“No man can do everything,” Graham explained. “Each of us can do only what is within his power. If we dwell upon our inability to solve the world’s problems, our only possible recourse is to despair. Despair accomplishes nothing.”
A spirited debate followed, in which Ralph did not participate, though he listened and watched with interest—and with something he recognized as resentment. For these men all liked one another. Graham Muirhead fit right in as though he were one of them.
What was Ralph’s problem, then? Did he want to keep his friends to himself, unwilling to share? The possibility that that might be the case was embarrassing, to say the least. And childish.
“Ralph.” George’s eyes were resting upon him, and the others turned to look at him too, even Vincent. “We are keeping you up. And you need rest. One has only to look at your face to see that. You were very deeply attached to your grandfather. Tomorrow will be difficult for you.”
“I actually find it rather soothing,” Ralph said, “just to sit here and listen to you all talk. Thank you for coming. I really did not expect it. You too, Graham. It means a great deal to Chloe to have her family here with her.”
Hugo got to his feet, rubbing his hands together.
“Well, I am for my bed,” he said, a signal to them all, including Vince’s dog.
It was well past midnight when Ralph let himself into his wife’s room without tapping on the door, as he usually did. He expected that she would be asleep. He had even considered staying in his own bed tonight, but he found the prospect cheerless. He would not wake her, though, he had decided. Tomorrow was going to be busy for her too.
There was a small coal fire burning in the fireplace. That was unusual. But then he saw she was seated in an armchair beside it, her arms wrapped about her legs, her bare heels resting on the edge of the seat. Her nightgown covered her to the ankles and to the wrists. Her nightcap allowed a mere glimpse of her hair. Even so, she looked more inviting than any courtesan he had ever encountered—a rather absurd thought, surely. Firelight flickered warmly off her person and off one side of her face when she turned it toward him.
He set his back against the door and crossed his arms over his chest. He had a strange, and strangely disturbing, sense of homecoming.
* * *
Chloe turned to look at him. She had not been sure he would come. She ought not to have waited up. But she had been unable to go to bed. If she had, she would not have slept.
“I thought you would be sleeping,” he said.
“No.”
“I am sorry,” he said, “that my mother and Nora and Amelia are still virtually ignoring you. They will come around if you are willing to give them time. It is just that my sudden marriage took them completely by surprise and they are quite unjustly punishing you. I should perhaps have told my mother about you before I left London.”
She had not expected his mother and sisters to welcome her with open arms. At least they had not been openly unkind. But she did not want to think about them tonight.
“At least Lucy has been unusually quiet,” she said. “She is awestruck, and long may she remain so. She is speechless with admiration of your great-aunt. Have you noticed how she seats herself as close to her as possible and takes note of her every word and gesture? I suspect she will be begging Mr. Nelson to buy her a lorgnette when they return to London.”
“She is fond of you,” he said. “So are your father and your brother.”
“Yes.”
She did not want to think of Papa either tonight.
“Come to bed?” he suggested, but she did not move.
“Tell me about the survivors,” she said. “It is a word Lady Trentham used this afternoon regarding your friends, and she sounded as though it ought perhaps to be written with a capital S. They were all with you in Cornwall? They were all wounded? I did not realize, you know, when you introduced Viscount Darleigh to me that he was blind. As soon as I spoke to him, he looked so directly at me that I assumed he could see me. I wondered why he had brought the dog, but then I suddenly understood when he did not take my outstretched hand. Were you all in Cornwall for three years? It is an awfully long time.”
She could almost sense him sighing inwardly as he uncrossed his arms and came closer. She ought not to have asked. They had agreed to show no real interest in each other’s lives, had they not? They had agreed to no emotional involvement. But surely they needed to know some things about each other?
He sat down on the low ottoman beside her chair.
“Penderris Hall in Cornwall is George’s home—the Duke of Stanbrook’s,” he told her. “He set it up as a hospital for wounded officers toward the end of the wars. He persuaded an excellent doctor of his acquaintance to work there and hired extra staff. A number of wounded men were there for a while and then left. A few died, one at Penderris and two after they had returned home. But there were six of us who stayed for all of three years. I suppose we were the ones whose wounds were not just physical, or in some cases not physical at all. We stayed to heal and then to convalesce, to put ourselves as well as our bodies back together. The doctor was very skilled at that former aspect of his work. He believed that war often wounds the soul as deeply as it does the body, sometimes more so. And we formed a deep bond, the six of us, seven counting George. He had not been to war himself, but his only son died in the Peninsula, and a few months later his wife threw herself to her death over the cliffs that border their estate.”