Chapter Forty

Eliza looked at her husband and suddenly understood what it meant to drink in with one’s eyes. For that was what he did—he drank her in, as though he had spent months in the Sahara and she was an oasis of cool water. There were purple shadows under his eyes and a pallor to his skin that hinted at late, unhappy nights.

Her heart squeezed remorsefully in her chest. Should she have come here to Hyacinth? Perhaps it would have been better to go straight to Perivale and have it out with him there. But then he wouldn’t know.

“Have you been here long?” he asked with studied casualness as he followed her into the house.

“Four days.”

She heard him stumble behind her, but she did not turn.

“Four days? You must have come straight here, only moments after reading my letter.”

She whirled on him, unable to keep the frustrated howl from her voice. “You left me.”

“It was for your own good, you know.”

He said it with such compassion and gentleness that she was tempted to smack him in the back of his head in hopes that some sense was thus transmitted to his brain. Good God, he actually believed his own lies. The darling dunderhead.

“Decided that all on your own, did you?” she asked, her voice syrupy sweet. “One might wonder why you did not consult with me, the person best able to advise you on matters pertaining to myself. But then you would have learned that you are wrong. You might even have been forced to face the truth, and heaven knows we couldn’t have that.”

He eyed her warily. “Eliza, listen to me. It is better this way. You can have the life you always hoped for. Live here. Write your books. Be happy.”

“Hmm.” She made a show of considering his words, looking about her with a pleased expression. “It is lovely here, I must say. I wasn’t sure it would live up to the picture in my head—it has been so long since I was here last, I was but a little girl, really—but it is everything I hoped it would be, although of course I wish Riya were here. I do miss her so.”

“You… You miss her,” he said.

“Of course I do! We had intended to live here together, Riya and I. Isn’t it fair that I miss her, now that I am here and she is not?”

“Yes,” he agreed, sounding a good deal less than enthused.

She made a humming sound and spun on her toes. “It is so much more than a room of my own. A whole house where I can truly be my own master and do everything precisely when and how I wish. The country suits me, but London suits me, as well. Fortunately, our marriage contract has ensured that I will always have enough funds to spend every Season in London. Yes, I do think I could be happy here.”

“Yes,” he said again.

She looked at him.

He looked at her.

“No, thank you,” she said.

“Yes— Pardon?” He sucked in a breath, then appeared to hold it for longer than was healthy.

“I said, no, thank you. I would have a wonderful life here, but no. I want to have a life with you.”

He frowned. “Even if it means your life will be much shorter because of it?” he asked sharply.

“Ah!” she said softly. “And now we come to the truth of it.”

“This is what you wanted. This.” He threw his arms wide, indicating the walls around them. “Not a marriage. Not children. Not death.” His voice rose with each furious word.

She gave him a pitying look. She did not relish hurting him so, but there was no other way.

“Why do you not understand?” he said. “It is for your own good. I cannot promise you won’t die bringing our child into the world. Women do sometimes, as we have both admitted. Your own mother. Your stepmother. Women of my own acquaintance, as well. Hell, even Princess Charlotte, not four months ago. You must be reasonable about this.” He was fairly raging at her now.

“And still, I choose you.”

He looked at her silently for a long moment. “No,” he said at last. “No, I don’t think I can allow that.”

The words were a knife to the heart. But she had known he wouldn’t make it easy. She gritted her teeth, absorbed the blow, and fought her way through it. “You, my love, are a coward.”

“I never claimed to be otherwise.”

“One cannot escape life unscathed.”

“Haven’t I been scathed enough?” he demanded.

“Haven’t I, as well? It is too late, Sebastian. You cannot protect yourself from pain, not even if you lock me away in this cottage forever. That is what it means to love someone. You love me.” She hoped that was true, though he had never admitted it out loud, or very likely even to himself.

He did not deny it, but neither did he admit it. Instead, he closed his eyes, swallowed hard. When he opened them again, the expression she saw there was fit to break her heart.

“It is simply this,” he said. “Nothing has broken my heart like loving has, and yet I cannot breathe without you. If you were to die, I would be forced to die, as well. I would never survive it. I would go in a corner and stop breathing.”

Her own breath came in rapid bursts. She struggled with the urge to throw herself in his arms. He wasn’t ready, not yet. “Well,” she said mildly, “this might come as a shock to you, but I hardly expect to survive my own death myself.”

He stared at her. His mouth twitched as though fighting a smile. “Do not jest. It is very serious.”

“Yes, yes. Death is always serious.” She waived a hand impatiently. “I have spent much of my life ardently trying to avoid it. But death comes in many forms other than childbirth. Carriage accidents, for example.”

His jaw opened and then snapped shut. He shook his head in denial.

“Of course, I think the odds are more likely that I will die in childbirth than in a carriage. But I can’t really know for certain, can I? What I do know is this. I would rather have a short life with you than a long life without you.”

“I won’t survive it,” he said again.

“Everyone thinks that. And yet…somehow…we do.”

He made a sound that was almost a sob. She went to him then, knowing she had won, knowing it hurt him that it should be so. She enfolded him in her arms, and at last he surrendered. He buried his face against her neck as she stroked his hair soothingly.

“Separate bedrooms,” he said firmly, his voice muffled. “We don’t have to do…that.”

She pulled back to give him an incredulous look. “Darling, do you really think we can resist? For even a fortnight, much less the rest of our lives?” The mere continuance of humanity was a clear indicator otherwise. She was not the first woman to consider that progeny could result in death, and yet progeny continued on.

“No,” he said morosely.

She held him closer.

He hesitated. “But there are…methods…precautions…we could take. French letters and so forth. Nothing that is entirely certain to work, and I must admit that success seems to fade with every passing year. But we could at least try.”

She gave him a searching look. He was serious. “But you want an heir.”

“I want you alive,” he said fiercely.

“All right,” she said. “We will try.”

They held each other for long, peaceful moments. And then he said, “Damn it all.”

“What is it?” she asked.

He was frowning down at her in obvious bemusement, his forehead puckered with consternation. “There was something I wanted to tell you. I am always forgetting, it seems. What was it? Ah, yes, I remember.” His forehead cleared, and his eyes were softly ablaze. “I love you, Eliza.”

She caught his face in her hands, bringing him closer for her kiss. “Then it is a very good thing I love you, as well, Sebastian.”