Chapter Twelve
Exmore needed to tell Annalise about Patrick’s return. They had promised to be honest with each other, and yet, he harbored this little deceit. For the life of him, he couldn’t comprehend the spell Patrick had over her. She possessed a nimble, curious mind and spirited personality. Although Patrick was intelligent enough, he didn’t share Annalise’s passion for learning. His mind was an uncluttered, unquestioning place dictated by the rules of Society. Her love for Patrick made no sense.
Exmore harbored the idea that if he took good enough care of Annalise, he could make her forget Patrick. This notion was irrational to his thinking mind, because he had given every last drop of his love to Cassandra, but it had never altered her heart. Annalise’s situation was different. Patrick didn’t love her. The love was all on her side, and it wasn’t a secret. Exmore had walked into this marriage with his eyes wide open to the situation.
Nonetheless, in his heart, he could feel the cold winds blowing Patrick’s sails back to England. What would happen when she saw him? He dreaded to learn. It was one thing to know she loved another man. It would be quite another to see that love shining in her eyes. So he remained silent, protecting his beautiful marriage to his dear friend for as long as he could.
Theirs was an easy union. There was an abundance to Annalise—she listened, she talked, she laughed, she embraced without reservation. His all-consuming love for Cassandra had drained his energies. He had always been concerned about what she was thinking, always trying to make her happy—something he now realized he could never have done. What Cassandra had taken, Annalise gave back tenfold.
He cherished how when he walked into a room to find her, a spontaneous smile curved her lips at his sight. When he sat beside her, she automatically reached out to touch him or kiss his cheek. She desired to know the trivial details of his life. She asked about his work in Parliament, the management of estates, even boring business details. At breakfast, they would often read the morning journals and discuss the same articles. He found he didn’t want to attend clubs anymore, because staying at home and conversing with his wife was far more enjoyable. And he liked being there to help her along in her new life.
The idea of overseeing the domestic details of multiple estates intimidated Annalise, even though she had managed her parents’ home for several years. Exmore did his best to allay her fears, always ready with an encouraging compliment or needed support. Because she was new to the household, she couldn’t readily see, as Exmore could, how the staff had fallen under her spell. She took sincere interest in the lives of their staff, inquiring about the health and family of even the lowest scullery maid. She, with the help of her loyal Mrs. Bailey, sought out little ways to improve the stations of their servants, including designating more living quarters, rationing more tea and candles, and having newer garments sewn.
Each day with Annalise carried that tingling excitement akin to children planning their day’s adventure. One or two times a week, Exmore and Annalise visited Kew Gardens or attended lectures together, where she would sit forward in her seat, mesmerized. He chuckled to himself that his wife was more entranced by comets or the chemical elements than how to fashion her bonnet. Later, they might wander to their favorite tea shop, where they stayed too long, lost in conversation, while secretly holding hands beneath the table. On days when they remained at home, one or all of Annalise’s cousins might call with her Aunt Sally. Although Annalise wouldn’t admit it, Exmore could see she was quietly exerting her own sway over her cousins, drawing them away from her uncle’s influence and expanding their education. Exmore, to his surprise, found he didn’t mind their boisterous presence. He enjoyed having a family about. An effervescent happiness filled his London house, which had been dormant with gloom for too long.
In the evenings, he and Annalise ventured to the parties, where they remained at each other’s side as they met other couples. But as the hours wore on, Annalise would give him a dusky, sensual look, and he would immediately call for the carriage to take them home. There, they would make love into the early hours. Then he would drift off to sleep with the comforting warmth of her body against his. In the morning, they would make love again.
One of the many things that endeared him to his new wife was her unabashed lusty nature. Often, an innocent little kiss in his parlor led to a frolic on his desk. He was making love more frequently than he ever had in his life. It was only a matter of time before Annalise began increasing. He couldn’t dispel the remaining fear from Cassandra’s sad pregnancy. It remained lodged inside him, even as he tried to reassure himself with what the physicians had told him. Cassandra’s condition had been a rare one, further compounded by an acute chill.
However, one early morning several weeks after their marriage, Exmore tried to push down the anxious thoughts of Annalise’s pending pregnancy and Patrick’s return as the fresh light fell softly on Annalise’s sleeping face. For the first time in a long, long while, he was happy.
