A hazy memory of the scene prodded into Markus’s mind. He rubbed his temple and clenched his shaking hand. A drink would steady that shake. The bottle he’d found in the cellar still had a few swallows left. All he had to do was step back into his study and shut the door, and he could make all of this go away. Closing his eyes did not change anything. Not his aching head, not the chaos that took over his home, and not the fact that Emma was dead. Continuing to drink himself sick wouldn’t change the last, either. “Ladies, please join me in the study.” He backed away and let Honoria and Phoebe precede him inside.
They stood amongst the scattered documents on the rug and waited for him to round his desk.
“Please forgive the mess. Be seated. I suppose I have put my estate in danger and should be thankful you have come.” The words stung like hot lead in his gut.
Honoria sashayed into a chair by the window. She smiled and hummed as she stared into the garden.
Smoothing her pale green skirts, Phoebe sat in the chair across his desk. A warm smile tugged at her full lips. “I do not want or need your gratitude, my lord. I only want to do my job, my friend’s home to be restored to a respectable state, and to be assured her child is cared for in the best way.”
What could he say? He had failed and now he needed help to pick up the pieces of the mess he’d made. Sitting, he rubbed the back of his head. “What do you need from me?”
Clearing her throat, she fidgeted. “I hate to be blunt, my lord.”
Honoria chuckled.
He wasn’t immune to the irony either. “Please, do your worst, Miss Hallsmith.”
“Your finances, my lord. Do they permit the hire of a proper household staff?”
The papers peppering the floor stood as a looming reminder of the loss of at least a year’s revenue. Still, his failing wasn’t permanent. “I shall make good the salaries of a proper staff.”
She clapped. “I will begin the hiring process tomorrow.”
Had her skin glowed like that when she was Emma’s friend who visited from time to time? Tiny freckles dotted her cheeks and nose, warming her face. He’d never regarded her as pretty before, but she had grown into her looks and a lovely woman sat before him. “Is that all?”
“No. Two more things.”
His stomach churned with hunger. “Only two?” Leaning back, he closed his eyes.
“You will spend time with Elizabeth every day.”
It sounded like such a small task, but the idea shot pain to his heart. Little Elizabeth brought the night of Emma’s death back as if it were yesterday. Bringing her into the world had killed his beautiful wife. Emma would not approve of his behavior and she would have gladly offered her life for Elizabeth’s. “If the child wishes to see me, I will not object.”
She sighed. “Not exactly gushing with adoration, but it is a start.”
“And the other?”
She stood, forcing him to rise. “No more drinking, my lord. You will have to deal with your life.”
The nerve of the woman. No one had the right to speak to him in such a way in his own home. He pounded the desk.
From the doorway, Becca shrieked and upended the tray. Coffee and toast crashed to the floor in a mess of porcelain and the lovely smelling brew.
He was doomed to do without coffee and it was his own fault. “Dammit! Who do you think you are?”
Becca began picking up the mess.
“Becca, please leave that for now,” Phoebe said. “Lady Chervil, can you give me a moment with his lordship?”
Becca ran from the room.
Standing, Honoria narrowed her gaze on Markus. “My wrath can be quite daunting, my lord.”
“Of this I am certain, Madam.”
With a nod, she left and closed the door behind her.
“You have put your home and family in jeopardy with your wasteful drinking, Markus. Emma loved you and that is the only reason I am willing to help you. If it was not for her faith in you, I would have let someone else come here to sort you out. They likely would have taken one look at the scene this morning and taken Elizabeth from this house. Then what? Do you want your mother raising your daughter? I suppose we could write to your sister and see if she will take her. Is that what you want?”
Dory would take the child and she and Thomas Wheel would raise her as their own. His chest contracted until he couldn’t breathe. “I do not wish to send Elizabeth away. Emma would not like it.”
“Good.” She drew a deep breath. “I do not care if you waste away or drink yourself to death, but Emma would and so would Elizabeth. It disgusts me what you have done to yourself, but I will help you under the condition that you stop drinking and make efforts to put your life back together. Everton’s has very strict rules and I have broken several of them with my directness, but I think it important that you and I have an understanding. No more drink.”
Everything inside him tightened and seared with unspeakable pain. He sat in the chair next to her. “You ask the impossible. You cannot know what I suffered, what I still suffer.”
“No. I cannot.” She shook her head and met his gaze. “You have lost more than I can imagine, but it is not an excuse to ruin yourself.”
“I cannot just get over her and move on. Emma was my life.” He’d taken drink enough to fill the Thames, but loss still gouged at his soul. His heart had contracted to a stone and the damned world kept spinning. The sun kept rising. Night loomed long and painful. People went about their days as if nothing was wrong. But something was wrong. Everything was wrong, and still life went on.
Placing her soft fingers over his, she said, “No one is asking you to. That would be absurd.”
He looked into the most expressive golden eyes surrounded by long russet lashes. His heart stopped, and he had to force breath back into his lungs. “Then what are you asking?”
“That you learn to go on without her. To live and raise your daughter to remember her mother as the good and kind woman she was. Nothing will ever be the same. I do not think it is supposed to be the same. I cannot compare my grandmother’s death to losing a spouse, but still, there is a hole where she once was. Yet, we must go on and be happy, or would you prefer to leave your daughter with neither mother nor father to raise her?”
Tears he’d not shed since the funeral rolled down his cheeks and he was at a loss for how to stop them. A long pull on the bottle in his desk would chase away his pain for a few hours. “I do not know if I can do what you ask.”
“I know, but if you only take one moment at a time, Markus, I know you can do it. For Elizabeth’s sake, you have to do it.”
Tugging his hands away from hers, he breathed until his emotions were in check. Fingers fisted, he yearned for the contents of that bottle and the oblivion it would bring him.
The door creaked open and Elizabeth poked her cherubic face through the crack. Eyes like lonely lakes, she stared across the room, looking for something in him he could not find himself. Her chubby fingers clutched the doorjamb. So much worry in such a little person and all because he was weak. Her mother was gone and her father a monster who showed up only to tear the house down. It was impossible to recognize himself in the shell he’d become.
“Come in, Elizabeth. Everything is all right.” His voice was rougher and less assured than he’d ever heard it before.
On sturdy legs, she toddled along the edge of the rug taking the long way around the disheveled room to his desk. At his knee, she stared up, blinking.
Markus lifted her to his lap and Elizabeth settled against his chest. Her thumb popped into her mouth and her eyes closed. The scent of porridge and clean linen softened his heart as he brushed curls from her rosy cheeks. “Hire the help we need, Miss Hallsmith,” he whispered.
“When Lady Chervil and I are settled in, I will need to discuss with you a schedule for Miss Elizabeth at least until I can find her a proper n
anny.”
“As you wish.”
Elizabeth’s soft hair tickled the underside of his chin and her breath came slow and even.
Phoebe walked to the door but stopped at the threshold. “Shall I send Mrs. Donnelly in to take Miss Elizabeth to the nursery?”
It didn’t matter to his daughter if he was a monster. She wanted him anyway. Emma had wanted him despite his shortcomings.
Elizabeth rubbed her nose and scrunched her sweet face before resuming sucking her thumb.
If his heart burst from his chest he wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. It pressed against his ribs and threatened him with the emotions he’d been running from for two years. “I will take her up in a few minutes, thank you.”
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