The letters went out with the evening post. He returned to his parliamentary report with renewed focus, determined to earn the life he had promised to build.
Benedict visited frequently, checking on his progress like a friend who had seen him fail before.
“You’re doing well,” Benedict observed one evening, settling into his usual chair in Rhys’s study.
“Better than I expected, frankly.”
“Your confidence in me is touching.”
“My confidence in you is realistic. You spent fifteen years being unreliable. A few weeks of responsible behaviour does not erase that history.”
“No. But a few months might make a dent.” Rhys poured two glasses of brandy, handing one to his friend.
“I’m learning that consistency is harder than grand gestures. Anyone can make a promise. Keeping it, day after day, when no one is watching, that’s the real work.”
“That sounds like something Miss Grace would say.”
“It is something Miss Grace said. She’s been quite clear about what she expects.”
“And what does she expect?”
Rhys considered the question. They had exchanged letters every week since his return to London, brief communications that nonetheless built a picture of daily life at Hartfell. He knew that Anna had completed her French exercises and had moved on to German. He knew that Viola was working on a series of drawings depicting the changing seasons. He knew that Thistle had acquired a second toad, whom she had named Caesar in honour of Brutus’s new companion.
But Mel’s letters remained practical, focused on the children rather than on herself or on the future they had discussed. She asked no questions about his activities in London. She made no demands about when he would return. She simply reported the facts and trusted him to do what he had said he would do.
It was, he realised, a form of trust. Not the naive trust of someone who had never been disappointed, but the careful, measured trust of someone who was watching to see whether her faith was justified.
“She expects me to be the man I said I would be,” Rhys said finally.
“Not because she’s watching, but because it’s who I am. She’s giving me the space to prove it.”
“And are you proving it?”
“I am making progress. I attend Parliament. I manage my estates. I write to my daughters every week and receive letters in return that contain more joy than I have felt in years.” He paused, swirling the brandy in his glass.
“I stay clearheaded at social events. I deflect women who are not my future wife. I go home alone and read reports and think about the life I’m building.”
“That sounds remarkably dull.”
“It is remarkably dull. It is also remarkably satisfying.” Rhys met his friend’s eyes.
“I never understood, before, what it meant to work toward something. I had everything I could want, title, wealth, freedom. But I had nothing to build, nothing to sacrifice for and nothing that required me to be better than I was.”
“And now?”
“Now I have three daughters who need a father and a woman who needs a husband and a future that depends on whether I can sustain this long enough to deserve it.”
Benedict studied him before she spoke, his expression thoughtful.
“Serena wants to help with the wedding,” he said finally.
“When it happens. She’s quite keen on the idea of supporting Miss Grace through society’s inevitable hostility.”
“Serena is a good woman. Better than either of us deserves.”
“She is. She also sees something in your Miss Grace that she admires.‘A woman of uncommon sense,’she called her. Coming from Serena, that’s high praise.”
Rhys thought about Mel, about her practical efficiency and her clear-eyed honesty and the way she had looked at him in the study when she told him not to decide what she could bear.