He brushed Annalise’s creamy shoulder with his lips, taking in her sweet, earthy scent—the flower and the soil. She smiled in her light sleep. He studied her a moment more, marveling at the serenity that enveloped her, and then rose and donned his robe, which had draped the vanity chair. He glanced about his wife’s chamber, taking in the objects and things that were hers—the Indian shawl he gave her, her perfume bottle, the simple ruby necklace that had been her mother’s. He had kissed her neck as he had unclasped it when they returned from the theater the previous evening, and then he had slowly proceeded to remove the remainder of her clothes. He smiled at the remembrance of their lovemaking.
He walked quietly by the walls, studying her father’s images hanging there. He would never tell her that he thought she possessed far more talent, both artistically and scientifically, than her father. He stopped at her writing desk where the leather portfolios of her work rested. He opened the top one, so he could view her drawings and descriptions. He enjoyed studying them alone when he could slowly take in all the different elements she labored over. Otherwise, she would anxiously flit about him, finding fault in her stunning work.
He realized he had the wrong portfolio when he drew out a correspondence. He was carefully putting it back when the name Patrick leaped off the page. He hesitated and glanced at the bed. His wife made a soft humming sound as she shifted in her sleep.
No, he shouldn’t read her correspondence. He started to replace the page, but then yanked it out again.
Dear Patrick, I’ve made a horrible mistake. What have I done? What have I done? It was supposed to be you. I was supposed to marry you…
What?
He reread and reread the words, as if the more he read them, he could, somehow, make them unreal. His heart raced as he pulled out more and more letters. He couldn’t stop himself. Dear Patrick… Dear Patrick… There must have been thousands of letters. A sickening sensation knotted in his gut.
“Dearest,” she murmured from her bed. She patted about, looking for him, and then rose up, rubbing her eyes. She was naked, her breasts exposed. “There you are,” she said and smiled. “Come back to bed.”
He gripped the pages, black rage consuming him. “What is this?”
Her lips parted as she took in the letters in his hand. “Oh no,” she whispered. “It’s—it’s not what it seems.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Sarcasm permeated his voice. “Because on the day of our marriage, you wrote that you were supposed to marry Patrick.” He swallowed, his throat contracting in pain. “How could… how could you do this when—when you knew…”
“I didn’t mean… I didn’t… I…” She glanced down, her shoulders dropping, resigned. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so very sorry.”
Her apology hardly satisfied him. More and more anger poured into him, as if it gushed from some hidden reserve inside him. “You wrote all these letters to Patrick. The man who thanked me for disentangling him from ‘an ambitious, witless, unmanageable piece of fluff.’”
Her head jerked up. Her eyes were wet. “He—he said that?” Her voice cracked.
He approached her, the letters still gripped in his hand. “He doesn’t love you, Annalise. Don’t you understand?” He repeated his words again, pronouncing each syllable as if he could hammer them into her mind. “He doesn’t love you!” He shook his head in disbelief. “How many letters are here? How many did you write him?” He flung the pages he held at the bed. They scattered on the sheets where they had made love only hours before. “Did he ever send you one letter? Just one?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “No,” she choked.
He paced, running his hands down his face. The past seemed to have crashed into the present. Everything was coming back again, recombining into new, grotesque forms.
She pulled up the covers, hiding her body as if ashamed.
“What… what is wrong with you?” he whispered.
“I was lonely. I… couldn’t talk to—to anyone.”
He knew this to be true when she was alone in the country with her parents, but it didn’t mitigate his anger. She had written to Patrick on their wedding day! “Well, you’re in luck, my dearest,” he spat. “You can give him all these letters when he arrives in London. You can tell him how you were supposed to marry him and not me.”
“He’s coming to London?”
The hope in her voice broke him. His ire transmuted to something icy, black, and deep.
“Yes, he should arrive any day.”
“H-how long have you known this?”
“Since I saw you at the print shop.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The look on her face—the love was still there—felt like a hard punch to his gut.
“Why?” he demanded. “What difference would it make? Would you not have married me?”
She drew in, lowering her head.
“Do you still love him, Annalise?”
She bit the edge of her lip. Tears dripped off her chin onto her chest.
“Do you? We’re also supposed to be honest with each other. Do you love him?”
“I—I suppose. I—”
“Suppose? You suppose?” he shouted. “I love you.” The words came out before he realized he had said them. He had never admitted to himself that he loved Annalise. He hadn’t allowed himself, because he had fallen too quick to trust himself—because he hadn’t wanted to be vulnerable again. Yet, the words tumbled out, raw and bleeding. He studied her, waiting, hoping she wouldn’t break his heart. Hoping some miracle would salvage the moment. Please, Annalise.
