He cleared his throat, body still but for the fierce pounding of his heart. It beat like a hammer. Surely it hurt him.
“They are well and truly gone,” he said, “and that is… somehow worse than the ghosts I’ve come to expect. You asked once why I do not wish for children, and I did not answer you.But perhaps now you can guess. What happens if”—his words ground to a halt as if his throat was clogged, and he swallowed audibly—“they grow sick? What if I lose everyone again? It is better to never have anyone to lose at all. I think. I would not survive. But you… Just now in the garden. In your voice. If all our efforts to avoid conception proved to be in vain… you would not be devastated.”
She shook her head. “No, I would not.”
“I would.” He turned to her, pulling his arm gently from her hold. “I do not know if I can stay here. Not even for you.” Curling his fingers beneath her chin, he lifted her face, kissed her soft and slow and sweet. She closed her eyes and sighed, wavering toward the solid warmth of his chest. If she could lay her head there, perhaps she could keep him, make him see—
But then he was gone. Fingers beneath her chin dissipated like smoke. The clip of his bootsteps echoed behind her. They stopped. “I am off to London. I need time to… breathe.”
Breathe? Ha. She barely could. Each inhalation seemed ragged and raw, each exhale like a cutting blade. Somehow, she kept the creeping despair from her voice. “When will you return?”
“I… I’ll write to you, Caroline.” The bootsteps started up again, and this time they continued until they vanished down the hallway.
Alone with the dust, Caroline realized for the first time in a week of happy moments, that those moments might be numbered. Felix had never promised to stay for good. Clearly, he never could.
Chapter Fourteen
Felix had aplan. Caro would be proud indeed. And as he did on his impulses, he acted on it swiftly, all the way to London, straight to the Lyon’s Den. When he was shown to the Black Widow’s office, he did not even wait for greetings.
“I have a proposition for you.”
“Oh?” Her veil rustled as she sank into a seat with a sigh.
“I want a trade.”
“What of?”
“In the game of riddles, you asked us all to bet a house. I’ll give you the one I have if you give me one of the residences you won. I do not care which.”
She laughed, her veil wafting forward for a moment before settling. “What an amusing suggestion. Unfortunately… No.”
“Without thought or consideration?” Anger rose in him, spitting like hot grease.
“Settle down, Foxton. I cannot trade them because I no longer own them.”
“Damn.” The breath left him with the word. Seemed the life did too. He’d thought… hoped. To keep her and to keep her dream alive. He still could. He’d find another house in just the right location, buy it, move her enterprise, and—
“What did you do with the house your wife won in the game? Has it burned down? Did she lose it in another high stakes game of wits?”
God, his head hurt. He’d ridden Troy hard all the way here. He was gritty and grimy and after days spent sleeping on an old mattress tick on the marble floor of a damn folly, his body ached for a bed. “No. She has it still.” Better, perhaps, to say it had her. And it wasn’t giving her up.
With his hand on the door, he stopped, an unexpected word passing between his lips. “How?”
“How what, my lord?”
“How do you live? Still? Without—” He swallowed because the rest of the sentence choked him. Somehow he found the words, though. No choice but to find them, and he looked at her over his shoulder to give them to her. “Your husband.”
“Ah.” The woman rose, moving from behind the desk to walk slowly to the window that looked out at the gambling floor. Life buzzed out there, but death, fear of it, buzzed so loudly inside Felix, life couldn’t even come close.
Caro as close as he’d gotten. But Caro… he could lose her, too. “How do you manage the days? After your loss? They say you loved him. How is that love not a burden, a torment, every damn day?”
For a long moment, the only sound was the rustle of her gown as she folded her arms behind her back. Then she said, “Look out there.”
He joined her, watching the men with sweat-beaded foreheads and desperate eyes. Other men with victory red and high in their cheeks, crazed in the fists they pumped in the air. Winners, losers. They had no idea what really mattered. But just as a handful of coins could be lost between one breath and another, so too could a life.
Caro’s life. A child’s life.
“What am I supposed to be seeing?” he bit out.
