When he thought he might go mad, he had the footmen help him move to the settee by the window. It was a herculean effort, one he would never mention to anyone based on how much it unmanned him, and he could only hope his servants were loyal in their silence. One man was entirely dedicated to carrying his leg and the heavy plaster while another was responsible for keeping his nightshirt in place. At least he could try to maintain some kind of dignity.
In the end, it had been worth it. If he had had to remain abed a single day more, he didn’t know what would happen.
Especially as his mind swam with images of his wife with other men. Her long legs wrapped around some man’s torso as he—
He tossed back the last of his tea, wishing it were something stronger. He peered around him at the carts Mrs. Olds had left with tea fixings and breakfast. He’d touch hardly any of it. The low table beside him was strewn with discarded newspapers and empty teacups. Sitting atop it all was his bowl of butterscotch candies, and he reached for one now.
Tucking the sweet morsel in his cheek, he turned his attention back to the window to properly brood.
It was one of those winter days when the sky was so blue and empty, he could feel the cold of the air even from where he sat indoors, ensconced in blankets and bathed in the heat of the fire. His rooms overlooked the gardens at the back of the estate, and in the middle of winter, it was all rather dreadful. Where there should have been color, there was drab and brown and emptiness.
If he were the maudlin sort, he would say it was a reflection of his soul. He wasn’t, and yet, staring at the brown tangle of the barren rose bushes below, he could understand how they felt.
He’d never thought Viv would take a lover.
Now that it had occurred to him, he figured himself daft for not thinking it earlier. Of course, Viv would take a lover. She was beautiful and vibrant. Any gentleman would seek her attentions. How could he have been so stupid?
He scratched at his cheek where the bandage continued to irritate. The doctor wanted the stitches left in for a few more days, but Ryder could feel them tug every time he tried moving his jaw. While he was sure everyone was quite concerned for the possibility of fever, he considered this ongoing irritation hellish. The fever had been hardly a foe at all. Now the real recovery began.
Once the stitches were removed, he would feel marginally better. Although his arms itched where the skin was still healing, and he could only move his shoulder as far as the stitches there would allow. He’d bribed Mrs. Olds into getting him a jar of that magical salve Viv concocted.
It was more than a week after his accident, and he still had difficulty raising his arms. As soon as he attempted it, tightness spread through his chest and pain had his breath hissing between his teeth.
Broken rib? Perhaps. But the dear Dr. Malcolm thought it more likely the muscle strain from the accident. According to the men who had found him, it appeared Ryder had been thrown over the top of the phaeton and landed directly on the hard earth before the seat of the phaeton had crushed his leg. The body absorbing such a shock was enough to leave him sore and frustratingly weak.
He remembered none of it, which was even more of a frustration.
He picked up his teacup again only to remember it was empty. He set it back down and ran his hand through his hair. God, he needed a bath. Viv had done her best while he was fevered to keep him clean, but he wanted nothing more than to dump a bucket of delicious warm water over his head. He eyed his plaster.
How was he to go about such a thing and not get the damn thing wet?
Viv would have his head if he ruined the plaster. The doctor would need to be called to reset it. No, it just wouldn’t do.
He reached for another butterscotch.
The knock at the door was sharp and startling. He knew only one person who knocked as such, and she’d been avoiding him all day.
She was wearing a blue gown he vaguely remembered from the early days of their marriage. It had a way of warming her, setting her hair alight and making her eyes sparkle. It was faded now, though, and he could see where she’d turned the cuffs up.
He puzzled at that, but she spoke before he could ask her of it.
“Mrs. Olds said you’re not eating. Are you feeling ill?”
He gave her a tight smile. “The servants are tattling on me, are they? I shall have to remember that when it comes time to evaluate their wages.”
She folded her hands in front of her and tilted her head with the slightest degree of arrogance. “I know you already had Reynolds allocate their Christmas stipends, so you will not convince me of your miserly ways. You were rather more generous than usual this year. Feeling guilty about something?”
He felt a responding sense of kinship at the sarcasm in her voice, but he didn’t like the direction her words had taken. If she only knew of the legions of guilt he carried with him.
“You’re rather fetching today, Your Grace. Are we to be receiving callers?”
“Hardly.” She glanced out the window as if gathering herself. “If I am to be in residence for the foreseeable future, I think it a wise use of my time to inventory the household goods. Mrs. Olds and I are working on the silver services today.”
“There’s more than one silver service?”
“We’re currently at seven, but we haven’t gone through the east wing drawing rooms as of yet.”
“The Duchesses Margate did enjoy a good silver service, did they not?”
She seemed to consider him before her eyes slid slowly shut as if in pain or frustration. When she opened them again, he didn’t like the tiredness he saw there.
“Ryder, would it be too hard for you to be serious for once? I really must know if you are not feeling well.”