“But—but we are friends,” she stammered.
He grabbed another handful of letters from her portfolio and tossed them at the fire grate.
“No!” She rushed from the bed and snatched up the pages, crushing them to her naked chest.
He stared at her, thinking he might cry himself, as she huddled protectively over the letters. How was this happening again?
“Why did you do this to me?”
He tore from the room.
* * *
Annalise had gone too far. She had said words she couldn’t take back. A hundred I’m sorrys wouldn’t suffice. She revisited the morning scene over and over, but she couldn’t correct it. What had happened would calcify into a painful memory.
He loved her. Her own husband loved her. Why did she feel miserable? She would do about anything to have those wild, obsessive feelings for Exmore that she had for Patrick. And even in this lowest of moments, she couldn’t keep down the flutter of excitement in her wretched, cruel heart knowing Patrick was coming.
She decided she would be as affectionate, as lovely as possible to her husband, trying to make up for the truth she couldn’t hide. But a quiet voice tugged at her conscience, reminding her that he had known. He had known all along about her feelings for Patrick. He had known she didn’t love him, and he had advocated a marriage of friendship. And then he changed the rules and threw everything in her face.
Nonetheless, the morning after his discovery of the letters, she sought him out, wanting to beg for his forgiveness. He was nowhere to be found. For hours, she waited, her frantic mind immediately jumping to the worst conclusions: He had gone to a hell and was drinking and gambling. What if a woman approached him? She couldn’t bear the thought of him with another. Yet, he was a marquess, and many married peers openly kept mistresses. She tried to tell herself that she was being unrealistic, yet these anxious thoughts continued to whirl in her mind as she went about her day, answering correspondences, meeting with the housekeeper about domestic matters, and greeting morning callers. She and Exmore had begun making friends with other married couples. It took so much strength to smile and laugh along with friends as if nothing was wrong. She sat across from the couples, watching their affectionate little glances at each other and felt like an impostor.
She should have gone to Holland and spared Exmore this pain. She had only tried to do what she thought was best. Exmore had told her that she made him happy, but she had to think he wasn’t very happy now.
Exmore finally reappeared in the early evening. He came to her parlor, where she was speaking with the butler about a monthly order from the wine merchant. With the servant present, she couldn’t leap from the table and embrace her husband as she wanted. The anger that had animated his face earlier was gone, replaced with coldness. He announced he planned to work in his library until Parliament began and walked out.
Once the butler left, she hurried to Exmore’s library. She tapped on the door and entered when he said, “Yes.” He glanced up.
She squeezed her hands together. “I’m so, so—”
“I have to know the details of this bill by Parliament,” he said. “I’m speaking.”
“Oh.” She swallowed and changed tactics. “Then do you mind if I sit on the sofa and read a few letters? I only want to be near you.” She often stretched out against him and read her correspondences with the beat of his heart in her ear.
“No, no, go ahead,” he said without looking up.
She nervously sank onto the cushion, keeping her back straight. She didn’t know what was worse—not having him around, or having him close, yet feeling separated by an invisible wall built of icy hostility. Two hours passed in this ugly silence. She would have preferred if he had verbally sparred with her or even glowered, rather than this cold nothingness.
Finally, he rose. “I must go. Enjoy your evening.” He strolled out. Not a kiss, not an embrace, not even a glance at her.
Now her own ire spiked. She wanted to chase after him and say, You can’t even hold a conversation with me about what happened?
Three hours later, a footman delivered a note from Exmore.
I apologize, but I will be unavailable to attend the theater this evening. I think your cousin Phoebe would enjoy taking my place.
Thank heavens for the excitable Phoebe. Her effervescent enthusiasm for the play and the leading man helped Annalise survive the play. She sat next to Annalise and whispered, “Oh my goodness, he’s handsome and charming. I’m wildly tingling all over.”
Annalise didn’t find him handsome at all. Her husband was handsome and charming. This actor, with his makeup and posturing, couldn’t hold a candle to Exmore. And the depressing production about star-crossed lovers who met terrible ends did little to help matters.
Exmore wasn’t home when she returned after midnight. Annalise lay in bed but couldn’t sleep. Tears streamed down her face. Hadn’t he said that she wouldn’t have to be alone anymore? Hadn’t he said their marriage of friendship would be full of laughter?
She wasn’t laughing.
