He was looking cold, remote, impatient to be gone, and her voice trailed away.
She wondered if she had dreamed up the man who had loved her with such hot intensity and such shocking intimacy last night. And the woman who had responded in kind. But of course she had not. It was only the word loved that was inaccurate.
Sex. It is just sex. . . .
Yes, it had been. Just sex.
He left the room without another word.
* * *
That ill-advised night of uninhibited sex was not repeated during the following week. Nor did Ralph take Chloe to his room again. He went to hers instead and resumed their marital relationship as it had been before.
That one night had been ill-advised for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that he had known even before it happened that he must break the unwelcome news to her that they would be going to London after all. He had been too cowardly to speak up during the evening. He had known she would be upset.
He had known years ago, when he finally abandoned his attempts at suicide, that this time would come. After the sudden death of his father, he had known too that it would come in the foreseeable future. And he had made the decision, reluctant though he had been, that he would do his duty when the time came—and even before the time came in the matter of taking a bride and setting up his nursery. It would perhaps be his penance, he had thought, to accept that for which his life had been saved. To do his best. To do his duty.
He had ignored one fact—or perhaps he could not have expected to know it until now. His acceptance had concerned himself. It had included a wife, but it had not taken into account the fact that his wife would be a person in her own right.
Doing his duty now meant hurting Chloe, breaking the promise he had undeniably made her. It meant forcing her into doing the very last thing on earth she wanted to do—if, that was, he chose to assert his rights as her husband. He had had to decide between duty and a promise and had chosen duty. Though he had also chosen not to enforce obedience.
Had he done just that once before?
Is this how you persuaded your friends to go to war with you?
He had decided that they would leave for London one week after the funeral—or that he would, anyway. There was much to do in the interim. He was a bit sorry he had not spent more time at Manville Court during the past few years, learning something of the formidable task of running the many ducal estates. He had known this day was coming, after all, and ought to have been better prepared for it.
He spent the week consulting with his steward at Manville, studying reports from the other properties, dealing with the considerable amount of correspondence Arthur Lloyd drew to his attention every day, tramping about the home farm talking with foremen and laborers, calling upon tenant farmers and listening to their concerns. On the few occasions when he had some free time, he sat in the book room with a book open before him—it could hardly be said that he read—or out riding aimlessly about the countryside or walking down by the lake or up over the falls.
During much of that solitary time he grieved. It was incredibly difficult to be here in all the familiar surroundings, to know that it was all his now, to accept that his grandfather was gone. And he thought of his grandmother in London now with Great-Aunt Mary but surely feeling lost and homesick. He relived scenes from his boyhood and youth here. Once, when he explored a drawer in the desk in the book room, he found a little twist of paper lodged at the back and discovered three of the familiar sweetmeats welded together inside. Always three. And always twisted up in a piece of paper so that the sweets would not pick up lint in either his grandfather’s pocket or that of the grandchild to whom he gave them. Ralph put the little bundle into his own pocket and left it there.
He would give anything in the world to bring back those days, to have the chance to take a different path into the future than the one he had actually taken. Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he had not become so consumed with his grand idea of saving the world from tyranny or if his grandfather had put his foot down and refused to purchase his commission.
But such thoughts were pointless. Regrets were pointless. As was guilt.
Sometimes he found himself grieving too for his father, who had died almost unnoticed, by him at least. Ralph had still been very ill at Penderris at the time, too ill to return home for the funeral or even to comprehend fully what had happened. He had never been particularly close to his father, but he had loved him. There had been no goodbye, no chance to sit with relatives after his passing to relive half-forgotten memories. No real mourning. Just bruised feelings denied and pushed deep inside.
He had loved his father. He had hurt him too. He had been a disappointment to a man who took duty and responsibility very seriously. And it must have been a huge blow to his pride as a father to have his own father override his refusal to allow Ralph to go off to war.
Three times Ralph sat with Chloe in the evenings. Mostly he kept his eyes on his book when he did so while she just as firmly directed her attention to her embroidery or to her own book. She had not initiated any conversation since the night of their quarrel, but then neither had he.
He did not even know whether she was coming to London with him. And he would not assert his right to command her.
On the fifth evening, he set aside his book with more of a thump than he had intended, surged to his feet, and then had little choice but to cross the room to the sideboard to pour himself a drink since he could not think of any other reason to offer for getting up from his chair. Not that she had asked for any explanation. She had not even looked up. When he turned back to the room, glass in hand, however, she was looking at him, her needle suspended over her work. She looked down again without saying anything.