Page 7 of Miss Barton's Mysterious Husband
“I’m glad to hear it.” He gestured toward the washstand. “I brought you up some hot water.”
“Thank you. That was thoughtful.” He’d been thoughtful as a young man, too. Which was why his behavior since had caught her so off guard.
Because it hurt to look at Roland, she surveyed the room. He’d been tidy, too. That hadn’t changed. His coat and boots were neatly stowed. “And you brought up firewood. Thank you.”
He rose, towering against the ceiling, and moved to place another log on the fire and freshen it up with the poker. “A husband comes in useful.”
Once they’d teased each other, but those happy days were long past. She didn’t smile. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
His eyes narrowed on her, but he didn’t give her an acerbic answer. He’d always been slow to anger, but as she’d discovered when he lost his temper, he held a grudge. “Do you want to do this now when we’re both tired or shall we wait for the morning?”
She’d reached that point of tiredness where she felt too high-strung to sleep. Anyway, how could she sleep when she shared a room with her long-lost spouse for the first time in years? “It is morning.”
“Yes, it’s Christmas.” She’d never heard him use that flat tone before. “Happy Christmas, Charmian.”
Something about that joyless greeting made her want to cry. She’d lived with regret for so long. But it stabbed particularly deep tonight when Roland shared her room.
They’d missed out on so much. They’d never got to do any of the normal things that married couples did. Celebrate Christmas or birthdays. Set up a home together. Have children. In spite of everything, when she discovered that their fortnight of vigorous bed sport in York hadn’t resulted in a pregnancy, she’d cried her eyes out.
At least a baby would have provided a focus for all the love that Roland didn’t want.
It was too much. She either subsided into a sobbing mess – when she’d already cried more than enough over her disastrousmarriage – or she fought. She’d only survived because she’d been angry. God save her, she was angry now.
She turned on the only man she’d ever loved and spoke with a voice as biting as acid. “Stop acting as if you’re the one who’s hard done by. Why didn’t you answer any of my letters? You must have known we had to work out some way to go on. We were married, for pity’s sake. You couldn’t just sweep that fact under the carpet and go on your merry way, as if nothing had ever happened.”
He whitened so fast that the shadows under his eyes stood out stark and purple. “Letters? What letters?”
She didn’t have to try to keep up her anger now. Her hands clenched at her sides. “Don’t pretend. I wrote you so many letters. It must have been hundreds. And not one word in reply. Not a single word.”
His eyes were searching. “Is that true, Charmian?”
At this rate, she was going to clout him with the hot water canister. “I don’t lie. Or have you forgotten that since we parted? I’m not surprised that you have. After all, you conveniently forgot you had a wife at all.”
One emphatic gesture sliced the air. “I never forgot. Nor did I ever stop writing to you.”
Roland had never been a liar either. Something told her that he wasn’t lying now, mad as his claim might sound. “I don’t understand.” She’d stepped closer to Roland when someone knocked on the door.
Chapter 4
Roland bit back the urge to curse fit to raise the rafters. He and Charmian were finally about to sort out the trouble between them – and it was clear that there was some mystery to solve as well. After their years of no communication, he wasn’t willing to lose this chance. She might go silent on him again. That had driven him to the brink of insanity. “Don’t answer it.”
Charmian didn’t look any happier about the interruption. “There might be a problem.”
“There is a problem. The fact that you left me three years ago and I haven’t seen you since,” he snapped.
She flinched as there was another knock. “I’m sorry. I have to…”
When she crossed to open the door, she revealed her aunt in the clothes she’d worn all evening. “Charmian, you’re awake?”
Charmian didn’t bother confirming what was visibly true. “Do you need me downstairs, Aunt Janet?”
Roland strained to hear some disturbance, but the inn was quiet, apart from the rumble of various snores and the distant roar of the river.
“No. No. Can I come in?”
Roland ground his teeth. He’d long ago realized that Charmian’s family had interfered in his marriage. He only had to recall the stony reception that her mother had given him at Holden House when he’d turned up, determined to get his wife back.
Charmian cast him a nervous glance. “It’s late. Can’t it wait until the morning?”