He hated seeing the weariness on her face, and more, he worried he was the cause of most of it.
“I am quite well. I’m just not feeling particularly hungry is all.” He scratched at his beard. “I wouldn’t mind a bath, however, if you’re offering.”
The smirk came to his lips before he could stop it, but when he saw the tight expression on her face, he felt instant regret.
“Ah, I see what you mean.” He picked at the blankets covering his legs. “Perhaps I’ve spent too much time in frivolous company. I appear unable to converse in a serious fashion.”
It wasn’t that, though. He knew only too well how quickly the restlessness returned if he should assume any manner of seriousness. If he never spoke a single word of import, he could pretend the blackness wasn’t licking at his heels.
Only he didn’t like the tightness that came to his chest when he saw Viv’s disappointed expression.
“I would, indeed, enjoy a bath. Do you think one might be arranged?”
Her eyes were watchful as if she waited for him to slip into humor once more. He wasn’t surprised to find it was easier with her to have a serious conversation. The need to be flippant and humorous wasn’t quite so strong.
He felt the pull of her, the calming, the easiness, the peace. He had been right to seek her out. He didn’t know how he had known it, but he had. Viv could banish the restlessness for good. He knew she could.
“I think we can devise something that should work. You must be careful of the plaster. I don’t think Dr. Malcolm will be keen on redoing it.”
He gave her an honest smile now. “I promise I shall do my best.”
She considered him once more with that wary eye, and he didn’t like it. Again, he felt the fool for thinking she had been waiting for him, pining for him. Lady Vivianna Darby waited for no one and pined for nothing. He should have realized that.
Did that mean all was lost?
No, he simply couldn’t accept that.
But perhaps his usual roguish ways wouldn’t be enough. If she wanted sincere, he could be sincere.
“I’ll speak with Mrs. Olds, and we’ll see what can be done.” She hesitated. “This would be a great deal easier if only you employed a valet.”
He pursed his lips. “He would only slow down the phaeton.”
She did not bid him good day when she left, and he hoped that meant he would be seeing her again at some point. His plan had seemed much more inclined to be met with success when he had the function of both of his legs. It wouldn’t do for him to continuously watch her leave him, stranded on whatever surface he currently found himself. He hoped Daniel was making progress with the Bath chair.
Mrs. Olds soon arrived with a flourish of footmen, a copper tub, a trove of towels and flannels, and a veritable train of maids carrying steaming pitchers of water.
“You’re not to get your plaster wet, Your Grace,” Mrs. Olds said from where she conducted the troop of servants.
“Yes, ma’am. I have been told as much.”
Mrs. Olds’s look was swift. “Then you should know how much your behavior will affect a certain person’s perception of you.”
Mrs. Olds had been housekeeper at Margate Hall since he had been in the nursery, and it was not unusual for her to give him cloaked guidance, no matter the topic. Including the relations between him and his estranged wife.
“I had an inkling of such.”
She folded her hands in front of her as the maids filled the copper tub that had been set on the floor beside him. Once all the pitchers had been emptied, the level of water was easily within reach, and he yearned for a wet flannel to run along his neck.
He eyed Mrs. Olds. “This will do nicely. Thank you.”
The footmen and maids filtered out, but Mrs. Olds remained.
“Is there something else you would desire for luncheon, Your Grace? You seem uninterested in the cart that was brought to break your fast.”
He was ready to dismiss her with a halfhearted reply when he recalled the reason for Viv’s visit earlier. If he were to stay in her good graces, he would need to make a small effort at least. Even if that included consuming his meals.
“I should be interested in some stew if Cook has it. This cold weather has me in mind of something warm.”
Mrs. Olds gave a bow. “Of course. I shall see to it immediately.”
As she made her way to the door, he picked up his cup again only to find it empty like it had been the first three times he’d tried it.
“Mrs. Olds,” he called before she could close the door behind her.
She peered back at him around the edge of the door. “Yes, Your Grace?”
He was prepared to ask for a fresh pot of tea when something stopped him, a niggling sensation of a recent conversation poking at his memory.
“Mrs. Olds, do the footmen still brew a batch of beer from the leftover hops?”
Mrs. Olds stepped back inside, her hands falling away from the door.
“Yes, it is a custom the footmen still maintain.”
“Might they have any left from a recent batch?”
Mrs. Olds’s expression remained unchanged. “Yes, I believe they might.”
“I should like a tankard brought up with my luncheon.”
“You should like a tankard of the house ale brought up with your luncheon?” While her expression remained stoic, she was not so good at keeping the incredulity from her voice.
The house ale was traditionally only consumed by the servants as it was deemed to be of lesser quality.
“Yes, I should very much like that.”
She gave a nod. “Very good,” she said and shut the door behind her.
