tremor in her hands as she poured tea.
“Emily, darling,” Lady Merrow said without breaking eye contact with Louise, “why don’t you show Buttercup your room? I’m certain he’d love to see your treasure collection.”
Emily hesitated, clearly recognizing the dismissal but reluctant to leave. Finally, she stood, one hand twisted in Buttercup’s collar.
“Come on, Buttercup. My room’s not as nice as the one at your house, but I still have my special things.”
They trudged upstairs, Buttercup’s claws clicking on bare wood where the carpet had worn through. The sound echoed in the silence they left behind.
Lady Merrow waited precisely three seconds after the door closed above before speaking.
“This is absolute madness.”
George raised his head from his ledgers. “Lady Merrow, I assure you I’m working to resolve—”
“Oh, do be quiet.” She waved dismissively at him. “Your financial disasters are the least of my concerns. Louise, you look like death warmed over.”
Louise set down her teacup before her shaking hands could betray her further. “We’re adjusting. It takes time.”
“Adjusting.” Lady Merrow tested the word like spoiled milk. “Is that what we’re calling it when two people in love torture themselves with separation?”
The words hit Louise like a physical blow. She pressed her palms flat against the table, focusing on the wood grain to avoid meeting those too-knowing eyes.
“Your nephew made his feelings perfectly clear. We were a temporary inconvenience he’s well rid of.”
“My nephew is an emotionally constipated fool who wouldn’t recognize happiness if it bit him on his well-formed posterior.”
George choked on his tea.
“He sits in that study from dawn to midnight, staring at nothing. He doesn’t eat.
He doesn’t sleep. Buttercup howls at his door like the world is ending, and perhaps for him it is.
” Lady Merrow leaned forward, her voice gentling.
“He loves you desperately, my dear. He’s simply too terrified to admit it. ”
Louise stood abruptly, the chair scraping against worn floorboards. “Then his terror and my heartbreak are well matched.”
She fled to the window, staring out at the narrow street where gray slush accumulated in corners the sun never reached. So different from the pristine gardens of Calborough House, where she’d walked with Aaron, where he’d kissed her, where everything had seemed possible.
“Emily cries herself to sleep.” The admission scraped her throat raw. “She muffles it in her pillow, but I hear every sob. She asks why we had to leave, why we couldn’t stay where we were happy.”
Lady Merrow rose, moving to stand beside her at the grimy window. “What do you tell her?”
“Lies. That this is our home, that we’ll be happy here again, that everything will be fine.” Louise’s fingers clenched on the windowsill. “She nods and pretends to believe me, but we both know I’m lying.”
Overhead, Emily’s voice drifted through thin walls, telling Buttercup about each treasure, explaining where she found them, why they mattered. The dog’s occasional whine suggested he understood more than he should.
“Three days.” Louise’s voice broke on the words. “Three days and it feels like three years. How am I supposed to survive this?”
Lady Merrow’s hand settled on her shoulder, warm and maternal. “You survive it by not accepting it. By fighting for what you want instead of accepting what you’re given.”
“Fighting Aaron is like fighting stone. He’s made his choice.”
“Has he? Or has fear made it for him?” Lady Merrow squeezed gently.
“My nephew spent his childhood watching his father destroy every woman who loved him. He’s terrified of that capacity living in his blood.
But you’ve seen the truth, haven’t you? You’ve seen the gentleness he hides, the tenderness he’s capable of when he forgets to be afraid. ”
Louise closed her eyes, remembering Aaron’s hands in her hair, the reverence in his touch, the way he’d given her pleasure while denying himself. The opposite of his father in every way that mattered.
“Seeing the truth doesn’t change the reality. He chose to let us go.”
“And you chose to leave.” Lady Merrow’s voice held no judgment, only observation. “Two terrified people making fear-based choices. How wonderfully stupid.”
Emily appeared in the doorway, Buttercup pressed against her side. “Lady Merrow? Buttercup seems sad. His tail won’t wag properly.”
Lady Merrow crossed to them, kneeling despite her expensive skirts to meet Emily at eye level. “He misses you terribly, darling. Dogs don’t understand human complications. They only understand love and loss.”
Emily’s lower lip trembled. “I miss him, too. I miss everything.”
The naked pain in her voice shattered Louise’s fragile control. She turned away before Emily could see her tears, gripping the windowsill until her knuckles went white.
“We’ll return tomorrow.” Lady Merrow rose, her voice carefully steady. “And every day after until things are as they should be.”
After they left, Emily stood at the window watching their carriage disappear into the London gloom. She didn’t speak, didn’t cry, just stood there like a small statue of grief.
Louise wrapped her arms around her sister from behind, resting her chin on copper curls that still smelled faintly of Buttercup.
“It hurts.” Emily’s whisper barely disturbed the air.
“I know, darling.”
“Will it always hurt this much?”
Louise couldn’t answer. The hollow ache in her chest suggested yes, it would always hurt exactly this much. Maybe more. Maybe until it killed them both, slowly, quietly, one disappeared day at a time.
But she held Emily tighter and lied one more time.
“No, sweetheart. It gets better.”
Emily nodded against her, pretending to believe it.
They stood there watching nothing, two hearts breaking in perfect synchronization, while somewhere across London, Aaron probably stood at his own window, completing their triangle of misery with geometric precision.
Tomorrow, Lady Merrow would return with Buttercup.
Tomorrow, they would survive another visit.
Tomorrow, the torture would continue.
Louise wasn’t certain which would be worse. When the visits stopped, or if they never did.