by Liz Tyner
‘I’m glad I’m still here,’ the vicar said. ‘I didn’t want to share it in a letter, but Vicar Gallant has been here almost every day and mentioned that he has a cabinet that will fit nice against my wall. The earl is certain he can find a house I will like better for my pension.’
‘You will have this home as long as you wish it,’ Fox said. Even though his eyes met her father’s, his concentration was on her. She half stood on tiptoes and her eyes had more life than he remembered seeing since they’d married.
‘I do not think it will be at all proper for Vicar Gallant to be living here while Rebecca is staying.’ Fox bent his head. ‘And I do believe I have some sway with the owner and, if I do not, I’ll just toss Gallant out the door should he try to move in.’
The vicar’s smile plumped his face, but then his face thinned again. He raised an eyebrow. ‘How long will she be staying?’
‘As long as she wishes.’
‘Are you travelling back to London tonight?’ the vicar asked, words low.
‘No, I shall be staying at my father’s,’ Fox said. ‘So you may expect me for breakfast in the morning, Rebecca.’ He had to touch her once again. He took her hand and just held it. ‘Your porridge will be delicious.’
He knew he had to let her go, so he pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. ‘Do not forget to cook enough for me.’
She laughed, and he could not take his eyes from her.
‘You’ll be having breakfast here?’ Her father studied Fox’s face.
‘If Rebecca will allow it. As I seem to remember someone…’ he still watched Rebecca ‘…had the audacity to put that in my marriage vows.’
‘You remembered.’ The vicar’s voice seemed to come from far away.
‘That I remember is not the problem. That she remembers is.’ He smiled, knowing the flippant manner served him well. He moved forward, aware he closed out her ability to see around or above him. ‘Goodnight, Rebecca.’ He stayed one second longer than necessary, his face so close to her that he was certain she could feel his breaths. Then he turned and strode away—because he had to leave quickly. If he lingered, he wouldn’t be able to go.
He went to the carriage and jumped inside, then fell back against the seat—a man with the world at his fingertips and yet one wife so very, very far away.
*
He marched into his father’s sitting room. His father looked up, took off his glasses and stared at Fox.
‘What in blazes are you here for?’ Strong words from his father.
‘I missed you?’ Fox pulled out his smile again, but twisted it a bit.
‘Be wary. You might grow fond of me and where would that leave us?’ His father put the glasses on the table with a sliding toss. He stood, stretching, and pointed to the pull at Fox’s side. ‘Ring for a servant. I’d like some tea.’
Fox looked at the pull, then back at his father. ‘Why don’t you try to mend things with Mother?’
His father stepped in front of him and gave a jerk of the rope. ‘I have. We have. By letter. For us it is the best way to be married. We can write to each other and be friends. But within minutes of walking into the room with her, I want to leave. Even her perfume annoys me. And I know how much it costs. It shouldn’t stink like that.’
‘She can change her perfume.’
‘I still wouldn’t like it.’
‘That’s just an outward thing.’
His father’s eyes met Fox’s, and he smiled. Fox recognised the smile. For the first time ever, Fox saw himself in his father’s actions. His father spoke.
‘Your mother’s inward things don’t get on well with my outward things, either.’
‘Father.’ He used the word as a verbal slap. ‘Can’t you live under the same roof?’
‘I’m sure we could, but there’s no need. There is no peace for me in her house. It is like having a pet that will not stay away from your heels and keeps mewling on long after you’ve tried all you can do to get it to play with its shiny things. Her voice takes my thoughts and chops them away. And I cannot even care about Parliament or the bills that are passed or the way the world is changing when I have had to listen to her. I love her, but I do not want to be in the same town with her. It is all I can do to stay in the same country with her.’ He paused and a softer smile drifted past his lips, but disappeared into his thoughts. ‘I don’t regret marrying her. I just like to be alone.’
‘And Mother likes people.’
‘And soirées, and chatter, and newspaper clippings and a flurry of life.’
‘A bit like her son, she is.’
‘Yes. But I try not to blame her for that. For that, I blame my father.’
‘Don’t.’ Fox shook his head. ‘Even if I’d never known him, I’m sure you and I wouldn’t have liked each other that much.’
‘The odds were against it from the beginning, I suppose. And don’t be so harsh on your mother’s and my marriage. Neither of us complain about it. I just prefer to read my books and write letters and have the peace of being with no one who disagrees with me.’ His eyes jabbed.
Fox laughed. ‘Well, that last one puts me out the door.’
His father nodded, moved forward and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You didn’t lose the direction to the estate, though. I personally did not care at all to see my father the last years of his life.’
‘Well, he was harsh on you.’
‘I wasn’t quite the son he wanted. But I certainly gave him the grandson he wanted. Irked me to please him so.’ He laughed to take the ire from the words.
A maid arrived in the doorway, a tray in her hands. His father walked forward, took it and dismissed her with a nod.
‘I used to stay here a day longer if you gritted your teeth when you spoke,’ Fox added after the footsteps faded away on the stairway.
