Ravishing the Heiress

CHAPTER 17

After eight years, how did a woman take over a man’s life overnight?

And why couldn’t it be a simple case of lust, an itch that could have been scratched on any post?

Instead Fitz felt split in two, his other half on the far side of the door. But he couldn’t open that door, walk inside, and make himself whole again. He could only wait for the end of the night.

In the morning he rode and took his time bathing and changing. She should have already left the breakfast parlor when he descended at last, but she was very much there, in her customary spot, a stack of letters and a cup of still-steaming tea before her.

Once upon a time he’d dreaded it, the prospect of sitting across from her at ten thousand breakfasts. Today he could not think of anything more felicitous. She was daily sustenance, like bread, water, and light.

“Good morning.”

She looked up and did not smile. “Good morning.”

She thought he’d rejected her. But it was not true. He’d stepped back because he could not in good conscience continue to mislead her—or himself.

“You’ve a letter from Mrs. Englewood,” she said.

It was to be expected. He pulled out the letter and sliced it open. “She is back in town.”

A few days ahead of schedule. This, too, was not entirely unexpected.

“She will want to see you,” said his wife.

“She does. I will call on her in the afternoon.” He took a sip of his coffee. “And what do you have planned for the day?”

“Nothing much. A call on Venetia in the afternoon.”

How he envied Venetia. “I’m sure she will be delighted to have your company.”

“As I’m sure Mrs. Englewood will yours.” She rose. “Good day.”

Isabelle’s parlor suffocated.

It shouldn’t be the case at all—Fitz had made sure that the house was well ventilated. And it had rained midmorning. The sky was clear, the window was open, the white dimity summer curtain danced in the light breeze.

Yet he felt as if he’d been locked into a cupboard.

She talked about her sister, her niece, her children, gesticulating with great animation—as if by the motions of her arms and hands she could stir the air enough to save him from asphyxiation. As if she knew her house was choking the air from his lungs.

“From everything you say, you enjoyed Aberdeen very well,” he said. “You should have stayed longer.”

Why must you return so soon?

“I missed you.”

She waited a beat, waiting for him to echo her statement. When he didn’t, for a brief moment, it seemed as if she’d ask outright whether he shared her sentiment. And what would he do if she did? He could not lie. He’d tried; but in the end he’d thought only of Millie.

Millie, his mainstay, his solace, his coveted companion of the night.

His lack of a response was a void, an absence, an empty chair at dinner that everyone tried not to notice.

Isabelle broke off a piece of cake. “So…what did you do while I was away?”

A less awkward question, but not by much. Slept with my wife. Which I’ve given up.

“I’ve kept busy.”

“Well, tell me more. I want to know how you spend your days in the course of an ordinary week.”

But this had been no ordinary week, had it?

“It will bore you.”

“It won’t.”

“Well, yesterday I looked at some advertising prints for Cresswell & Graves.”

Of all the things he could mention, why must he bring up this particular episode? Why did he keep remembering Millie’s quick kiss on his cheek? How happy she’d seemed.

Isabelle glanced at him with some astonishment. “You have hirelings to do that sort of thing for you, surely? You don’t need to get your hands dirty.”

He understood her reaction: It was not good form to be actively involved in business. But he could not quite put out his irritation. “I’m not exactly working in the factories.”

“But advertising is”—she grimaced—“vulgar.”

“It makes a significant difference in profits.”

“Profits are vulgar, too. Profits are what shopkeepers and merchants think about.”

He understood that a preoccupation with wealth and its generation coarsened the soul. It was the reason that landed gentry had always held such sway in this country: For a long time they’d made a convincing argument that gentlemen who did not need to muddy their thoughts with the provenance of their next sou were better suited to loftier things like justice and governance.

But it never felt vulgar when he discussed matters of business with Millie. It felt—intricate, like tinkering with the inner workings of a fine watch. And a hefty percentage of their profits went into schools, parks, and hospitals. He’d be a far richer man if he believed in improving only his own lot.

“Then I must admit to being vulgar.”

She turned her face one way, then the other, agitated. “Don’t be like that.”

“I cannot pretend my land is enough for my upkeep. My houses, my dinners, the shirt on my back—everything I have is thanks to profits from tinned goods.”

She looked pained. “Must we introduce tinned goods into our conversation? They are so déclassé.”

He could not blame her. Once upon a time, he’d held exactly the same views. The gentry was ever dismissive of those who made their fortunes in commerce and manufacturing. And Cresswell & Graves didn’t even have the cachet of grandeur or luxury. He’d had plenty of potted chicken for his afternoon tea when he’d been a student and bottled beverages had made good inroads among the young, but there was no denying the fact that enormous quantities of tinned goods were consumed by those who could not always afford greengrocery and freshly butchered meat: the poor and the working class.

And therefore, déclassé.

“I oversee the management of the firm on my wife’s behalf,” he said. “By my own choice. And I quite enjoy it, advertising component included.”

“This is so unlike you.” Her eyes pleaded with him to change his mind. “I can’t imagine the old you would ever take up something like this. It isn’t gentlemanly.”

Gentlemanly it might not be, but it was fascinating, an ever shifting challenge. From the sourcing of the ingredients to the manufacturing processes to the allocation of capital, a hundred variables must be considered, a thousand decisions made—many of which he delegated to his lieutenants but for all of which he remained ultimately responsible.

“It is my life now.”

Her chair scraped and wobbled as she shot out of it. Her momentum carried her to the window, where she had no choice but to stop and turn around. “I can’t imagine life with someone who is involved in the making of canned sardines.”

