“Risk. These men risk everything for the high of winning, think any loss worth the slim chance they are victors.”
“Fools.”
“You took that risk and won a wife. I’ve heard about your exploits. You take other risks, gambling with something more precious than money. Tell me, Foxton—do you have a death wish?”
“No.”Yes. God, yes.Living could be a pain, every tick of the hands around the clock a sound of guilt. It should have been him, too. Why had he been left alone?
Not alone anymore.
Caro.
“Liar.” The widow chuckled. “How is your wife? Ill? I must admit your query has me concerned.”
“She is well.”
The widow leaned a shoulder against the window to look at him instead of the crowd beyond. “Then why are you here, chattering about loss? Does she hate you?”
“No.” Though he’d likely irritated her, leaving so suddenly and without explanation. And he’d break her heart when he refused to return to Hawthorne, to live his life with her.
But he couldn’t.
“My footmen have returned with you, then?”
“If a man’s actions can be bought once, Mrs. Dove-Lyon, they can be bought a second time.” He’d offered to pay them twice what the widow had offered. He should have thought of it sooner. He’d wanted an excuse to stay. “Answer my question. How do you go on living?”
“Do you anticipate losing your wife?”
“Yes.” Not in the way she thought, perhaps. “What she asks of me… I cannot give her what she wants.”
“How unfortunate. I’d entertained high hopes for you. Ah well. I’m sure she’ll find a lover strong enough for her one day.”
“Like hell! She’ll have no other man than me!”
Silence. During which he had the unnerving sensation she was staring right at him.
“She can have whomever she wants all alone in that house. That you clearly do not want.”
“You do not understand.” It wasn’t that he didn’t want; it was that he couldnot.
“She was so very excited to procure a house, so very careful about what kind it should be. She did not confide in me, but I understood that the house held some greater meaning for her. Independence, perhaps. An escape.”
Not for her. But for others. For her it was a dream. A cause. The thing she’d sacrifice everything else in her life for. She was so damn good. Too good for him. He’d known it when he’d fallen in love with her years ago. He’d pushed her away because she was everything good in the world, and he was broken. He wanted nothing in the world as she wanted Hawthorne.
Except…
For her.
Caro. Now and always.
Even if she came with Hawthorne?
Yes. Even then.
Caroline slept alonein the folly, hoping Felix would wake her with the full moon behind him, sink beside her and kiss her until she couldn’t think.
She woke alone with the morning sun instead.
What was she going to do now?
