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‘Mrs Ravel will be able to manage adequately without me,’ she said quickly.
‘She will?’ His eyes widened as he swallowed rapidly. ‘And you will let her?’
‘I’ve every faith in Mrs Ravel. Mrs Ravel and I had a long discussion this morning and I learnt what an accomplished hostess she is. They give her headaches the day after, but I’ve explained that she will be fine as the air is much better in Corbridge.’
‘The air?’
‘She is looking forward to visiting people in the neighbourhood,’ Henri continued, warming to the theme and beginning to enjoy seeing Robert unsure and off balance. Mrs Ravel, except on the subject of her stepdaughter’s matrimonial prospects, seemed to be very sensible. She simply needed confidence, and hosting a dinner party would give her that. ‘I assured her that Sebastian hates At Homes with a passion, and in any case my aunt refuses to have an At Home without me.’
‘And you promise not to be involved with the supper party.’
Henri shook her head. ‘I’ll forgo that pleasure.’
‘It is settled then.’ He put the calf’s-foot jelly down and held out a small bouquet of forget-me-not flowers from behind his back. ‘I brought you these. They reminded me of you.’
Henri bit her lip and the room swam in front of her eyes. She attempted to take small calming breaths. All she had to do was to hold out her hand and her fingers would brush his linen shirt front. She focused on the tiny pearl buttons of his shirt front. Time stood still.
‘Henri?’ he asked softly. ‘Have I brought the wrong sort of flowers?’
‘They’re my favourite. Nobody else thought to bring them. I adore flowers.’ She bent her head quickly and inhaled their sweet scent. She wanted them to remind her of Edmund’s eyes, but her mind went back to Robert on the day of the Croziers’ wedding and their wager. She put her hand to her mouth and held back a muffled sob. ‘Truly I do.’
He gently squeezed her shoulder. ‘They were supposed to cheer you up, not make you cry.’
Somehow it made it worse, his being concerned. She put the flowers down and gave a shrug. ‘I could say my ankle hurts far too much, but that is self-evident. Everyone is rallying round and making it easy and that is most unexpected. I help people, but I didn’t expect people to…well…help me.’
‘What are you afraid of, Henri? What is so wrong about accepting help? With admitting sometimes you need to put yourself and your health before others? That the village can continue without you?’
Henri thought of the box that sat gathering dust under her dressing table. She had promised herself that if she was ever not busy, she’d open it and take the time to properly read the letters and truly say goodbye. Over the past ten years, she’d successfully avoided looking at the box, but now it appeared the good intentions of everyone meant that she’d be left with no alternative. She’d have to face it and the grief. At the time, the grief had been all-consuming and now she worried that it wasn’t there. And if it wasn’t there, did that mean she hadn’t loved him enough? Was that why he had refused to fight the illness any more, despite her finding other possible remedies? Why Edmund sent her out of the room when he knew that he was going? But she refused to explain that to Robert. The words stuck in her throat and the tears continued to slip down her face.
‘Henri, it is more than the flowers.’ He took the small bouquet from her unresisting fingers and laid it on the table. Then he silently passed her a handkerchief. ‘I can fix what is wrong if you tell me.’
She wiped the tears from her face. She had to give him some reason for her tears or otherwise she’d be in his arms again. ‘After Edmund died, everyone tried to be kind and I hate a fuss being made. But I was so used to looking after him that suddenly there was nothing for me to do. For a long time, I sat staring out of the window and then I saw a beggar woman collecting sticks for her fire. I knew I couldn’t do much, but I could help that woman. I could do things like visiting and taking baskets around. So I started helping and people stopped treating me like I was an object of pity. And now today there is every sort of fuss. Stupid to cry. I haven’t cried since Edmund died, not like this. It must be the laudanum.’
‘Only the laudanum?’
‘Has to be.’ She lifted her chin, and forced her lips to smile. She tried to ignore how warmth infused her being. ‘All better now.’
Robert tilted his head to one side, regarding Henri’s defiant face with concern. A sheen of tears still shone in her eyes. The flowers had unnerved her far more than she wanted to admit. He had wanted to make her smile and instead he’d caused her to cry. He’d thought her a specific type of person, but now he discovered that she was very different, far less secure than he had considered. ‘There is only a fuss because people are concerned about you. People do not bring jars of calf’s-foot jelly to just anyone.’
