Elizabeth’s brow furrowed.
“Now that I’m happily married myself, I understand how a man’s priorities can change, but when Hawkins got married, all I could see was how little time he spent with us, how little he wrote to us, and how our friend group was drifting apart. I have no idea why that unsettled me so strongly, to be perfectly honest with you, and I blamed his wife for the change instead of examining my own feelings,” he admitted with a worried look on his face. “The end result was that my resentment and bitterness were becoming more and more apparent in every interaction with your brother until he decided to distance himself from me for good.”
“Why would he do something as extreme as that?”
Talbot looked away uneasily.
“You remember how I told you about the mistress he used to have, the one whose house he gifted you?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Well,” Colin sighed again, “we were at a ball where she was trying to get his attention, and Pratt, Stone, and I all noticed and laughed and pointed it out, and then he went over to where she was to talk to her. I think it caused problems with his wife, and Hawkins blamed us. Me more than the others for some reason. I think that is why his wife dislikes me.”
Colin straightened in his seat. “We were all part of the same social set. We all, to my knowledge, espoused the same values. He and I, in particular, had… difficult relationships with our fathers. Our friendship was important to me.” He swallowed and glanced at Lizzie, who was careful to keep her face blank.
“Eventually, after his daughter was born, I decided to visit him in Ashbury.”
Colin stared at the fire so long that Elizabeth started thinking that the story ended there.
Then he spoke again, “We argued and I said some things and he sent me away. It wasn’t my proudest moment. I’ve only realized this recently, I actually envied Hawkins and his wife the happiness and the family they had built and I truly believed that Nicholas was pushing me away, excluding me from it, when in reality, there was still place for me in his life, if I’d been more supportive and patient. I am, to this day, ashamed of how I behaved.”
His anguish radiated from his words, and Elizabeth understood him better than he would ever know, for she herself had suffered so long due wondering whether there was a place for her in her brother’s life.
“Have you told him that?” She asked softly.
“Of course not,” he replied quickly, and his bristling at her (apparently ludicrous) statement made her smile.
“Does that shame extend to the way you approached me in the street?”
He smiled back. “You’re the one who should be ashamed. Striking a duke.” He shook his head and tsked.
It was suddenly clear to Elizabeth how much her husband hated change and people leaving his life if he didn’t want them gone. With her brother, he’d behaved like a wounded animal, biting everyone around him because of his own pain. She remembered his face as she broke off their friendship after what she’d overheard him say about her.
She contrasted his words in the Fairchild library with the man she had been married to all these months. How could one be so tender and good, but so cruel at the same time? Was it possible to contain such contradictions within oneself?
*
The weeks flew by quickly as Lizzie was in the process of learning about and establishing herself in her new household. She was also visiting and receiving her close friends, hosting and attending small, intimate dinners, and visiting the Mayfair house at least four times per week. Lady Burnham was a fixture at her home, guiding her on how she would conduct herself whenever she decided to leave her little bubble and step into her new role in London society.
One day, she was summoned to her husband’s study.
“You called for me?” She asked, disturbed at this break in their routine.
“Please come in, wife,” he said gravely. “I have something rather delicate and serious I wish to discuss with you.”
This is it,she thought with a sinking feeling in her stomach.I’ve fallen short in some regard, and he is about to berate me.
Colin looked like he was struggling to speak.
“Why aren’t you spending any money?” He asked with a frown.
“W-what?” Lizzie stammered.
“I’ve been working on the ledgers, and there is nothing here! No new furniture, no jewellery, not even a new inkwell,” he said reproachfully.
“I don’t… I didn’t need any new things,” she said, confused.
“Of course you don’tneedthings, but don’t youwantthem?” He looked at her expectantly.
