Instead, they were spent embers.
The truth was before him all along, but he refused to heed it. They would have made the dearest of lifelong friends, but as a married couple, they were dismally mismatched. It made no sense, for all appearances gave the impression of felicity and suitability. And she stirred the eye and every masculine desire—he would be a liar to say she did not. But in his heart, he had nothing for her, and she... she had even less for him.
Still, that vow could never be revoked. For better or worse; that was the promise they had both made, and Richard was old-fashioned enough to believe it. So was she, otherwise she never would have followed him.
But the marriage was a sham...Aye, it was! But he meant well enough to protect her, so in that respect, he pledged his oath in full faith. He pressed his brow into his hand, closed his eye, and fell to morose ruminations.
He never wanted any of this. When he fled the Army, his plan had been scattered, unformed, but now, he knew precisely what he would do, where he would go. Open plains, simple life. A place where the sweat of his browmeantsomething and no one cared who his father was or what uniform he had worn in South Africa. A place in the world where a man’s dignity was everything, where respect was earned, and no one could purchase it. Somewhere he could be alone for days together if he chose, with nobody depending upon him but his horse.
He would go back to Wyoming. The one place on earth he could never take his wife. He sighed and allowed his thoughts to go blank for a time, rather than stripping away more of the protective cushion he had built around the truth.
Moments later, he snapped to attention when something bumped his hand. It was Elizabeth, trying to remove his cold pipe before it fell and dumped ash on the floor. She froze, her teeth flashing unhappily.
“I’m sorry. I was just...” She cleared her throat, retrieved the pipe, and turned to hasten away.
“Stop apologising,” he said after her.
Her figure tensed, and she turned back. “I won’t. I mean, I’m sor—” She frowned and looked down.
“Look, you are not making it better, treating me as if I mean to devour you. Can you just... just beyouagain?”
Her eyes shifted to the side, then re-centred on him. She said nothing.
He scrubbed his face, muttering, “Hell with it,” and got to his feet. “Good night, Elizabeth.”
She stepped swiftly out of his way. “Do you need anything?”
He snorted and shook his head. The list was far too long. Then, a notion pricked him, and he stopped. “Wait. There is something.”
She seemed to rise up, eager to hear his direction. “Yes?”
“What... what would you have done, that night behind the warehouse?”
The blood left her cheeks. “You mean...”
“Jake Bryson. What if things had gone differently, he had harmed you in every way possible, and you had to face him afterwards?”
Flinty cords tightened in her jaw, and her eyes glittered. “I would have hit him over the head with the hardest thing I could find. Maybe I would have found a rope and dragged his miserable filth behind my horse until no one could even recognise him, or pinned him down and kicked him over and over in the teeth. Something—I do not know what, precisely.”
“But you would not have cowered and cringed before him.”
Her nostrils flared dangerously, and her knuckles whitened. “Never.”
He shook his head. “He was the villain, but I am the one you fear.” Another sigh left him, and his shoulders drooped.
“You are wrong,” she answered gently. He stopped but did not face her as she finished.
“You are the one I failed.”
He closed the door between them.
That night, as he lay in his bed, Richard Fitzwilliam pondered the deep mysteries. Death and life, healing and wretchedness, grief and love—so much threaded and wove through the tendrils of dream that later, he would not recall how much of his epiphany struck in conscious light and how much slipped into his mind in the form of soulful enchantment. When he rose, however, the first resolve of any clarity had shaped and taken hold at last. And finally, he knew of something hecoulddo. After all, Rhode Island was famous for more than just tourism—or, more accurately, a particulartypeof tourism.
There was no line when Richard stepped up to the county office. The secretary asked his business, and for a moment, the life left his fingers as he reached inside his coat. The papers stuck as he tugged on them, and his hands trembled.
He swore to protect her, to care for her... and this was the best means at his disposal to do just that. No less was it for himself, and the freedom and wildness his soul thirsted for. He drew a deep breath and unfolded the papers.
“Where do I file for a marriage annulment?”
