Captivated By Her Convenient Husband

Chapter Two

Blandford Hall—the next afternoon

Fortis sat on a sofa upholstered in rose silk, his back to the wainscoted wall, his sight line trained on the wide double-doored entrance of the drawing room, his peripheral vision aware that beyond him to the left were French doors and beyond that a manicured garden bursting with autumn colour. He was aware, too, that he was surrounded on all sides by luxury, safety and people who loved him. Beside him on the sofa sat Avaline, keeping respectful—or was that wary?—inches between them, making sure not to touch him. Perhaps she was unsure what to make of his return? To his right sat Her Grace, the Duchess of Cowden, his mother, clutching his father the Duke’s hand against the joy and the shock of her son’s return. Across from him on a matching sofa were Helena and Frederick, his oldest brother and his wife. In the last chair sat his newest sister-in-law Anne, with his other brother, Ferris, standing protectively at her shoulder.

Everywhere he looked there were reminders that he was safe. He was returned to the bosom of his family. But what his eyes could see proof of, his mind struggled to accept. This was his life? Wherever he turned, this was what it always came back to. This was all his: Blandford Hall, his wife’s home—their home, the place they’d spent the first three weeks of their marriage; this family full of graciousness and warmth and unbounded love, this family who’d held him close in turns and cried openly at Hayworth’s ball when he’d made his appearance in the supper room, Avaline in his arms.

He supposed, in hindsight, his entrance had been rather dramatic—dramatic enough to make Avaline swoon. All he’d thought about when he’d caught her was getting her away from Hayworth, finding his family and going home. The result had been somewhat more. Upon their arrival today, Anne and Ferris had reported that romantic tales of the hero returned were already circulating the neighbourhood. His return had not been the private affair he’d envisioned on the journey from Sevastopol with Cam Lithgow. Today, however, it was just the eight of them, just the Treshams. He was missing Cam sorely. He hadn’t realised how much he’d counted on Cam to smooth the way, to be the bridge between his long absence and his sudden return. Cam had been a godsend last night, shooing people away, putting himself between Hayworth’s gawking guests and the Treshams’ emotional reunion. It had been Cam who’d ushered them all to carriages and sent them home—he and Avaline to Blandford and his family to the Cowden estate at Bramble. But he couldn’t rely on Cam for ever. Cam had his own business to see to, which left Fortis with tea poured out, no one to ease the conversation and an awkward silence settling over the room.

Fortis supposed he should be the one to say something, to take charge, but what did one say after having been gone for seven years? ‘How are you? What have you been up to?’ It seemed too trite, too open ended. Even if by some stretch of the imagination such a question wasn’t impossible to ask, it was impossible to answer in a decent amount of time. It would take Frederick alone at least an hour to tell him of his nephews—all five of them now—and Ferris another hour to tell him about falling in love with Anne, let alone anything else that had happened in his absence.

The enormity of that swamped him. He’d missed so much: births, weddings, deaths. Avaline’s parents had both died. He knew that much even if he couldn’t remember them. That was embarrassing in itself. He could not remember his in-laws, what they looked like, sounded like, what they had said to him. He knew he had them. But knowing was somehow different than remembering. Knowing was fact and he suddenly found facts weren’t enough. Was that how his family felt looking at him? That they didn’t know him? Or that what they remembered of him was somehow lacking when faced with the reality of him sitting in the room? He was not the only one for whom this was awkward. They didn’t know any more what to say to him than he knew what to say to them. Maybe this first conversation wasn’t about telling, but asking. He needed to give them permission to ask their questions.

Fortis cleared his throat. ‘You must have things you want to know,’ he said, taking up that train of thought. He’d been sprung on them as an impossible surprise. There’d been no time to send word ahead. Any letter sent would have arrived on the packet with him. Surely they would want explanations. Perhaps they might even have doubts now that the euphoria of their reunion last night had passed. He hoped he had answers. There was still so much that was a fog in his brain. He’d tried to explain as much to Cam on the journey home.