He shucked his banyan and nightshirt as soon as he was alone, wincing only a little at the sore muscles in his arms and the pull of his stitches. The first touch of the warm water against his fingertips was heaven, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he might coax more kisses from his wife if he didn’t smell like soured cabbage.
Viv tried to concentrate on the pile of pillowcases she held in her hands, but when she counted them for the third time and still could not remember the correct count, she gave up.
“Mrs. Olds, do you think the number of pillowcases is adequate for the number of guest rooms currently in order?”
“It should be quite adequate, I would think, ma’am. Most of the guest rooms remain closed up as Margate does not often see visitors.”
The housekeeper spoke with a neutral tone, but her words held a bite Viv could not avoid. Margate Hall did not see visitors because the duke and the duchess were never in residence together.
Until now that was.
Ryder usually floated from one country house party to the next, and Viv spent her summers at one of her family’s homes. She’d come to Margate only once in the time of their separation for the summer, and it was immediately after she’d seen Eliza wed.
Eliza had given her something to think over, and Viv did her best thinking away from the demands of her family.
It was hard to believe that Eliza and Dax had encountered disaster immediately after their marriage, but it was at her worst that Eliza had said something to Viv that had upset her belief that her marriage could ever be saved.
Eliza had asked her if Viv had ever spoken to Ryder about what she wanted their marriage to be like.
The thought had honestly never occurred to her. She’d been wildly in love with Ryder from the moment he’d asked her to dance at the Merriweather ball. Her debut had been delayed by her father’s death, and she’d thought herself older and wiser than the other debutantes. She couldn’t possibly fall for Margate’s roguish charms.
But she had.
She’d fallen hard.
They were wed before the end of the season, and she was proud to be seen on Ryder’s arm. She’d thought that’s what it meant to be loved, to be put on display like that. She hadn’t realized it wasn’t love at all. It was merely ostentatiousness.
Ryder had been showing her off. He hadn’t been in love with her.
She’d never thought to speak to him about what she wanted from a marriage. At such a painfully young age, she couldn’t have said what she wanted. But she knew now. She not only knew what she wanted, she had other things she wanted from him. Things that required him to have a civil conversation with her.
She’d doubted him capable of such a thing. He was always the quickest wit. But the previous morning in his bedchamber, he’d given her the very reason to doubt.
He’d revealed a flaw.
Ryder never admitted to any deficiency of any kind, but he’d said he had been in the company of too many frivolous people, and it may have affected his manner. She wanted to chalk it up to an excuse well played, but it was the look in his eyes when he’d said it that bothered her.
It was as if he’d found fault with himself.
Ryder was a bastion of confidence, a near god among men. He’d never once shown an ounce of indecision, a modicum of doubt. He was the Rogue Duke of the ton.
But not that morning.
That morning he had turned his gaze inward and found something lacking.
It rattled her. It had her questioning everything she had believed about her marriage during those four long, lonely years.
Could she simply talk to Ryder?
He had suggested, too, that his reputation was largely a matter of ton gossip, and its sizable nature had no merit in truth. The topic had not come up again, and she would not be the one to raise it. Therefore, it left her with further questions and an even greater sense of indecision.
Could she have the conversation she had imagined time and again and dismissed because of her husband’s hedonistic attitude?
Perhaps she could.
The holidays had given way to the icy cold of January, and the sea wind had taken a sharp turn. The gardens were dormant even though the sun was bright in the winter sky. But there was something about its bleakness that gave her hope.
What was it about the possibilities found in a new beginning? She’d never thought of it before, but maybe now it might just apply to her.
Her thoughts were shattered by the opening of the guest room door. She and Mrs. Olds had made their way to the opposite end of the east wing from the family rooms, and she had considered it progress until she could no longer count the pillowcases in her hands.
She turned to see which maid or footman was returning from a task she’d sent them on when she found no servant at all.
Instead she found Ryder’s leg.
At least, she assumed it was his leg as it was a solid block of plaster pushing its way through the door. She dropped the last of the pillowcases, not noticing where they landed as she made her way to the door. She thought she might have spoken his name, but she couldn’t be sure. Her heart raced at the sight of the bright white plaster, suspended in the air by a—well, she didn’t know what it was.
The leg proceeded to float into the room until it was followed by the rest of her husband, sitting comfortably in the contraption that held his leg aloft.
“Hello, wife,” he said with exuberance. “I thought I would visit you on your duties for the day.”
She blinked.
While she could have anticipated he’d try something to get out of the sickroom, she had not imagined this.
“Whatever are you doing?” She pointed an accusatory finger. “And what is that?”
“Daniel made it for me. Isn’t it brilliant?”
“It’s not brilliant at all. It’s entirely reckless. I should think you might not have a care for yourself, but you could at least think of—”
Me.
She stopped the telling word before it could trip from her mouth.
She swallowed. “What is it?” she asked again.
