THREE #2
Perhaps . . . perhaps those months had simply been magical, in the way of conjuring or witch’s spells.
Perhaps Alistair had merely romanticized Chris and their time together.
Had the Christiana Rutherford he knew ever truly existed?
Or had she merely been a construct of his eager heart—the beautiful girl wrapped up inextricably with archeology and the glory of summer in the hills above Florence?
He took the saucer and teacup from her with a murmured thanks. “Tell me of yourself then, Mrs. Newton. Of your years since our last meeting in Fiesole.”
Painfully formal, those words.
She stirred sugar and cream into her own tea.
“There is not much to say.” She placed a roast beef sandwich and triangle of shortbread on her plate. “As you know, I left Italy immediately after . . .”
She rolled her hand, as if that simple motion could somehow encapsulate the detonation of their relationship. Was it his imagination, or did her hand tremble slightly as she lifted her cup and saucer?
Perhaps she wasn’t as unmoved at seeing him again as she appeared.
The thought cheered him. Misery always loved company, as his gran would say.
“And Dr. Stephen Newton? How did your marriage come about?”
“Yes, well . . .” Chris cleared her throat and sipped her tea, as if choosing her next words carefully.
“I was rather . . . bereft, as you might imagine, upon leaving Italy. Once back in Oxford, I found myself often at loose ends. Stephen was caring and attentive to my needs, given that my father was still out of the country. As an old friend of the family, Stephen wished to ensure my well-being.”
Of course he did. Old being the most significant word of her description.
Alistair, thankfully, managed not to say as much.
“Our friendship grew,” she continued, “and we married. Stephen welcomed my insights and ‘youthful energy,’ as he called it, toward his archaeological work. And we were happy, after a fashion, for several years.”
After a fashion. That phrase again.
“And then my father fell ill and passed away.”
“I was sorry to hear of it.”
“His loss was difficult.” She looked to the window, eyes a wee bit too bright. Rallying, she took in a long breath. “Stephen followed the year after.”
“And that was two years past, was it not?”
“Yes.”
“And since then?”
She shrugged and shot him a wan smile. The sort that did not touch her eyes. “Since then, I have been doing what women do, my lord . . . getting on with life.”
Getting on with life? What did she mean by that?
She reached for another sandwich.
Finally, Alistair slotted together the puzzle pieces—the things she was not saying.
It started with the fragile thinness of her arm stretched over the tea tray, her wrist bone protruding alarmingly as if begging to be fed.
His eyes moved upward to the sleeve of her gown, the edge frayed and worn.
The fabric had been turned, he realized—a painstaking process that required unstitching a dress entirely, turning the sun-faded fabric over, and restitching the whole.
An economy when coin to purchase new fabric was scarce.
A faint frown creased his brow.
Abruptly, he feared he understood only too well what “getting on with life” meant. His chest ached as if the thought of Chris existing hungry and cold and ill-clothed violated the very laws of his heart.
Alistair cleared his throat. “I assume your husband . . .”—Blast it all. How to ask this politely?—“or your father left some sort of . . . of annuity . . .” He allowed the words to drift off.
The teacup rattled atop the saucer in her hand, but she said nothing for a long moment.
“As well you know, any possession of mine became my husband’s upon our marriage.”
She said nothing more.
It wasn’t truly an answer, but Alistair read between the lines. Neither husband nor father had provided for her.
“And now?” he asked.
“Well . . . my mother’s sister—”
“Your Aunt Eunice?”
“Yes,” she replied too brightly, eyes finally lifting to his. “Aunt Eunice has been kind enough to offer me a place to stay.” She pronounced Eunice’s name in the Italian fashion—ay-oo-NEE-chay. “When I am not engaged in archaeological activities, of course.”
From Alistair’s memory, Aunt Eunice was a terrible skinflint. Showing such benevolence to her niece seemed . . . uncharacteristic.
And so he said as much. “Such generosity seems . . . unusual for your aunt.”
Chris blinked in surprise, perhaps at his bluntness . . . or perhaps his unflagging recollection of her family dynamics.
“Yes, well, Aunt Eunice is nothing if not eccentric.”
Memory washed over Alistair, unbidden and unwelcome—Chris laughing at her aunt’s idiosyncrasies as they strolled the Roman excavation site, fingers clutching his arm. He could still recall the very words Chris had spoken, the playful cadence of her voice.
“Aunt Eunice insists on us all pronouncing her name as if she is an Italian lady—ay-oo-NEE-chay. Mind you, she was born and raised in Sussex and has never dipped a toe in the Mediterranean Sea. Aunt guards every penny of her fortune, as she wishes to pass it all intact to my cousin, Freddie the Feckless. Therefore, she will not hear of a single cent being spent unnecessarily. I haven’t the heart to tell her that Freddie will likely lose the whole at the gambling table or the racetrack or both and will not give a fig (what with his feckless heart and all) that Aunt Eunice so scrupulously protected her fortune for him.
I would put the coin to much wiser use. But as with most situations in life, Aunt Eunice feels that fortunes are better entrusted to the male line. ”
Now Alistair studied Chris, trying to discern the reality behind her emotionless words.
He gave up and asked directly. “Knowing Aunt Eunice’s spendthrift ways, I must admit I am surprised.”
Chris pursed her lips. “Well, I did not say she provided anything other than a place to lay my head, now did I?”
Her wit sparked with the woman he had known.
Unbidden, a smile touched his face. “And what, precisely, does that mean?”
“Merely that Aunt Eunice will permit me to grace one of the five empty bedrooms of her manor house, provided I pay for my own coal and meals.”
“Ah. Freddie the Feckless will be safeguarded to the very end, I see.”
“Aunt Eunice might have many foibles, but inconsistency is not one of them.”
He smiled again, faint but there.
They sipped their tea in silence.
The bird-thin wisp of her wrist would not let him be. It flashed every time she lifted her teacup or reached for another roast beef sandwich. How many had she eaten now?
Did she not have the funds to feed herself properly? Was she often hungry?
Alistair had begun this conversation fully intending to dismiss her. To discuss the impossibility of them working together in any capacity, for both their sakes. To usher her out his front door and relegate Chris firmly to his past.
But now . . .
What would she do if Alistair sent her packing?
Return to Aunt Eunice’s bleak bedchamber and even bleaker charity? Spend her days hungry and shivering?
To say nothing of what might befall her once Aunt Eunice drew her last breath.
Despite everything that had occurred between himself and Chris, how could Alistair leave her to such a fate?