The discomfort of giving those explanations must have been evident on his face. Ferris, the physician, the brother who’d studied medicine and dedicated his efforts to serving the medical needs of the poor, leaned forward earnestly. ‘No, Fort, you needn’t tell us anything yet or ever. Cam made a thorough report and we understand.’ Fortis knew what ‘we understand’ meant. It meant the family knew he hadn’t been entirely in his right mind when he’d come out of the woods, that he’d displayed signs of confusion, displacement, that he’d been unsure of who or what he was. Cam and the army had sorted that out with him and for him thanks to the letters from Avaline in his coat pocket dated from the day before Balaclava almost a year prior, along with the miniature of her, the tattered remnants of the uniform that proved his rank and identity, his pale blue eyes and other sundry details despite the overlong dark hair he refused to let Cam cut. Even now, he was wearing it long, tied back in a ponytail like lords a generation ago.

‘I don’t need your pity,’ Fortis answered Ferris sternly. He didn’t need to be patronised or felt sorry for. Poor broken Fortis—did they think he was a shell of his former self? Did they think he couldn’t function in the world? Beside him, Avaline shifted, uncomfortable with the sharp tone he’d taken. Is that what his wife thought, too? His pretty, surprised wife who’d swooned in his arms? Did she believe her husband was not capable of fully returning? All because of Cam’s damned honest report that had labelled him confused? It wasn’t untrue, he was confused. He felt confused right now sitting amid all this love and luxury, knowing it was his, but not remembering it as his. He just preferred that confusion be private, that it remain his to manage, alone. He wasn’t used to relying on others to carry his burdens with him or for him.

Frederick intervened, smoothing the tension. ‘We know you don’t, Fort. We just need you to know we don’t expect you to disgorge everything all at once. Being home is enough for us. All else will come. It has been a long time. None of us must assume we can all pick up where we left off as if nothing and no one has changed. We’ve all changed, but we will all find our ways back to each other if we’re patient.’

Fortis nodded and took the olive branch, moving the conversation on to safer ground. ‘Helena, tell me about the boys. Five boys all under ten—are they a handful?’ That brought a round of laughter. It was a good choice of topic. Helena was a proud mother and Fortis let talk of the boys’—his nephews’—escapades swirl around him, wrapping him in laughter. He felt himself relax a certain degree. There was no pressure here. There was nothing for him to recall. He’d not known the boys. Helena had been pregnant at his wedding with her first. It was easy to laugh and smile along with the rest of them, to feel as though he was home. And yet, the feeling couldn’t quite settle, like clothes that were just the tiniest bit too small—a trouser waist too tight, a coat stretched too snuggly over shoulders so that every move was a reminder that the fit was not effortless.

After a while, Ferris rose. ‘Fort, come walk with me in the gardens.’

‘Is this your idea of rescuing me?’ Fortis asked once the glass doors were shut behind them. ‘If so, I don’t believe I was in need of rescue.’ He couldn’t seem to help himself from being defensive with his brother today.

Ferris shook his head, unbothered by the surly tone. ‘No, you didn’t. It was me being selfish. I wanted a moment with you. Will you allow me?’

‘As my brother or a physician?’ Fort was instantly wary. All his battle senses were on high alert, ready to protect himself.

‘As both, I hope. War changes a man. I see that change in you.’

Fortis lifted an eyebrow in challenge. ‘Do you? You haven’t seen me in seven years. I am sure everyone looks different after such a long time apart. I don’t think that makes it remarkable or worthy of study.’

Ferris nodded, doing him the credit of contemplating his thoughts. ‘True, your hair is longer, your muscles more defined. You’ve come into your full build. Nothing of the little brother remains. I shall have to get used to looking at the man my brother has become instead of looking for the boy he once was,’ Ferris acceded with a physician’s eye for anatomy. ‘But there are other changes as well. Mental changes.’