Ryder’s expression had dimmed somewhat from the exuberance it had displayed when he’d entered the room, and he watched her carefully now. She could feel the heat at her cheeks and willed herself not to pull at the suddenly tight collar of her gown.
Seeing him in that contraption seemed to have sparked a rush of concern for her husband that was entirely unwarranted. She shouldn’t care about his person as he so clearly didn’t care about himself, and yet—
She swallowed and fixed her gaze on him, settling her hands at her hips to still their shaking.
“It’s a modified Bath chair. I asked Daniel to build it for me.”
She studied the elaborate device in which he was ensconced. “It looks like one of those velocipedes.”
He sat between two large wheels, his hands firmly affixed to flat, rectangular pedals that seemed to be connected to the front wheels through a series of gears and chains. His broken leg sat perfectly snug in a wooden channel built between the two front wheels.
She forced her eyes to his. “And who the hell is Daniel?”
A small smile played at the corners of his lips, but she didn’t care.
“Daniel Stoker. He’s apparently the village blacksmith, but I knew him as a boy. He was the hops manager’s son here on the estate.”
“I don’t care if he’s the Archbishop of Canterbury. He obviously has no regard for your health either if he thought to—”
“He was doing a favor for an old friend.”
His voice had gone soft and careful, and it had the effect of forcing her gaze to steady on his. She felt a hypnotizing wave of calm wash over her as if he were putting her into a trance.
She wasn’t sure how long she held his gaze, but it was the most intimate thing she’d done with her husband in four years. Slowly, her heart returned to a normal beat, and she relaxed her hands from her hips.
“How did you get into that thing?”
“My skilled and competent bevy of footmen. They are getting rather good at moving a grown man from one seated position to another.”
His eyes cast downward to his broken leg, and for the first time, Viv felt a spike of remorse. She swallowed again and looked about them, suddenly realizing they were alone. Mrs. Olds must have slipped out when Ryder had arrived, leaving the two of them to some privacy.
“I see.” She didn’t like how her throat had suddenly grown tight. “I trust the bath worked out to your liking.”
She spoke the words before she realized what she was about and immediately regretted it.
His smile was slow and carried with it just enough heat to let her know he was letting her off easy. “The bath accomplished its task. Although I can say the experience could have been more…pleasurable.”
His words were just on the right side of sultry, and she didn’t like how they poked at her defenses.
“I’m sure I can summon one of your mistresses to provide you with a better experience should you wish.”
Silence sparked between them, so deep and profound she thought her ears would ring with it forever.
Never had she spoken so boldly to him. His infidelities were something mentioned only in analogies and euphemisms. She had not once mentioned the existence of his lovers as simple fact.
Now that the words were out, something shifted between them. It was as though reality hadn’t been quite what it should have been and with the truth spoken, the world righted itself to its proper footing.
Confidence coursed through as the ringing silence receded, and Viv folded her hands calmly in front of her.
Ryder looked down, fiddling with the tie of his banyan.
“That won’t be necessary.” His tone was neither defensive nor sardonic. It was simply honest.
She recalled the previous morning when his honesty had unnerved her, and she worried at her lower lip, wondering what was transpiring between them. It was as though the past four years vanished, and in its place was nothing but a blank void on which they could build a new foundation.
She didn’t trust it.
“Viv, I owe you an apology.” He didn’t look up as he said the words, but she could see where the corners of his mouth had tightened, as though what he was about to say required a great deal of strength. “I had no right to question your affairs. Your personal relationships are yours alone.” Finally, he looked up and the starkness in his gaze captured her breath. “I gave up my right to your loyalty years ago.”
The silence rang back in her ears, flooding her senses while she tried to regain her breath.
Thankfully, he continued, saving her the need to find words in her jumbled thoughts.
“I actually came here to ask you to sup with me in my rooms. I know it’s nothing so extravagant as partaking of our meal in the dining room, but I find I should very much enjoy the pleasure of your company.”
She remembered exactly what he had looked like the first time he had bowed to her. He wore all black, so crisp and severe, and yet she thought him so dashing. There hadn’t been the fine lines that bracketed his eyes now, nor the crease along one side of his mouth, evidence of his one-sided smile. His brow had been unworried and his smile genuine. She might have fallen in love with him at that very moment.
Now as she stood before him, covered in dust in her oldest gown, he in the contraption that allowed him some form of mobility, his black hair a tumbled mess about his battered face, she knew she could fall in love with him again.
And it frightened her.
“Yes, I should think that can be arranged.” Her tone was as formal as his, and she waited for him to make his usual sarcastic comment, but nothing came.
He only smiled at her with a softness that warmed her heart. She licked her lips, willing her defenses to hold.
He gave a nod then. “I shall look forward to it.”
He turned himself about using the hand pedals of his chair and wheeled silently from the room, leaving her to wonder why her heart was racing.