‘When I guessed that, I did get more accepting of your visits.’ His father’s eyes half closed. ‘What I really noticed is that if I grumbled more, you smiled more and jabbed more with your words. So I worked to tolerate you a bit easier. If you could get along with that old boot of my father then you should be able to get along with someone as peaceable as I am.’
‘Grandfather was—’
‘Exactly like his grandson.’
‘One of the most intelligent, thoughtful and wise men I’ve ever met.’
‘For an arse hat.’
His father put the tray by his glasses and poured a little cream in the cups, put the creamer down, then swirled each cup. Then he carefully poured the tea, taking a moment to savour the aroma.
He handed Fox a cup. Fox took it, looked at the contents and back at his father.
His father had the cup to his lips.
‘I love you, Father.’
Tea spewed.
‘Just jesting,’ Fox said.
‘Damn. You had me scared.’ His father’s head tilted. ‘I thought for a moment you’d completely lost your mind.’
‘I may have.’ His lips turned up and he turned away from his father. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without Rebecca. I am fond of her. Attached beyond what I knew possible to feel.’
‘She’s likeable enough. Tries to find the good in everyone. So why are you here and she is in London?’
‘She’s not in London. She’s at her father’s.’
The earl’s brows bumped together. ‘So she left you?’
His father’s face took on the look he’d had when Fox had bought the highest-priced stallion at Tattersall’s by convincing his grandfather to buy the beast for Fox’s thirteenth birthday. Geyser had been worth it. Rebecca was worth even more.
The world of uncertainty crashed into him and forced volume into his words. ‘She’s sick. She won’t eat. I did not know what else to do. She thinks she is plump.’
‘Rebecca?’ Hardly louder than a puff of air, his father spoke. ‘But I thought she had a cough. She wrote her father that she was well.’
Foxworthy turned his back to his father. He could not v
iew the confusion in the eyes. He kept his own gaze straight ahead, focused on nothing. ‘I noticed it then. How much her body was shrinking away. The physician said that since she is not coughing blood… He said I must get her to eat. He said if she does not eat, she will not live. I had figured that out before I sent for him. That’s why I consulted him. But she doesn’t know what he said.’
He turned. His father had collapsed into a chair. His head in his hands. ‘I have known her since she was a child.’
Fox took in a breath, but didn’t speak.
‘Does she still have the nightmares?’ the earl asked, raising his eyes.
‘She’s never mentioned them to me. But she doesn’t feel she is doing enough good works.’
Foxworthy walked to the window, but he could not see beyond the glass. The remains of a spider’s web had collapsed upon itself, leaving a few disjointed white threads without a pattern. Without purpose. The dregs of a home. A smear to be wiped away.
‘You can learn, son. You can learn to live without someone you love. I thought I would never repair after your sister died. And I do well enough now.’
‘That is when you left London and decided to live alone.’ Fox nodded a circular movement. ‘Doing well.’ He paused. ‘Doing well?’
‘Yes. Then it’s so much easier. Every object in the world stops conspiring to remind you of them. Your own beating heart doesn’t mock you by its obsessive need to continue on.’
‘There’s no place that will give me peace without Rebecca.’
*
Sleep evaded him and Foxworthy dressed for breakfast as precisely as he would have for an evening with friends. His valet had arrived several hours after dark the night before. The man had dusted each speck from the fabric and Fox took a hat and gloves to step into the cold.
His father’s eyes widened when he saw Foxworthy leaving so early. Foxworthy gave him a smile and walked out the door. He took the carriage, arrived at Rebecca’s house, and told the driver to check back near twelve.
The door to the house opened before he finished speaking with the driver. Rebecca watched him, her lips parted, and eyes locked on him. At the entrance, he realised his hat would not make it under the doorway and took the hat off and put the gloves into it.
He bent forward so he could take her fingers, pull them up and kissed above her hand, then put his hat on the table by the bed. Rebecca still didn’t move.
‘You’re dressed a bit fine for porridge,’ her father said. ‘Good thing she also cooked some bacon as well.’
‘I’m hungry.’ He looked around the room. ‘Feels a bit strange to be able to talk while I’m here.’
‘Feels a bit strange to see you all dandied up.’
‘You’re overdressed,’ Rebecca said.
‘Perhaps. But in the past, each time I came to my father’s house I picked my oldest clothes and my plainest wear. This time, I thought I would wear what pleased me.’
‘You have high taste in clothing.’ The vicar tilted his head sideways and shook it. ‘I definitely wouldn’t connect you to the man Rebecca found.’ His nose wrinkled and he snorted. ‘Vicar.’
Foxworthy shrugged. ‘An easily made conclusion.’ Then he remember his truth. ‘Easily made when I was unconscious, beaten and couldn’t speak.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Rebecca asked.
‘We both have to be comfortable with each other if we’re to be married. I have to be comfortable with who I am, anyway. Each time I visited my father, I changed what I wore to suit him. I met him more than halfway, I felt. It made me angry. I’m not going to be angry with him any more over something so senseless.’
‘The same for me?’ Rebecca asked.
‘I will take you as you are. And shouldn’t I?’