Fortis baulked at that. No man liked having his sanity questioned any more than he liked discussing his emotions. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Please, Fort. There’s no need to be defensive. I’ve been working with soldiers on their returns from India, the Crimea, wherever Britain has the army posted these days. In places where the men have seen violence, your condition is not unusual, nor, unfortunately, all that rare. War takes a toll on a man we’re just beginning to acknowledge, to say nothing of understand. But I hope in time we may.’

Fortis scowled. ‘And what condition is that?’

‘You sat with your back to the wall today, so you could see the entire room, so you had clear visual access to points of entry and perhaps escape?’ Ferris added with wry insight. ‘That is something men do who live on the edge of danger, on the edge of life. You have the tendencies of one who has lived under stressful conditions where the need to fight is always an imminent possibility.’

Fortis wished he could deny his brother’s conjecture, but he could not. He could not recall anything to the contrary and what he did remember—the smoke, the cannon fire, the rush and riot of battle—certainly upheld Ferris’s assertions. But Ferris wasn’t done.

‘We’ve also found that these soldiers have unclear memories, difficulty explaining their time away to others. They have a reluctance to integrate back into their old lives, back into their families. There are other symptoms, too. If I could ask you a few questions?’

‘I’m not sure I like being a specimen under a microscope or an object of study.’ He did not want to answer any questions. He felt ridiculously vulnerable standing here in the garden with Ferris, his brother’s assertions stripping him bare.

‘Not an object, Fortis. A man. I don’t want to study you. I want to help you, if you need it and if you’ll allow it. Cam’s report suggested...’

‘Damn Cam’s report. Thanks to that blasted paper, you’ve already decided I do need help. You’re all convinced I’m on the verge of craziness.’ Fortis gestured towards the house, anger acting as his best defence. ‘That’s what all of you were thinking in there, too afraid to ask your questions because of what I might say. It’s far safer to not ask, isn’t it? Then everyone can pretend I’m all right.’ A dark thought welled up from deep inside him. Perhaps he was the one pretending he was all right when a part of him knew he hadn’t been all right, not for a long time, not for months, well before he’d walked out of the forest. It was something he wanted to keep to himself like his confusion. But his brother had seen his failings so easily. Did the rest of them? Did Avaline?

‘I am asking now.’ Ferris folded his arms across his chest, the quiet steel in his voice issuing his challenge. His brother was daring him to tell the truth. ‘Do you have dreams? Nightmares? Trouble sleeping? Periods where you lose track of time, where your mind wanders or where you juxtapose reality with a remembrance and your mind thinks you’re there, reliving it, instead of in the present?’

‘I might have dreams on occasion.’ Fortis shook his head. Ferris looked as if he wanted to press for more detail, his physician’s mind hungry for information, but this was all he was willing to offer today. He didn’t want to confess to dreams that left him waking in a sweat, wrapped in a sense of foreboding with nothing to cling to but vague images he could not call into focus, dreams in which he watched himself from other points of view, or wasn’t even himself but some other nameless person. Perhaps he’d admit to those dreams if he could remember them. Perhaps it was best he didn’t remember them. Maybe he should be thankful he couldn’t. Maybe his mind was protecting him.

Ferris nodded, something in his brother’s face easing. There would be no more interrogation today. Ferris clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘Well, if you do have such dreams or experiences, I want you to know not to fear them or feel you have to hide them, not from me. They’re normal for men who’ve been in your position. They’re nothing to be ashamed of. You can come to me, Fortis. I can help and I can listen.’ Ferris paused, searching for the right words. ‘Sometimes there are things a man may not want to tell his wife, but he can always tell his brother.’

‘Married less than a year and already you have secrets from Anne?’ Fortis teased. It was easier than being serious, easier than having Ferris examine his soul.

