Chapter 26
“Tell me again exactly what happened.”
The morning room was too bright for the conversation Adelaide was trying to have.
Sunlight lay across the carpet in clean gold bars, Elise sat on the floor near the hearth arranging wooden animals into some private little kingdom, and somewhere beyond the open door, a housemaid passed with fresh linens as though Wolverton had not altered overnight.
Violet sat opposite Adelaide on the sofa with both hands wrapped around a cup of tea she had not touched.
“I told you everything.”
“No.” Adelaide lowered her voice when Elise glanced toward them. “You told me enough to make sleep impossible. That is not the same thing.”
Violet’s eyes were swollen from crying. She had pinned her hair back that morning, but without the cap Adelaide had grown accustomed to seeing, there was no avoiding the resemblance now.
Violet stared into her tea. “There isn’t anything else that matters.”
“Your brother may disagree.”
Violet flinched, and Adelaide regretted the phrasing immediately. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” Violet shook her head. “You are right.”
Elise held up a wooden horse. “Mama, this one is Eric.” Both women went still, but Elise seemed not to notice. “Because he’s the biggest.”
Adelaide looked at the ridiculous brown horse in the child’s hand. “An excellent likeness.”
“He needs a duchess.”
“I am not certain the carpenter anticipated that problem.”
Elise considered the remaining animals before choosing a small painted fox. “This one.”
Violet made a sound that might have become laughter under different circumstances. Elise took it as a victory. Elise placed the fox beside the horse and returned to arranging the rest of the household.
The silence resumed.
Violet finally set the cup down. “I don’t know how to tell him.”
“You don’t have to decide every word before he arrives.”
“I do.”
“No one has ever successfully planned a conversation with Eric to that degree.”
A faint, miserable smile touched Violet’s mouth. “He was more predictable when he was younger.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
“He was.”
“Then grief ruined his manners along with everything else.”
The humor disappeared as soon as the words left Adelaide’s mouth, and Violet’s face folded. “I ruined him.”
Adelaide leaned forward. “No.”
“I did,” she said urgently.
“You escaped something you believed you could not survive.”
“I lied.”
“You were frightened.”
“For years. ”
Adelaide had no easy answer for that.
Violet looked toward Elise as she spoke next.
“He buried me without a body. He blamed himself. I knew what he would do because Eric always believed everything was his responsibility. Even when we were children, if I fell from a horse, he thought he should have chosen a gentler one. If Papa shouted at me, Eric thought he should have stopped him. When I left…”
She stopped and pressed her lips together. “When I left, I knew what my death would do to him.”
“Then why didn’t you tell him later?”
The question was gentle, but Violet’s eyes filled again. “Because by then I had Elise.”
Adelaide glanced toward the child.
“And because Atlas knew too many people. I thought if anyone learned I was alive, eventually he would learn as well. At first I told myself I only needed a year. Then another. Then I heard Eric had withdrawn from society, and I was ashamed. The longer I waited, the more impossible it became to return.”
Adelaide reached for her hand. “You came back anyway.”
“Because of you.”
A knock sounded against the open door, which stunted the hurt that rushed through Adelaide’s body. Theodore stood there. He looked from her to Violet, then to their untouched tea, and his expression changed. “I appear to have chosen a poor time.”
“Yes,” Adelaide said.
“No,” Violet said at the same moment.
Theodore hesitated.
Adelaide sighed. “You may as well come in.”
He entered cautiously, as though the room contained something likely to explode. Which, Adelaide supposed, it did. “I came because there is apparently a very interesting version of yesterday circulating below stairs.”
Adelaide’s stomach dropped. “What version?”
“The one in which you threatened to throw the duke’s cousin from the cliffs.”
Violet closed her eyes, and Adelaide could not help the smile that cracked her prickly exterior. “I did not threaten to throw him from the cliffs… but I suppose I should have…”
Theodore sat in the chair nearest the sofa. “I assumed there had been embellishment.”
“I merely suggested he should leave before I forgot myself.”
“That is considerably less exciting.” His expression sobered. “I heard two footmen discussing it during my walk. One of them had heard from a maid who heard you shouting at Atlas in the servants’ passage.”
“I was not shouting.”
Violet gave her a look, and Adelaide amended, “Not initially anyway.”
Theodore’s attention shifted to Violet, and when he saw her eyes everything in him changed. “What has happened?”
Violet looked away, but Theodore leaned forward. “Violet?”
“Nothing.”
“That is plainly not true.”
“It is not yours to concern yourself with.”
