But when she walked into the dining room, she paused. For the past two nights, Max had been waiting for her, but he was not there.
Noting with some relief that two places had been set, close to one another at the top of the table, she proceeded forward and took her seat, draping her napkin across her lap.
Five minutes passed. Then ten, then twenty, then half an hour, the clock ticking on to an entire hour of waiting for her husband.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to start serving?” the footman asked anxiously, at least once every few minutes. “It’s not my place to rush you, Your Grace, but the cook is insistent that you eat while the food is hot.”
Caroline frowned at her empty plate, her stomach growling furiously. And beneath that churning, gnawing sensation, the faintest shiver of hurt.
Max was not coming, and perhaps that meant she was going to have to eat alone again. Not just that night, but for the foreseeable.
“Very well,” she said thickly. “Please, serve, and apologize to the cook for me. I should hate to insult her diligent efforts by leaving things to turn cold.”
The three courses were delicious—fragrant chicken broth, roasted wood pigeon with pickled red cabbage, crispy potatoes, and golden parsnips, with a dessert of blackberry madeleines and fresh cream—but it all tasted like ash in her mouth. Nothing could be truly delicious when one had to eat in solitude and silence.
Prior to her wedding day, she could not remember a single night where she had dined by herself. Her mother or Evan or Daniel, when he was not abroad, had always joined her.
“Would you like anything else, Your Grace?” the footman asked.
Caroline shook her head and got to her feet. “No, thank you. I will retire for the night.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
Hoping her dismay was not as obvious as it felt, she left the dining room and made her slow way back up to her bedchamber.
On the landing, however, she did not turn right as usual. She lingered, facing the wall and a painting of a bowl of fruit, as her disappointment transformed into simmering anger. It would have been one thing if Max had let her know that he would not be joining her for dinner, but simply not to turn up was something she could not permit.
Before she could stop herself, she had turned left and was marching down the hallway to Max’s study with fire in her belly and venom on her tongue, ready to rebuke her husband for making her feel stupid.
She did not bother to knock, letting herself into the room. But before a single harsh word could leave her mouth, the sight in front of her doused her wrath, diminishing it to the steaming hiss of a surprised gasp.
Max was bent forward in his chair, his cheek flat against a small stack of letters, fast asleep. A position that would surely punish his neck when he awoke, but the serene peace on his face made waking him an impossible thought.
You must have been exhausted to be able to rest like that.
She noticed a blanket, folded on the armchair that she had moved into the room during her mildly vengeful scheme to annoy him. Picking it up as she passed, she approached her husband on tiptoe, freezing every time he stirred a little or mumbled in his sleep.
At his side of the desk, she carefully draped the blanket over him. The weather had begun to turn toward true autumn, and the fire in the study’s hearth had gone out. The thick, coarse woolen blanket would be enough to fight off the chill that crept across her own skin, keeping him warm until he eventually awoke.
She was about to leave when a few sentences of the top letter caught her eye, prompting her to linger. She knew she should not pry, but she could not help it.
There has never been anything we have not been able to talk through,it said.I am at my wit’s end with worry, Dickie. Please, write back to me, visit me, anything—just let me know that you are well, and you are safe. The gossip has died down, your name is no longer being discussed, and Caroline’s reputation has been saved, so there is no reason for you to stay away any longer.
She could not see the rest and suspected she had already seen too much. So, adjusting the blanket to better cover his back, she tiptoed back out of the room. As she did, a smile formed upon her lips. Max hadnotleft her to eat by herself; he had slept through it all.
And though the blanket was a small gesture, she hoped he understood what it meant—that she was grateful for all he had done, even if she struggled to show it.
Max winced awake, his neck on fire, his back aching terribly. He sat back in his chair and stretched out his arms, disoriented for a moment. There was hazy sunlight streaming in through the window behind him, not the gloom of dusk that he had expected.
Is it… morning?A jolt of horror pierced through him, his eyes darting desperately toward the carriage clock on his desk. He was not mistaken. He had slept through the entire night at his desk. Moreover, he had slept through dinner with his wife, despite his promise that they would share their meals together.
He was about to stand, hoping to find her and apologize when he realized that something was wrapped around him. A blanket that had been sitting on the armrest of the armchair by the fireplace when he had come to undertake his work, not covering him as it was now.
She would have knocked. She would have let me know of her irritation by playing the violin in the next room or clanging saucepans outside the door.
But he had not been disturbed. Indeed, it seemed that someone had tucked him in, regardless of his odd and uncomfortable resting spot.
“It must have been Caroline,” he said quietly as if to convince himself. “No one else would have disturbed me.”
