In the days that followed, a distance had grown between Leo and Chloe.
Leo locked himself away in his offices, poring over the Cato file without interruption, while his wife remained off… seeing to her own affairs.
Occasionally, Tomlinson shuttled notes back and forth between mistress and master of the household. The notes outlined details and questions about Leo and Chloe’s first formal soiree as husband and wife. In sum, that was the extent of their communication.
It was the ideal arrangement. The one Leo hoped for when he offered her marriage: each of them carrying on separate lives with separate purposes.
So why, as their carriage rolled to a halt outside the impressively constructed stone establishment belonging to the Marchioness of Guilford, did Leo once more feel this blasted lightness at being in close quarters with his wife?
Yet, that lightness was short-lived.
His driver pulled the door open and held a hand out.
Without a backward glance, Chloe allowed the liveried servant to hand her down.
He frowned. Accustomed to the always garrulous and teasing Chloe, he didn’t know what to do with this laconic and distant woman. And blast if he didn’t prefer the former.
Leo jumped out and smoothed his lapels. He held out an elbow, and his wife wordlessly placed her fingertips on his sleeve.
They continued along the graveled path that led to ten long stone steps. “It is an impressive structure,” he finally said lamely.
Chloe cast him a curious look. “You are an aficionado of architecture?”
No, he was a man interested in talking to her. One who wished for the pleasure of her clear, teasing tones. “I… uh… studied it in my university days,” he lied.
“Hmm.”
Chloe redirected her gaze forward. Allowing him to guide her up the stairs to the front of the establishment, she settled into that bloody aloof state.
A butler opened the door, allowing them into the sun-drenched foyer. He then led Chloe and Leo along white-and-pink-striped, satin-wallpapered walls.
The slight heel of her silk shoe tapped a staccato that echoed the discordant beat of his footfalls. Two people out of step, when the previous days they’d gotten on… why, almost as friends.
Leo gritted his teeth and damned himself to hell for wanting her to speak to him and wanting to speak with her.
But why should she? a voice taunted at the back of his mind.
For all intents and purposes, when he’d returned late the other night, he’d all but confessed that his battered face was the consequence of his attentions for another woman. Oh, she’d never explicitly asked, and he’d never explicitly explained, but his meaning had been there all the same… his wounds had been caused by some other woman’s irate husband. In a way, Leo had given her facts, and they’d contained more truth than anything else he’d uttered. In doing so, he’d managed to erect an impressive wall between him and Chloe.
And damn it all, if he didn’t want to kick that barrier down.
For Chloe treated him as more than a rake. She didn’t stare down the length of her pert nose or eye him with disgust. In fact, she was the only one—in more years than he could remember—who’d not treated him so. He’d become so immune to that disdain that he’d ceased to care about those ill opinions… had reveled in them, in fact.
Only to find he—God help him—enjoyed simply being someone other than a scoundrel with her.
Leo’s stomach lurched. There it was. He… liked his wife. He genuinely, sincerely, with a depth he hadn’t believed himself capable of any longer, liked her.
He abruptly stopped.
Chloe continued on several steps before slowing and then looking back. “Leo?” she asked.
The butler glanced back and forth between the couple and then slipped off, allowing them a semblance of privacy.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
A small frown puckered the place between her brows. She came back over. “What?”
Leo dropped his voice. “I allowed you to believe… something that was not wholly true.” He glanced about. When he ascertained they were alone, he dropped his voice to a hushed whisper. “I haven’t been unfaithful. I just… wanted you to know that,” he finished lamely. For reasons he didn’t understand, and didn’t care to explain, he needed her to know he’d been faithful—at least for now.
Though, since she’d stumbled—quite literally—into his life, he’d not given thought to anyone… but her.
His hands shook, and he looped them at his back in a bid to steady them.
Chloe smiled. “Shall we?” She held her fingers out, and he hurriedly supplied his elbow.
They resumed their walk through the Ladies of Hope. A natural calm overtook him. A semblance of order was restored with all somehow… right.
It is because of her.