His jaw tightened. “I think I am permitted some concern when you look as though you haven’t slept and half the household believes Atlas was cornering you somewhere he had no business being.”
Violet’s breathing changed, and she pulled her lower lip into her teeth for a moment but remained silent still.
“Violet?”
The first tear slipped free, and Theodore was out of his chair immediately. He crouched before her, one hand hovering near her shoulder as though uncertain whether she would accept it.
Violet folded.
The sound she made was quiet and broken, and Theodore barely managed to straighten before she leaned into him. He caught her awkwardly at first, then drew her closer. “There now.”
The words were useless. Still, he kept one arm around Violet’s shoulders while his other hand came up carefully to cradle the back of her head.
Violet cried against his chest, and Theodore looked at Adelaide over her hair. His expression was utterly helpless.
What happened?
Adelaide could see the question without hearing it. She shook her head once.
Not yet.
Violet tried to speak. “I would tell you.”
Theodore looked down at her. “You don’t have to.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t have to.”
“I want to.” Her fingers closed around the front of his coat. “But I can’t.”
Theodore stilled, and Violet pulled back enough to look at him. Her face was wet with tears. “My brother should know first.”
Theodore’s brows drew together with confusion, and Violet began crying again. “I ruined his soul with my lies.”
Theodore stared at her, then at Adelaide. He opened his mouth. Closed it. “I—I don’t understand.”
Violet laughed through her tears, but it lasted only a second. “I know.”
But Theodore smiled at the sound then he drew her back against him. “Whatever this is,” he murmured, “you are not facing it alone.”
Violet’s shoulders shook again.
Adelaide looked away.
The intimacy of it felt private.
Elise, mercifully oblivious, had moved on to explaining an elaborate disagreement between a wooden sheep and what appeared to be the kitchen cat. “Where is Eric?”
Adelaide turned to face her. “He is in London.”
“Why?”
“He had business to take care of.”
“Is it for the horses?” Elise asked quietly, as if the answer might have been a secret that not even her mother could hear.
“Perhaps,” Adelaide returned in a whisper, “but you can ask him when he returns.”
“When is he coming back?”
“Soon, I hope.”
Elise frowned. “He was gone yesterday… and last night.”
“Yes.”
“That is too long.”
Adelaide understood the sentiment perfectly, and Elise abandoned the animals and came closer. “I wanted to talk to him.”
“About what?”
“Something.”
“That sounds extremely important.”
“It is.”
“Then I am certain he will make time for it when he returns.”
Elise considered this. “I miss him.”
Adelaide’s heart tightened. “So do I.”
Violet made a broken little sound against Theodore’s shoulder.
Adelaide looked at her. “I think we should tell him together.”
Violet lifted her head. “You and me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You can.”
“What if he hates me for it?”
Adelaide hesitated. “He may be angry, but hatred is not the same thing.”
Violet’s face crumpled again. “You cannot know that.”
“No.” Adelaide moved closer. “But I know Eric, the man today.”
Violet gave a watery laugh.
“And you know he has spent five years loving you while believing you dead.”
Silence.
Theodore went very still, and his eyes snapped to Adelaide. She realized too late what she had said.
Violet stared at her, and Theodore whispered, “What?”
Adelaide closed her eyes.
Violet gave one long, shuddering breath, and then she looked at Theodore. “I think we should walk.”
He stared at her. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve just told me absolutely nothing and somehow managed to frighten me more than if you had told me everything.”
“I know.”
“That seems unfair.”
“It is,” she said but rose anyway and wiped her cheeks. “But I need air.”
He rose when she did, and looked at Adelaide as if asking for permission, and though she knew she did not have to give it, Adelaide nodded. “Take the south path.”
His brows rose. “Why?”
“Because Atlas favors the east lawn.”
That erased the last of his humor, and Theodore offered Violet his arm. Before leaving, Violet looked back. “When Eric comes…”
“I will wait for you.”
“No.”
Adelaide frowned.
Violet swallowed. “If he arrives before I return, tell him I need to speak with him. Don’t tell him why.”
Adelaide studied her. “Are you certain?”
“No.” That answer, at least, was honest. “But I should be the one to say it.”
Adelaide nodded. “Very well.”
Violet and Theodore left together, and Elise returned to the carpet. Adelaide sat slowly, and looked toward the windows wishing her husband was home.
***
The afternoon dragged with the peculiar slowness of a day spent waiting for something unnamed to happen. Adelaide tried to occupy herself with household accounts, then correspondence, then Elise, but every sound from the drive drew her attention toward the windows.