Kent. It wasn’t so very far, all things considered. He might’ve had a journey to Scotland to contend with.
“There you have it,” Chris said. “Best we can do. Now kindly get the hell off of my steps and let me get back to bed.”
“Kit,” Phoebe chided.
“Hand to God, Phoebe, if you pinch me again—Christ!” Chris jumped at what had clearly been another pinch. Somewhere now unseen beyond his shoulder, his wife cackled with mischievous glee. Her footsteps retreated once more, slapping across the floor as she fled. Chris rolled his eyes with a sigh. “Ye’re certain you want one o’ these?” he asked. “A wife, I mean to say.”
“God, yes.” But it had to be Charity. It could only be Charity.
“Wise man.” A crooked grin tugged at the right-hand corner of Chris’ mouth. “The right one is a great deal of fun. Off you go, now. I’ve got a wife in dire need of a spanking.” And he closed the door in Anthony’s face, bellowing his wife’s name once more as he went.
Anthony descended the steps, heading for his carriage. He had a direction. Or most of one, at least. But it was far too late—or early, depending upon one’s point of view—to set out for the countryside now. Tomorrow, then, after a proper night’s sleep…and after he’d handled a few necessary details.
∞∞∞
“I’ve never known you to be so morose,” Mercy said as she cast herself down upon the sofa across from the one upon which Charity lay in a spiritless sprawl within the drawing room, where she had tossed herself just after breakfast. “Honestly, it’s a bit depressing.”
Just exactly what one wished to hear when in the throes of despair. “You’re meant to be comforting me, you know,” Charity declared. Or tried to, though it was a rather difficult thing to do with her face buried into the plush fluff of the pillow she’d wedged beneath her head. “I amheartbroken.”
“Really? I would swear it was only months ago you last swore your heart was far too hard to break,” Mercy said.
“Well, as it happens, I was wrong.” And how that wretched, worthless organ now ached. How woefully ironic it was that she had hardly noticed the softening of it within her chest until it had at last become tender enough to pierce.
“Come,” Mercy said. “I let you have a good cry upon my shoulder last night when first you arrived. The very least you could do is to give me the salacious details at last.”
“I did,” Charity bit out, aiming a reproving glare in Mercy’s approximate direction.
“Well, it was rather difficult to make out so much as a word through all of the sobbing,” Mercy said. “I thought it best only to make soothing noises and to pat your back.”
“Terribly sorry for the erroneous assumption that mysistermight be willing to comfort me in my hour of need,” Charity mumbled into the pillow. “Is being permitted to wallow in my self-pity for just a few days without having to make explanations for it too much to ask?”
“Between sisters? Yes.” Mercy dodged the spare pillow Charity lobbed at her. “Self-pity doesn’t suit you in the least, besides. And I do truly want to know what has set you in such a state, you know. I’ve sent Thomas out of the house for a stroll with the baby. It is only the two of us.”
“And Thomas’ mother,” Charity said. “And his sister. And your father.” All of whom had been perhaps too solicitous, which had made her feel always on the razor edge of tears. At least she had been spared the addition of Marina,Thomas’ middle sister, who was in the later stages of pregnancy and had been advised against traveling upon roads that had the tendency to turn dangerous this time of year. Probably she would have cracked entirely beneath even one more person dancing attendance upon her.
“You knew that when you chose to come,” Mercy said. “It’s Christmas. Bound to be family about.”
“It’s only just now December.”
“But it’s Flora’s first Christmas. That makes it particularly special.” Mercy gave a little sigh. “But I am glad you’ve come, even if it was heartbreak that brought you.”
Finally, a little sisterly sympathy. Charity flopped over onto her back, staring up at the high ceiling which was decorated in little frills of gold paint. “I was married,” she said. “And now I am not.” And, officially, she never had been.
“You were…” Mercy leaned forward, riveted. “I beg your pardon.Married?”
Charity gave a tight nod, cradling a pillow to her chest.
“But you said you had never been in love.”
“One needn’t be in loveto be married.” She gave a little shrug, awkward and pitiful. “I didn’t lie to you,” she said. “I thought I had long been widowed, so it hardly mattered whether or not I had been married, as I wasn’t any longer.”
“But you were,” Mercy said. “Still married, I mean to say.”
“Much to my surprise. And to his.”
“Yourbit of a situation,” Mercy said, quoting from the letter Charity had sent to her not too very long ago, as she curled her legs beneath her upon the sofa, attempting to find a more comfortable position. “It was a marriage?”
“It was. It isn’t any more.” Charity worried the fringe upon the pillow between her fingers, ruining the delicate threads. “In the eyes of the Church, it was never anything at all. We secured an annulment.”
