Page 47 of Faceless

He had mercy on her and changed the subject. “Have you walked out on the headland yet?”

“This afternoon. Only a little way. The wind was more than I had expected.”

“I have no doubt you will rise to the occasion in time.”

She narrowed her eyes in the darkness. Either Angus had not informed him of her movements, or he was very good at this. She believed the latter more than the former. And why would he assume she would rise to any occasion? He hardly knew her.

“May I ask you something?” he asked.

“I believe you purchased the right to do so.”

“Purchased? You mistake me, I…” He broke off with an exasperated-sounding sigh. “Never mind. You may refuse to answer, but I hope you will not. Are they settled? Your family, after your departure. Were there arrangements made for them?”

The fork stilled in her hand. Arrangements made for them. Not the language of knowing only that her circumstances had changed. The language of knowing what there had been to arrange. She made herself continue eating, though she had lost track of the chicken cutlet. There was still some sort of potato dish that smeared rather stubbornly across the plate, and she could not find most of it.

“Your solicitor was very thorough,” was all she said.

“Yes,” he said, and she could not tell from the single syllable whether he was confirming or deflecting.

She waited until the supper was almost finished, until the silence between them had gone more companionable than inquisitory. Then she told him about Falstaff and the kitchen cat. She put everything she had into it — the cat’s expression, the dog’s bewilderment, the cat’s refusal to be impressed by anything — every inflection that had ever made her father laugh. She heard him begin to respond, catch himself, and swallow it whole.

The effort of the swallowing was audible. He had decided to give her nothing, and giving her nothing was plainly taking more from him than he had planned. Whatever the laugh had nearly given away last night was not a fact. It was a manner — a way of responding that had struck her as familiar without quite coming clear.

When at last he stood, she heard the movement of his chair and the sound of his steps crossing to the corridor door.

“Goodnight,” he said from there.

“Goodnight.” She had been deciding all evening whether to say the next thing. “Falstaff may sleep in here, I assume. Since you are not using the room.”

“He may sleep wherever he wishes.”

“Good.” That was, in fact, very good. A man who did not object to his wife keeping a dog in the room probably also had no intentions of forcing himself on her.

She had been prepared to go and collect him from the kitchen whatever he said. “He is good company.”

“I am very glad to hear it.” The door closed.

She bolted it. Then she went back to the table and felt around until she found the flint and candle. She lit it and crossed the room to the other door, the one that led to the rest of the house, to the kitchen and Mrs MacLeod. Falstaff was already waiting for her.

She sighed and gave his ears an affectionate pat. She had never had a dog, and she was still not entirely sure what had made her ask for this one, except that asking and receiving had made her feel… safe.

“Come in, then,” she told him. “We shall have to do something about the mud you collect on your paws.”

She sat with Falstaff’s head warm and heavy across her feet. The dark supper had not frightened her. Last night, it had been a thing to endure in terror, in waiting for the truth to be proved a lie. Tonight, it was just the condition of the room. He was on the other side of the door she had just bolted, and she would not see him again until tomorrow night.

She knew more about him than she had this morning — his height, his smell, the way he prepared, the way he listened, what he would and would not give her. The line she had not yet drawn between all those things was there in the dark.

XIX

The Weight of What Is Known

The letter had been sitting on the table since yesterday afternoon.

Erskine had brought it with him from London — not the letter, precisely, but the packet that contained it, sealed and addressed to the Baron of Auchengray in Webb’s hand, written as though it concerned sheep grazing and coastal drainage in case it were opened by the wrong person, which was the arrangement they had settled on in April and which Darcy had not yet needed to change. The packet sat on the table alongside the marriage document bearing her signature, and Darcy had looked at it once, then looked away.

He had not read it that night. He had not read it yesterday either, though it had sat on the corner of the table through all of it — through the first supper, through the hours he had lain awake on the wrong side of the bolted door listening to the house settle, through the whole of yesterday while she moved through his library and wept over something on the lower shelves and he had not been able to go to her.

The third morning, he sat down and broke the seal.