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“I could never think you a fool, My Lord.” Hughes spoke in his gentle, friendly voice. “It is only natural to be protective of your new wife.”
“Is it normal to obsess over the potential loss of her?” Simon asked sharply, speaking the truth of his heart to his old friend and faithful servant. “We have known one another such a short time.”
“It is not the length of time of the acquaintance that is significant,” Hughes said. “It is the nature of it. She is your wife, My Lord. The Countess steps into a role previously filled by a person most beloved, whom you lost. How could you not think of losing her?”
“It is all I think about,” Simon muttered, running his hand through his hair. “When I’m not with her, it pops up, this evil fear that simply by - by being my wife, she is edging closer and closer to danger.”
“It is not true, My Lord.”
“I know it is not true,” Simon said hoarsely, staring wildly up at his butler. “I do not believe in curses or such nonsense, yet somehow I am plagued by this fear that by being mine, she will be lost. That by being…”
“By being what, My Lord?”
“Nothing.”
Simon leaned back in his chair, gripping the leather arms of it tightly to steady his breath. He had been a breath away from saying, “by being loved by me,” but had stopped himself. It was not true. He would not love Marion, not as he loved Stella. He would never love like that again. There was too much pain and danger there.
“It seems to me, My Lord, that your fear is not that she shall be lost, but that you shall be.”
“What can you possibly mean?” Simon asked, looking at his butler curiously. Hughes often had an interesting and unexpected way of looking at the world, and Simon respected his experience. He had been married thirty years; his wisdom was unsurpassed.
“Only that the fear you face at the moment is not that My Lady shall leave you, or shall perish, but rather that you shall become so attached to her that either thing would be consequently unbearable,” Hughes said in his soft, country burr. “That is the shape of it as I see it, My Lord.”
The words were simple, but they cut to the quick of Simon’s heart. He blinked heavily, looking into the fire with a lump in his throat.
“And what is a man to do about that?” he asked hoarsely, unable to look at Hughes, his eyes fixed on the dancing flames.
“A man has a choice, My Lord, as he does in every marriage, whether he is the Prince Regent or the pig boy,” Hughes smiled gently. “He must choose whether he risks the unbearable thing for the greatest reward of all.”
“And what is that?”
“Quite simple, My Lord. To be loved truly, and to love truly in return.” Hughes’s simplicity of thought and word was powerful to Simon, and he listened carefully, holding his breath. “It is quite a risk, sir, but ’tis worth it, in my humble opinion.”
“Thank you, Hughes,” Simon said.
The butler nodded, looking out the window and smiling. “My Lady has returned, My Lord.”
“She has?” Simon twisted in his chair to see the carriage pulling up in front of the house. He leapt out of his chair and strode to the door, moving quickly down the hall to see Marion entering through the main door. She looked lovely, her dark curls piled up onto her head and tucked under a red bonnet, but then he noticed the way her eyebrows were creased together. Something was wrong.
“My Lord!” Her face split into a familiar smile when she saw him, but Simon noticed how it didn’t quite reach all the way to her dark, swirling eyes. “How good to see you.”
“And you,” Simon watched her carefully for clues of her discomfort. Had she had a fight with Eleanor? Was she distressed in some way? “How is the Countess of Brixton?”
“Oh, she is quite well,” Marion said, looking down at her gloved fingers, which she twisted together, “but the journey has quite tired me out, I fear. I shall retire until supper.”
Marion made to walk past him and Simon caught her arm softly, enjoying the feeling of his wife close to him.
“Should you like me to come with you?” he whispered into her hair, brushing a kiss against her forehead.
She looked up at him with a smile, and Simon realised before she spoke that she meant to refuse him. Something strange was definitely going on.
“I am tired,” she said softly, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “But I shall be all yours tonight.”
“You swear it?”
“On my honour.”
“Is everything alright, Marion?” He squeezed her hand quickly, trying to encourage her to meet his eye, but she would not.