In the early hours, she heard movement in her husband’s chambers. Where had he been? She dried her face on her sheets, rose, and tapped on his door.
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse.
She slowly entered. Her husband rested in his bed, his head propped against the headboard, an open journal in his hands. A candle burned on the side table. He smelled of brandy and cigar smoke. She wanted to ask where he had been. At the same time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“D-did you have a good evening?” she asked.
He set his journal beside him on the mattress. “Tolerable. And you?” He glanced up at her. This was the first time in the entire day that he had actually looked at her. She thought she might burst out in tears again.
“Phoebe had a fabulous time at the play.”
“It doesn’t take much to amuse her.”
“I wish I could be so easily entertained.”
“It’s a special gift,” he quipped.
For a passing moment, they had lapsed into their old rhythm of conversation, but then that moment faded away, and the raw silence returned.
“M-may I stay?” she asked.
He pushed the journal off the bed.
As she crawled under the covers, he snuffed the candle. She curled beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. She rubbed his chest with her hand, trying to release his tense muscles and get any tender response from him. She drifted her hand lower and pressed her thighs against his.
His hand locked onto her wrist. “Annalise, I need some time,” he said.
He turned onto his side, putting his back to her.
* * *
Each day of the following week felt like a fresh performance of the same play, only with different characters playing the minor roles. Annalise tried to reach out to Exmore, bringing his favorite books, speaking of subjects that once drew laughs, but the harder she tried, the more he retreated from her into a cold politeness.
Two weeks since her marriage seemingly fell apart, the gray morning found her staring at the blank page on her writing desk. No amount of tea could lift her doldrums. Her pen hovered over the page, her mind bursting with words to say, but she didn’t know who to tell them to. She couldn’t write to Patrick anymore. And her husband was actively avoiding her.
She hadn’t felt so despairing since the deaths of her parents. She had written to Patrick of her sadness then. Now, she had no one to talk to. She had gone beyond rationalizing what had happened that morning when Exmore discovered the letters. She wanted only to see the warm light in her husband’s eyes again, as when he used to gaze at her in that beautiful time before he found the letters.
The sound of a carriage pulling up outside the home yanked her from her thoughts. Oh no, not more callers. She didn’t think she was capable of making polite conversation without breaking down. She rose and crossed to the window, edging back the curtain. Her husband stepped down from the carriage. Her hurting heart rose at his sight. She turned and hurried down the stairs. The footmen were taking away his hat and gloves by the time she reached the bottom step.
“My dearest,” he said, bowing. She saw something in his eyes—sadness, love, yearning? It happened too fast to tell before that cold reserve was back.
She didn’t care if he pushed her away. She rushed to him and threw her arms around him.
“Ah, a happy greeting,” he quipped in her ear. “You must have heard that Patrick is back and coming to call today.”
* * *
Exmore felt his wife’s body stiffen when it had been so soft and open. She drew away from him and wrapped her arms about herself.
He didn’t know why he had said what he said. Some vengeful devil resided in him that, despite his best intentions, pushed Annalise away. He had rambled through the days, moving from club, to coffee house, to tea shop, to bookstore, to Parliament, to gaming hell, and all the while, she had consumed his thoughts. At hells, women had approached him, but their smiles, conversation, and touch had all grated. No one could replace Annalise.
Yet, whenever he was near Annalise, an ugly rage seized ahold of him that kept her at a distance. He knew what he had done wasn’t fair. Theirs was not a love match. He had known she still loved Patrick when he asked her to marry him, yet there had been something so visceral about the written words, It should have been you. Why did she have to write that sentiment?
His rational mind didn’t want to hurt Annalise, but his heart punished her for not loving him, and for Cassandra not loving him as well.
He had been musing over these thoughts earlier that morning when crossing Piccadilly. He had looked up and spied Patrick and his father approaching from the opposite direction. Before Exmore could pretend not to have seen them, Wallis nodded his head, acknowledging Exmore.
“Patrick, welcome back.” Exmore had greeted the men through tight lips when their paths met. Exmore remembered Patrick as a self-absorbed youth, that stage of young manhood when Patrick had possessed a very limited view of the world, and that narrow perspective had revolved entirely around himself. It had been an exuberant confidence born of ignorance. Exmore had looked into Patrick’s bright, unclouded eyes to see little had changed about the brash young man. The only visible difference was that Patrick was even more handsome, his face leaner and more tan, his frame larger and more muscular.
