Philip cleared his throat and looked to Callum. “Are Timothy and James still arriving today?”
“Aye, sometime this afternoon.” James was Callum’s cousin and former business partner, and he’d fallen in love with Timothy at the same house party as Callum and Violet. “Their traveling companions wanted to visit their club in London. They sent a telegram when they were leaving.”
“Who is traveling with them?” Alex asked.
Callum shrugged. “A doctor and her husband,” he said. “Friends of theirs from Paris. I cannae tell ye more because I dinnae ken anything else.”
“Dr. Lavinia Bailey,” Philip put in, his pulse thundering. “And her husband, Dominic. He’s an owner of the Libertine Club in London, and she’s with the medical school at the Sorbonne.”
Callum’s dark brow rose. “Ye ken them?”
“I do.” His stomach roiled. “Dr. Bailey was—is my physician. She’s the reason I was ready to come back for Lily.”
The silence was deafening, and he had the oddest urge to clap his hands or shout to break the tension, to relieve some of the pressure in his chest.
He brought his attention to the cranberries and popcorn on the table, the red and whites bleeding together as he blinked repeatedly. “I left England because I’d become dependent on opium,” he finally said, his eyes falling shut momentarily.
He couldn’t see the shock on their faces, the disappointment and inevitable disgust. He’d faced those judgmental expressions for years, so often he’d simply accepted that he was disgusting, an abomination, a drain on society.
Callum exhaled through his teeth. “I told them last night after dinner,” he said, motioning to the men gathered there. “James wrote weeks ago saying we should expect ye and…” His lips flattened. “Hear ye out. But he didnae tell me why.”
Though Callum sounded skeptical of the request, the vice around Philip’s ribs loosened. Yet a glance around the table revealed the hard expressions of the men who wanted to protect his wife, something he should have been doing for years and failed.
He swallowed his shame, knowing it would do him no good now. “Two years ago, I’d gone to an institute in Germany seeking a cure, but it only made things worse. It wasn’t the first time, and I was losing hope. I found my way to Paris, where I happened upon a bloke wearing a Pembroke scarf walking with his wife.”
Alex’s head shot up. “You’re a Pembroke man?” At Philip’s nod, he grinned. “So am I.”
“Is that so?” The vice released a hint of pressure, and his heart rate slowed. “You were probably a better student than I was. Regardless, they—Dominic and Lavinia—must have seen something in me and invited me to dinner.”
“Brave of him,” Ben said, “inviting in a stranger.”
Only after he raked his fingers through his hair did Philip realize he’d been holding a handful of popcorn, and he shook it out with a chuff of a laugh. “You’re right. I was only thinking of a warm meal, but after they’d fed me, they asked for my story. How a Pembroke man had ended up sleeping on the streets of Paris.”
“On the streets?” Archie released a low whistle.
Philip’s nod was grim. “I had money but no desire to care for myself. What a fortunate bastard I was to learn Dr. Bailey had colleagues at the Sorbonne who could help me beat this addiction for good. Nothing had worked before, and I had nothing left to lose.”
“Except your wife.” Callum’s lips curled in a snarl.
“Lily was the only reason I kept fighting.”
“Then why did you leave?” Alex’s brows were furrowed.
“Afteryou married her?” Callum again, who looked one wrong answer away from leaping across the table and strangling Philip.
He’d have to get in line behind Lily.
“I thought being her husband would be enough to make the craving stop. Idiotic, I know, but I still hoped for it. After our wedding, I realized I wanted the drug more than I wanted her…”
Callum growled low in his chest, but Ben shot him a quelling look.
“So ye left,” the Scot said.
Ben’s expression softened. “To get better for her.”
Philip nodded, his throat tightening enough to restrict his speech. He’d spent so many years cloaked in guilt—that he wasn’t strong sufficient to cast off the shackles of his addiction, that he’d failed his wife and the earldom—and the simple acknowledgement of his motivation for leaving, foolish as it was, flattened him. “Thank you,” he managed, brushing off the popcorn he’d crushed in his clenched fists.
Alex nodded towards the garland. “You’ll need to start that one over.”