An invisible weight slammed into his solar plexus, nearly knocking him off-balance. What madness was this? He liked his wife. Surprisingly enjoyed her company… but he’d never before needed anyone to maintain order over his logic-driven world.
“Breathe, Leo.” Her soft whisper carried up to his ears. “It is merely a small gathering of respectable families.”
She’d sensed his unrest and wrongly attributed it to their presence in this place.
Breathe, he reminded himself.
It was vital advice. He repeated it in his mind as a mantra.
To focus on something, anything, other than the tumult inside, he took in their surroundings.
“It is magnificent, is it not?” she murmured as they strolled down another corridor. This one’s walls were lined with bucolic paintings done in cheerful shades of pale greens, pinks, and blues.
Of its own volition, his gaze traversed a path over the delicate planes of her face. “Magnificent,” he murmured.
“It is her second one,” she continued in animated tones, excitement coloring her words. “There are more than thirty young girls cared for at Philippa’s first institution, and now there will be forty more here. Girls of all ages. Some just babes, and others seven and ten years.” Her expression darkened. “They’ve been cast out because Society has deemed them unfit by their standards.”
As she spoke, Leo slowed his steps, pausing to finally truly take in his surroundings and contemplate the institution.
“Here, come with me.” His wife took him by the hand and tugged him off in the opposite direction.
The servant held a hand up. “Uh… the ceremony, my lady, is this…”
Ignoring the older fellow, Chloe urged Leo on until they reached a doorway that hung open. She held a finger to her lips, urging him to silence.
Leo studied the cheerfully bright room. Six young girls, mayhap three and ten years of age, sat around on pink, upholstered tub chairs arranged in a neat circle and better suited to a lord and lady’s formal parlor. Each child held a book.
“Mary Wollstonecraft,” Chloe mouthed.
The girls spoke animatedly to one another. There was an organized chaos to what was ensuing. An older woman in steel-gray skirts looked on, as more of an observer, only periodically pausing to direct the discourse.
He furrowed his brow. The makeshift classroom bore little resemblance to the staid and silent rooms he and other dutiful English boys and girls sat within.
Chloe motioned for Leo to follow. He gave one last curious look back at the gathered children and fell into step.
“They hold Socratic circles,” he noted as they made their return to the still waiting butler.
His wife shot her eyebrows up. “You’re familiar with them.”
“Only insofar as I read of them.”
“Of course,” Chloe interjected with an emphatic nod. “Because dutiful English boys and girls are hand-fed information as fact and expected to believe it. Here, my sister has encouraged those who Society would scuttle away to use their minds and think.” She tapped a gloved fingertip to her forehead. “And, just as importantly, to challenge.”
Prior to this instance, the only matter of relevance surrounding the Ladies of Hope Institution had been the role it served in crafting a façade the ton could believe.
His existence had solely been focused on hedonistic pursuits so that the world saw only that. And he was able to conduct his investigations freely outside the scope of suspicion. Ultimately, however, the Brethren had always been his focus. Now, he stared in a whole new light at the world Chloe’s sister created here. Saw that there were others who made equally, no less important, contributions to the world.
Understanding dawned at last.
“Terms six and ten,” he murmured.
Chloe stared up at him, puzzled.
Leo shot a glance back, motioning to the classrooms they’d just abandoned. “Term six: I am free to conduct my time at any charitable venture I deem important. I am also free to use my funds as donations to those unstated organizations. And term ten: I am free to take employment. It’s this place, is it not?” She wished to teach at her sister’s school. “This is the reason for those provisions in our contract.” It now made sense.
Chloe lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. “Not this place, but another.”
So that was what she intended after their time as a proper, respectable couple came to an end and they went on to live separate lives. An image slipped in of a time in the not-so-distant future when she’d go off and he’d resume his solitary existence. A hollow emptiness carved a spot in his chest. “Why not this one?” he made himself ask through the tumult.
“My sister has committed to hiring young women who’ve known like struggles, ones who cannot find employment.” Chloe joined her hands and briefly studied the interconnected digits. “It is my sister-in-law Jane’s establishment I wish to oversee—Mrs. Munroe’s. It is a finishing school for ladies whose circumstances have not been the kindest. They have been without a steady headmistress. and I’d like to fulfill that role.”