A mere bow hadn’t been good enough for Patrick. He had drawn Exmore into a hard, back-slapping embrace. “It’s great to be home,” Patrick had said. “Good to see you. My father tells me you married Miss Van Der Keer. My Miss Van Der Keer.” He had laughed, clearly having no hard feelings. “Something must have changed your mind after that harsh lecture you rang over me about her. Maybe you had your eye on her all along, eh?” More laughter.
Exmore hadn’t reminded Patrick that he had been married to another woman at the time of Patrick’s departure to India.
“Let us all go to the club and talk as proper gentlemen,” Wallis suggested. Wallis had exhibited a meekness around Exmore since the wedding.
Exmore excused himself, claiming he was on his way to meet with his man of business. Exmore remained coldly polite to Wallis out of familial duty, but he would never forgive the man for insulting Annalise.
“Then I shall call later today,” Patrick had said brightly, as if his visit would be the pinnacle of Exmore’s day and not the nadir.
Now, Exmore didn’t know how to feel. He wanted Annalise to witness how little Patrick cared for her. Yet, he didn’t want her to hurt even more. So much hung in the balance. The perilous game he had dared to play was ending. He wouldn’t emerge the winner.
Annalise had been right. Friendship wasn’t enough for a marriage. He couldn’t make Annalise love him, just as he hadn’t been able to make Cassandra love him. He had been a fool, and now he would see the consequences of his idiocy play out before his eyes. His heart ached like it had during those weeks after Cassandra’s death. What had he done?
* * *
Patrick arrived two hours later. Exmore met him in the drawing room.
Annalise didn’t come down, and Exmore began to think that she wasn’t coming. His relief was short-lived when he saw the door quietly open, and Annalise slipped into the room. She wore the same clothes as she had earlier. The sunlight glowed through the strands of hair falling from her lace cap.
Patrick, who had been thinking aloud about the kind of horse team he wanted to put together, trailed off mid-sentence. His lips parted. “Annalise,” he whispered.
Her eyes widened. Patrick stared at her, seeming to lose track of the moment. Then he shook his head as if awaking. He rose to his feet. “You look…” He gestured to his face. “Lovely. Quite lovely.”
For a long moment, neither Patrick nor Annalise spoke, but gazed at each other. Raw emotion saturated the air. Exmore’s heart felt like it was contracting. Why did he feel he was intruding on a tender lovers’ moment? And one of the lovers was his wife. He desired to stalk from the room, get on his horse, and leave behind London and the disaster his life had become.
“Please,” Annalise said to Patrick and gestured to a chair. She glanced at Exmore. He looked away. He wouldn’t let her see his pain.
“I’m sorry for my appearance.” Patrick nervously patted his richly embroidered waistcoat. “India’s finest tailors,” he scoffed.
Annalise slowly sat, her hands gripping the armrest. “Did you enjoy your time in India?” Her voice had turned breathy and soft.
“Every hour away from London was torment. Appalling climate and equally appalling inhabitants. I set forth making my way there and ignored the rest.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve read such delightful accounts of the customs and people. I thought that I should very much like to go.”
“Surely you can find more comfortable corners of the world than a mosquito- and dung-infested cesspool,” he quipped.
“But the art and traditions—”
Patrick waved his hand. “Ornate rubbish. All of it.” He rubbed his lips and chin while studying her again. “I can’t decide what about you has changed so radically. You are different. What have you been doing these years?”
Exmore waited for her to say that she had married. She made no mention of it, but said, “My parents died. I don’t know if you heard in India.”
Patrick visibly stiffened. “I’m sorry.” He paused, digesting the news. “I’m sorry. I remember how you were always telling me delightful stories about them. How you used to laugh about your father coming in from the fields with insects crawling all over him. And how your mother would sing louder than the other ladies in the church.”
“Yes,” Annalise whispered.
Exmore swallowed his bitterness. He didn’t know these stories.
“I wish I had known them,” Patrick said solemnly.
Another painfully laden silence infused the room. Exmore could hear the unspoken question that couldn’t be asked: What if Patrick had never left? Where would they all be now?
Patrick turned to Exmore. “So, when did you know she was the lady for you?” Beneath the amicable tone was a challenge.
Exmore wasn’t going to divulge anything about his feelings for his wife. He made a vague reference to the masquerade party. Patrick returned his pointed, bright gaze to Annalise. “Do you enjoy being a marchioness? You didn’t seem the sort when I knew you. Too casual and always laughing.”