Before she could answer, her father stepped to the door. ‘I believe I must make sure Mr Renfro’s cow is better today. And he said he’d have some bones for Tommy Berryfield’s new pup to gnaw on.’ He slipped out, but glanced at Fox before he left. ‘I do not know what we are going to do with the new vicar. He hardly knows what a plough looks like.’
Rebecca sat at the table and he sat across, his legs taking most of the space underneath. Their porridge sat in front of them and he warmed his hand on the side of the bowl, then he took a bite. The taste didn’t truly appeal, but it wasn’t bad.
She took a bite, her throat moved, and her lips turned down. ‘It feels odd to be home. Not the same. I thought…’
‘It is exactly the same. Only you have changed.’
‘Did it feel the same to you at your father’s?’
‘Yes. And no. I suppose it was completely different. We are not adversaries for some reason. Perhaps you united us. That can be your good work for today.’
She clasped her right wrist and moved her hand up the sleeve of her gown, pushing it higher on her shoulder.
‘I wonder how my maid is faring without me.’
‘I could send for her. She could stay here, or at my father’s. Whatever is best for you.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Her mother works in a house not too far away and she goes to see her mother when it is the mother’s half-day off on Wednesday.’
‘I saw her walking on the street on Tuesday with a basket. Did you send her on an errand?’
‘Yes. To take some threads to her mother and some candles. They don’t give the servants good candles below stairs at the Wilmare household. The scullery maid, Alice, showed me one and it smelled worse than any I had ever seen.’ She stirred her porridge.
‘I wouldn’t have thought you would get used to beeswax here.’ He had another bite of the porridge.
‘Your father gifted them to us sometimes. But even when we used the others, they didn’t smell rancid.’
She told him of Alice’s family and her spoon never stilled. He finished his meal while she talked.
She stood to take his bowl. Out of habit, he stood as well and he could see the porridge inside her bowl.
‘Finish your meal.’ His tone hushed. ‘I didn’t mean to rush you.’
‘I am finished.’ She shook her head. ‘The food doesn’t taste…like I remembered it. And the cat is hungry and will like this.’
‘I believe your father took the beast with him.’ He took both bowls and put them back in their places and gently nudged her into her chair.
Sitting across from her, he studied her face. ‘You did not sleep well.’
‘Perhaps I’m ill. Or perhaps I am going to have a child.’
‘If you are going to have a child, you will need to eat enough for the little one.’
‘When I eat, I feel ill.’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s a good work for your body and you have to do it.’
She levelled her eyes at him. ‘I believe I discussed this with the physician you sent. He told me to eat more.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ He leaned forward, close. Touched her face as delicately as he could.
His hand slid down her cheek and he pulled the garment back on her shoulder. ‘Let’s bundle up and go for a walk. Perhaps that will make you hungry.’
‘It’s too cold.’
‘Then we’ll sit by the stove and you can read something to me. Anything but the prayer book.’
‘I was touched that you liked it and held it close.’
He checked her eyes and saw the sincerity. ‘Well, you may read it to me again if you wish.’
She rose to get the book. He watched her go into the next room. He kept all emotion from his face and blocked his thoughts from what could be.
*
Keeping his wrist near the edge of the table, Fox used his forefinger to trace circles on the table as she read. Her voice sounded strong. Not weakened.
He leaned back, watching. She believed the words she read. She read them with softness, different than he’d ever heard them read before. The others had directed the words into the air, putting a forcefulness into each one so that everyone could hear and realise just wha
t they were hearing.
She read them in the same warm tone of a story book for a child who needed to rest.
‘What’s Cherubim and Seraphim?’ he asked.
She paused, eyes meeting his, and shrugged.
‘You don’t know what you’re reading means?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It doesn’t matter?’ He raised a brow.
‘Well, no. I know what the parts mean that tell me to be a good person and since that’s all I have control over, that’s all that matters.’ She lowered her chin and pointed her nose like a derringer. ‘I have known several vicars.’ She looked at the book and turned a page. ‘All but one of them have been extremely well versed in goodness. And he wasn’t a real vicar.’
‘Vicars need to know a lot about evil to fight it, I would assume.’
‘No.’
She started to read again.
‘No?’ he interrupted.
‘No.’ That nose came forward again.
‘I do not need to know anything about…’ She looked around. ‘Chopping a tree. But I can still tell you the wood will burn better after curing. And the aged wood certainly cooks my meals.’
‘But you’ve seen a tree chopped. You know the process.’
‘Precisely. And I didn’t have to get blisters to know as much as I need.’
He spread his fingers and looked at his palm. ‘Blisters. Doubt I’ve ever had one.’
Her eyes flicked to him. ‘Not even from dancing in new boots?’
‘Perhaps I should have said not from work. My life is never boring.’
Her fingers gripped the book and her body turned slightly away. ‘I would have thought proposing would get tedious.’
He crossed his arms and looked across the top of her nose and into smug eyes. ‘No. You wouldn’t want to propose the same way over and over—a woman might not think you sincere.’
‘And how sincere was your proposal to me?’
‘Very. No one else could have said yes.’
‘An error on your part? A habit that you were carried away with?’