So that was where she’d soon go, not off with a lover or to travel abroad through Europe, but to a finishing school… in some part of England. The hollowness grew as their inevitable severance morphed into a new reality that he could see laid out before him.
The butler brought them to a stop outside a great hall. Its double doors gaped wide, and an impressive gathering of guests could be seen. An odd mingling of small children and fancily clad patrons interacted throughout the rooms.
“Chloe!” The Marchioness of Guilford’s happy cry went up. From where she stood across the room with her husband, brother, and sister-in-law, the kindly woman waved.
Leo stiffened as his new family started through the crowd, fast approaching.
Chloe took a step to meet her siblings.
“Chloe?” Leo shot a hand out, lightly collecting her shoulder and forcing her back.
She looked up, a question in her eyes.
“Why not one of your own?”
Chloe shook her head. “What?”
“You’ve spoken of your sister’s and sister-in-law’s establishments and the visions they have, but what of your dream? With your funds and cleverness, you can also create something of your own.”
Her lips parted, and a whispery sigh slipped out. “I didn’t… I…”
“Chloe!” The warm, welcoming voice of his sister-in-law piped in, shattering the moment. “Lord Tennyson.”
Chloe’s family joined them—the Marquess and Marchioness of Guilford and the Marquess and Marchioness of Waverly.
His wife’s brother glowered openly at him.
“Lady Philippa, Lady Jane,” Leo murmured with a bow. “Gentlemen,” he greeted tightly.
A stiff silence fell among the group.
His wife slid her fingers onto his sleeve in a tacit mark of her support. When had been the last time anyone had come to his defense? Had stated for the world that they stood beside him? Emotion stuck in his throat.
Waverly was the first to break the silence. “Tennyson.” He held a hand out.
Leo eyed that offering for a moment and then shook the other man’s hand.
“Come, come. Join us,” Lady Philippa encouraged and, linking her arm with Chloe’s and Jane’s, led the way through the guests, leaving the gentlemen to follow.
Chloe shot a glance back in Leo’s direction. Worry creased her delicate features.
He flashed a smile for her benefit and waved her on.
“Chloe says you wish to be respectable and honorable,” his brother-in-law said after the women had gone. “Though I have my doubts, I’d invite you to join me for drinks at White’s.” Waverly’s mouth hardened. “That is, if you’re capable of visiting the club without being delivered a proper thrashing by an irate husband?”
“Gabriel,” the Marquess of Guilford warned.
Drinks with his brother-in-law, one of Polite Society’s stiffest, stodgiest lords. All was progressing as hoped.
He smiled. “Thank you for that gracious invitation,” he drawled.
“We’re welcoming you into the family, Tennyson,” Guilford explained.
“Why, thank you. That is certainly unexpected. Appreciated,” and beneficial, “but—”
“But be warned,” the other man interrupted. “You hurt her, and one of us is going to kill you.”
“We’ll all vie for the privilege,” Waverly said crisply.
“Chloe would likely slay me herself, saving you all the trouble, if I did.” When he did. Ultimately, he’d hurt her. He hurt everyone. Why, his first act upon entering this world had been to take his mother’s life. Leo sought his wife, finding her at the front of the room speaking with her sister and several young children.
As if feeling his focus on her, Chloe glanced over. “Come,” she mouthed, gesturing.
He lifted his hand, wanting to join, feeling like an intruder.
A small girl in white skirts tugged at his wife’s hand, tearing Chloe’s attention away. She sank to a knee beside the child, and with whatever words were uttered, she pulled a wider and wider smile upon the girl’s lips.
But then, wasn’t that the effect his wife had on people?
Leo grinned wistfully.
His skin pricked, and he found both men eyeing him peculiarly.
“What?” Leo asked defensively, shifting on his feet.
“Nothing at all,” the other man murmured. “Drinks tomorrow, then,” the marquess offered in what felt like the first true olive branch extended by his in-laws.