“I—I’m still adjusting,” she stammered. “It’s very difficult some days.”
“Ah, but you must adore having parties,” Patrick continued. “Remember how we met at
Lady Denning’s musical evening? You challenged me to sing Bach, and I embarrassed myself, but did it to win your admiration.” He hesitated, considering his words, an introspection Exmore hadn’t seen in him before. “I… when I was in India, I would think about those days, you know. They seemed… sweeter. I missed them.”
Annalise regarded him for a moment, and then her eyes drifted to the window. Exmore couldn’t read her expression. Patrick had all but announced he had longed for her. She must be thinking about what would have happened if she hadn’t married Exmore. She would have been free to marry the man she had loved all along.
Exmore reached for the decanter on the table beside him.
Patrick continued digging about in his nostalgic memories. Annalise remained fixed on the window. Exmore sipped from his glass and followed Annalise’s gaze. A dull brown finch was perched on the sill. As soon as Exmore saw it, the bird flew away.
“I—I have a headache,” Annalise said suddenly, interrupting Patrick’s continuing reverie.
Patrick bolted from his chair and rushed to her as if Exmore wasn’t there. “I’m sorry. Let us send a servant for your present relief.” He touched her shoulder, and Annalise released a high, quiet hum.
Exmore rolled the burning brandy on his tongue and stifled the urge to strike Patrick.
Annalise’s eyes trailed down to where Patrick’s hand rested upon her. “No, thank you. I—I need to rest.” She crossed to the door and then stopped, turning back. “Welcome back to London, Mr. Hume. I hope you are happier here than in India.” She studied him a second more, then her eyes lit on Exmore. He busied himself pouring another brandy. She walked out of the room.
For a moment, neither man spoke. Exmore drank from his brandy, wishing he could hasten the glow of inebriation. He didn’t offer Patrick a glass.
“How extraordinary,” Patrick began, wagging his finger in the air. “I think you once said that she wasn’t fit to be a gentleman’s wife. Her nature was too wild and unyielding. When I defended her, you said she required more grace than she possessed to be my wife. Whatever changed your opinion of her?” He tried to make his words sound innocent. Exmore wasn’t tricked. He heard the accusation in them.
“Don’t remind me of what I said then,” Exmore growled.
“But I listened to you. I followed your advice. I sailed across the world because you told me to.”
Exmore shot to his feet. “You put up no resistance. You didn’t fight for her at all. You walked away from her, breaking her heart. She deserved better.”
Patrick opened his mouth and then shut it. After a pause, he said, “I broke her heart?” He seemed awed by this knowledge, his ego swelling at the realization that he possessed such power. “Well, I suppose you’ve mended it, haven’t you?” He chuckled, a low, menacing sound—a laugh he must have acquired in India. “Just don’t forget whom she loved first, my cousin. I could have had her.”
Exmore made no words of farewell to Patrick. He simply set down his glass and strode out. It was the best option to keep Patrick’s handsome face intact.
Exmore glanced up at the empty space that had once been occupied by Cassandra’s portrait as he walked up the stairs to Annalise’s chamber. Their marriage had ended in irreversible death. His and Annalise’s marriage would continue in name and nothing else. They couldn’t live in this tangled mess they were caught in, especially when the man she truly loved loitered about London.
He had made a mistake persuading Annalise to marry him. This sham of a marriage was his fault. Now he had to do his best to undo the damage he had inflicted, and then he would disappear into a gaming hell.
If she wanted Patrick, then he would give him to her. Exmore wouldn’t say a word against her if they were discreet about their affair. But Exmore wouldn’t wait around to witness the love she could never give to Exmore lavished on Patrick. Exmore wasn’t strong enough to feel that kind of pain. For a few beautiful weeks, Exmore had thought he could rise above the ashes of his life after Cassandra. He had believed he could build something new and strong, but he had based his hope on a shaky foundation.
Annalise had been right that night so many years ago when she had vehemently cried that she would love Patrick forever. She had been right that friends shouldn’t marry. What had he done to her? To himself?
He tapped on her door. “Annalise,” he whispered.
She opened the door. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks damp. Scattered across the floor were the letters to Patrick. They were strewn haphazardly, as if she had thrown them.
“Please, please,” she said and gestured him inside.
He drew in a steeling breath and began the proposal he didn’t want to make, a pragmatic solution to this sad union. He had only to get out the words, and then he could disappear into a numbing bottle of brandy for the next months. “Perhaps we can live separate lives—”
“Is it too late to say I love you?” she cried.