A cleverer, more opportunistic man would have seized on the opportunity to tell her good luck and farewell. But he was not that man. Her expression had a measure of her old impetuosity, but so much of it was ravage and anxiety. How could he run out on her at a moment like this?

He rose, went to the window, and placed his arm about her shoulders.

“What’s the matter, Isabelle? You’ve known about the sardines. It’s not about the sardines.”

She turned her face into his sleeve, but it was less a gesture of affection than one of desolation. “You’ve changed, Fitz.”

“It’s been eight years. Everyone changes.”

“I haven’t changed.”

The insight came to him like a match flaring. “I can see how you’ve tried to remain the same. But no, you have changed, too. Once you thrilled to new horizons. Now all you want is to live in a monument to the way things might have been.”

She jerked, as if he’d handed her a live wire.

“Is that what I am doing?” she asked, a question for herself. “You think there is something wrong with it? Is that why you aren’t the least bit interested in returning things to the way they might have—should have—been?”

“You cannot go back in time, Isabelle. You cannot re-create a past that never happened. You—all of us—must move forward.”

She clutched his lapel, her voice muffled. “The future terrifies me. All the best years of my life are behind me. Now I’m just a widow with two children and no idea what to do with myself.”

He lifted her face. “You must not think like this. You still have all your life ahead of you.”

“But I do think like this. I’ve thought like this for a while now.” She touched his cheek, her hand cold as fear. “Don’t let me be alone, Fitz. Don’t let me be alone.”

Venetia had such a glow to her, whereas if Millie were to look into the mirror, she’d see a face from which the light had gone out, except for perhaps one or two sputtering flickers.

“I was hoping Fitz would come with you,” said Venetia.

Millie steeled herself. “He is calling on Mrs. Englewood this afternoon.”

“She’s already back from Scotland? I thought she was staying an entire week.”

“So did I.”

“I hate to pry—well, actually, that’s not true. I would pry with a crowbar if I could—I’m terribly concerned that Fitz may not be thinking quite right just now.”

Millie poured tea for them, glad for a legitimate excuse not to meet Venetia’s eyes. “He has made up his mind to take up with Mrs. Englewood.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t consider Fitz a foolish man but this is a foolish choice indeed.”

Millie bit the inside of her cheek. “Is there ever such a thing as a wise choice in love?”

“Yes, I’m sure of it. I refuse to believe that every happy marriage under the sun is simply a matter of luck. At some point someone must have weighed the choices and chosen well, whether it is a choice of mate or a choice of conduct within the marriage.”

“He loves Mrs. Englewood.”

“I used to believe so—not anymore. He loved her, many years ago, when they were children. Had they married then, they’d probably have suited each other well. But they didn’t and their paths diverged. And I’m not sure whether what he believes to be love isn’t simply the throb and echo of cherished memories, of nostalgia masquerading as a blueprint for the future. But with you, he has built such a strong foundation of affection, of common interest and common purpose. I cannot believe he’d cast it all aside for something almost entirely illusory.”

Millie was beyond grateful for Venetia’s support. But in such matters the opinion of a sister, however beloved, counted for little. She raised her head. “We’ve only ever been friends. Friendship is love without the wings and who would ever choose something without wings?”

There, she’d done it. She’d let her bitterness and discontent leach through to her words. Even her skin must be green with bile.

Venetia gazed at Millie, her beautiful face saddened but no less radiant. “No, my dear Millie, you are wrong. Love without friendship is like a kite, aloft only when the winds are favorable. Friendship is what gives love its wings.”

Fitz found Millie in her sitting room, fiddling with her supper plate.

He dropped into the chair opposite hers, stretched out his legs, and tilted his head back. Her ceiling came into view. A pretty ceiling, papered with a design of—his eyes widened—hot air balloons and airships.

He smiled at the memories—what a grand adventure that had been.

She didn’t say anything. It was a comfortable silence. He had his eyes half closed. Her silverware clinked gently against her plate.

“So what’s the matter?” she asked after a few minutes.

He realized he’d been waiting for her to ask just that question, even if she were the last person to whom he should unburden himself—on this matter at least. “I’m at a loss.”

“About?”

He sighed. “Mrs. Englewood.”

“I’m listening.”

“She’s had a difficult time of it—upheavals of all sorts. She now looks to me as an antidote to change, a known, fixed entity. I cannot help but think she will be dreadfully disappointed. I am not my nineteen-year-old self and I can never be again.”

“Is that what she wants, the you she once knew?”

“I want her to be happy. But I don’t know how to give her what she wants. Worse, I don’t know what she truly needs, whether it’s a hothouse to protect her for the rest of her days or simply a hand to help her over a rough patch.”

She had spoiled him, his Millie. He was used to a self-sufficient woman now, not one who depended on him to ensure her happiness.

“I want to do the right thing by her,” he said. “If I only knew what that was.”

As his lover, she did not want to hear about his concern for another woman. But as his friend, she was not offended that he’d come to her with his worries.

Far from it. She was glad.

“You will,” she said. “You might make a mistake or two along the way. But I know you. In the end you always do the right thing.”

He smiled, a tired smile, rose from his chair, and kissed her on her forehead. “What would I do without you?”

Her gaze followed him as he left, closing the door softly behind himself. Perhaps friendship was what gave love its wings, perhaps not. But she understood now that she’d been wrong earlier: There was nothing the least sham about their friendship.

It was true—and it had wings of its own.