Where had Atlas gone? She did not remember him coming in last night after dinner. Had he slept at the dower house? Sometimes he did so. Good. He’d be more comfortable there, and in a few days, a week at most, she’d no longer have to gather Atlas’s sleeping materials after waking, return them to the bed so the housemaid would not discover their truth.
She peeked behind the curtain dividing the room. He did not sit humming at the pianoforte.
She attempted to dress without worry, but concern for his absence followed her into the hallway and to the room where the family broke their fast. Matilda and Fanny were bright cheeked and cheery, planning for Christmas. Raph tried to hide his grins behind a book. But no Atlas sitting amongst them at the table, one large hand wrapped around a chipped cup of coffee.
“Where’s your husband?” Franny asked, chewing a bite of toast.
Clara waited a moment to see if Raph answered for her, but when the silence stretched too long for comfort, she had no choice but to lie.
“At the dower house already. Working. He wished to get an early start.” She hoped.
“He works much too hard.” Franny sighed, but there were no more questions.
“He’s fine, Mother.” Raph waved a point of toast in the air. “If he needed rest, he’d take it.”
Would he, though? She’d been married to the man a little less than two months and felt she knew him better, sometimes, than those gathered round this table.
“Have you considered the mistletoe, Clara?” Franny asked.
She had. Almost nonstop. Alfie wanted it badly. And Atlas had perked up at the mention of it as well. Only Clara had felt like melting through the floorboards. Hunting for mistletoe,gathering greenery—things real families did together. But her little family was fake, and she must protect her son.
“We’ll need greenery as well. I would drag Raph along to get it, but”—Matilda shivered, pulled her shawl more tightly about her—“I hate the cold. I intend to stay by a fire until the air decides to be kinder to me.”
Raph poured her more tea, and a tower of steam spilled upward. His wife wrapped her fingers around it, savoring the warmth.
“When will Drew arrive?” Raph asked his mother.
Franny reached into her pocket and produced a letter. She flourished it in the air. “This arrived yesterday. Drew says Theo and Cordelia will remain in London as long as possible, but we can expect them before Christmas. He also reports that he and Amelia will arrive Christmas Day. There’s much to do still at their agency.” She sniffed as she let the letter flutter to the table next to her plate, amongst the crumbs. “It’s inexcusable for them to have married in London. And by special license.” Another sniff.
Matilda raised a brow. “Raph and I married by special license.”
“Yes, but that was here, where I could watch. And I was the one who provided the license. It’s nice to be included. How Andrew managed it—” She shook her head. “He’s always been a clever one and set on having his way. And that way is almost always too far away from the rest of us.” She lifted a steaming cup of tea before her face and inhaled. “But I knew he would choose Amelia. They were fated. And they’ll be here soon. Drew never comes home unless there’s a wedding or a funeral, but there’s neither of those this time.” The dowager tore a victorious bite from her toast.
Raph groaned. “Fated, Mother? Really?”
Franny waved the sounds away as if they were balls she could bat about. “It’s true. You should know, having found your fate as well.”
Matilda chuckled, but she didn’t argue. And Clara tried to sink through the floor.Please do not turn this conversation on me.
“And you, my dear,” Franny said, beaming at Clara. “You’ve found your fate, too.”
Clara stood, abandoning her plate barely touched. Was her fate, then, to care for a man who would leave her? She’d thought to heal slowly from wanting over the last several weeks. The ache of her need had grown hotter, deeper, impossible to hold in a single body. It weighed her down like an ocean, pressing her bones into dust.
“I must be off. Much to do today.” She barely registered the farewells as she left the room, left the house, and set her feet down the path toward the dower house.
Mistletoe. Should she allow it? Would a single day’s outing solidify that bond between man and child she’d been trying so desperately to sever?
The dower house rose before her, all gray stone and climbing vines. Dead vines. It needed landscaping. And the hinges squeaked when she threw open the door and stepped into its shadows. No fire crackled here, though Atlas had managed to see the chimneys cleaned before she’d arrived. She’d thought it a tiny castle when she first laid eyes on it the morning after her wedding night. It seemed colder in all ways than Briarcliff, likely because no one lived here to warm it up, to put life into its window eyes.
“Atlas?” she whispered, addingoil door hingesto the list of tasks she must complete before the house was put to its purpose.
No answer. She busied herself with the tinder box at the fireplace until a fire roared there, then she stood, warmingherself for several minutes, rubbing her hands, breathing into them. Then, finally, she crept up the stairs, feeling as if she climbed toward… some importantfate. Ridiculous Franny, seeding such notions between Clara’s ears. If he had not slept here last night… she would not ask him, when she saw him, where he had rested his head and that big, delicious body.
She missed that body. Missed him. Loneliness had curled about her like a sour London fog. Thicker, more impenetrable because the man she wanted to end her loneliness with existed so close to hand. She could touch him. He often touched her.
Under the watchful gaze of his mother.
Pretend or otherwise, those touches burned her. Licks of flames from wanting. Hotter ones from the futility of that desire. Sometimes his touches felt too real, threatened to ruin her, send her sanity spinning into the ether. Because if his desire was as real as her own…