“What?” Had he heard her correctly? No. He was afraid to believe. His heart had been damaged by hope before.
“Is it too late to say I love you?” She pressed her hand to her mouth, sobs shaking her shoulders.
“Oh, Annalise,” he whispered. He tenderly drew the tear-wetted strands of hair away from her cheeks.
“I don’t know the man who called today. I surely don’t love him. I don’t even know him. All this time…” She closed her eyes. “What have I done? I’ve caused so much trouble out of my foolishness. I’ve missed you so terribly.”
“Hush,” he tried to soothe her. “Don’t let it trouble you.” Her misery ached in his own chest.
“I saw him next to you, and in my heart there was nothing for him. Nothing. Empty. All my love was for you. He was a stranger. But I wrote all those letters to him. Every day. I wasted so much time. And I drove you away. I hurt you. And yet, I can’t… I can’t…” She searched his face, looking for an explanation.
“You can’t what, my love?”
“I can’t burn the letters!” she cried. “You are right. Something is very wrong with me.”
“May I see them?” He knelt beside her and began to read.
My mother is in pain. She writhes. The medicines no longer help. I’m not ready to let her go. Is it selfish to still need your mama when you are grown?
He replaced that one with another.
My father taught me a game. I had to name all the birds that come to perch on our hedges. Now I know their names and calls. I see the beautiful coloring of bluebirds, the velvet red heads of the woodpeckers, and clever bead eyes of the crows. Once you stop and truly look, there is more and more to see.
Then he read:
The physician says my father has a few months to live. He bears the news with more dignity than I can muster. I’m so terrified of death, yet he says it’s as natural as the migration of birds and rebirth of flowers. I do not see cycles, only ends. Too many ends.
He studied the letters, all in her handwriting, in joy, grief, and wonder. Her life’s days laid out before him.
She sank beside him. “I’m so very sorry. Nothing I can say will make up for what I’ve done.”
“Hush.” He drew her into his arms and rubbed his cheek against her silken hair. To think he had tried to toss the letters in the grate, almost unwittingly destroying her written history. “May I have them? I want to read them and know all your stories, your life. I will cherish your letters.”
She drew back, her brow lowered in confusion. “But they were written to another man.”
“No,” he whispered. “These weren’t to Patrick. You have such a lovely heart, you needed to love someone. Someone who would listen to you when you had no one to talk to. A friend. I think… I think you made Patrick over into the man that you needed, and you loved that version, a dream version who gave you solace and strength.”
Her lips trembled. “I was so scared then.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I wish I could have been there for you.”
“Me too. You bind me to this world. I’ve been so miserable.” She rested her head on his chest. “I had loved Patrick so obsessively—you saw me then. I thought I couldn’t love you because I don’t feel that way. I was such a fool.”
“No, don’t say that.” He caressed her back with his hand. He was touching her again. All turbulence in his heart calmed with her in his arms again.
“I wish I had known. I don’t love you with that wild fever that I did Patrick… well, in the short time that I truly loved him. I know now that I love you differently. I love you quietly, deeply, in a place that reaches deeper than the heart. My father said you know more in the silence, and yet, once again, I missed it. I was looking for something loud, not perceiving the quiet love surrounding me.”
“I’m sorry I have been so cold. I thought about you all the hours. I missed you, and yet—”
She put her finger on his lips and then let it slip to his heart. “Shhh, I understand. You needed a wife who loved you as you deserve to be loved. And I do. I truly love you. I will love you forever. There will be no one else for me.”
He remembered her shouting similar sentiments to him years ago, frantic in her sorrow for another man. Now, the words of love fell from her lips, a stillness within them. They were as real and unbending as gravity and the cycle of tides.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Tell me your stories and thoughts. I shall never push you away again.”
She raised her lips to his. He drifted on their softness. A bitter journey had come to an end in a kiss, and a new, happier journey began. In that kind moment, he didn’t feel any fear for the future. Days of laughter, children, pictures, flowers, books, tea, and conversation stretched out before them.
When she finally pulled back from their kiss, her eyes were shining with that mischievous light he adored.
“I don’t think our marriage of friendship is going very well,” she observed.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done about it. We will have to be a true love match.”
She laughed, the kind of relieved laugh that came after a trauma had passed. The radiance lit her face again. All the sadness had scattered away.