Ferris smiled wryly and said frankly, ‘No, I am afraid Anne knows all my transgressions to date. She’s seen me at my worst, in the dark of night after I’ve lost a young patient for no good reason except poor living conditions society chose not to rectify.’ Bitterness flashed in Ferris’s eyes for just a moment.

‘Then we are both soldiers of a sort,’ Fortis offered in sombre comfort. ‘I appreciate you telling me that.’

Ferris nodded. ‘That’s what brothers are for.’ He gestured towards the French doors. ‘We should go back in. Helena will want to be getting home to the boys.’

Inside, everyone was calling for coats and carriages, the flurry of activity making the drawing room into a scene of warm, familial chaos, a scene that was almost normal as husbands helped wives into autumn wraps until the Duke looked about the room, his eyes landing on Fortis with enough fatherly force to silence the chatter. ‘You three...’ He gestured to his grown sons and something inside of Fortis froze. ‘Stand together over there in front of the fireplace.’

The three of them did as they were told, never mind Frederick was thirty-eight and a father of five, or that Ferris was thirty-five and a physician, or that he was thirty-two and a soldier who’d returned from the grave. Apparently, a man was never too old to obey his father. His father. Something warm and unlooked for blossomed in Fortis’s stomach, melting away the ice. He’d not thought of his father for a long time. Father. The concept made his eyes sting.

The tall, white-haired Duke of Cowden stared hard at the sight before him, perhaps seeing the physical differences in him that Ferris had noted. Perhaps his father saw not only the length of his hair in contrast to Frederick’s and Ferris’s shorter lengths, but the hue of it, too. His was a walnut brown while theirs was a dark chestnut. Still nuts, though, Fortis thought to himself. Perhaps he saw, too, that Fortis was more muscled in build than the lean handsomeness of his brothers, another consequence of war and constant activity. Did his father see the brokenness inside as well? Fortis found himself standing taller as if such an action could hide whatever deficiencies he possessed inside.

Whatever the Duke saw or didn’t see in his sons, there was mist in his eyes, too, as his gaze lingered on each of his tall, handsome, dark-haired sons in turn. ‘I never thought to have all three of my sons under the same roof again. What a blessing this is. I shall never take the sight of it for granted.’ He gestured to the ladies. ‘Wives, join your husbands, I want to see my family altogether.’ He smiled. ‘If only the boys were here, Helena.’

Helena laughed as the women came to stand with them. ‘Then we’d all be herding cats. They’d never stand still.’

Avaline stood beside him, but he noticed how careful she was to leave a little space between them, not like Anne and Helena who had taken their husbands’ hands. Except for carrying her into the supper room last night, Fortis had not touched her. He had sensed a reticence, an uncertainty in her. It was to be expected. They hardly knew each other. Was she wondering even now how one should behave with a husband one hadn’t seen in seven years? And yet a part of him yearned for her to slip her hand into his as Helena had done with Frederick, to look on him with the warmth Anne looked upon Ferris when he’d re-entered the room after only being gone a few minutes. He needed to be patient with Avaline as Ferris and his family was being patient with him. What was it Frederick had said earlier? They were all changed?

There were hugs and farewells in the hall, the women exchanging plans to meet for sewing together the following week. Frederick embraced him. ‘We’ll talk about the estate soon, eh? Once you’ve got your boots on the ground here.’ With a last surge of noise and well wishes, his family departed.

Avaline closed the door behind them and turned to face him. She smiled too brightly as she stood in the wide, now-empty entrance hall of Blandford Hall. Their home. Just the two of them, a fact emphasised by the overwhelming silence surrounding them. They were alone for the first time that counted. They’d been alone last night, but there’d been the excuse of the late hour, the need to sleep and the promise of talking tomorrow to smooth over the immediate awkwardness of surprise and shock. Now tomorrow was here and there was no more family to hide behind. Here they were, Lord and Lady Fortis Tresham. Husband and wife. In broad daylight, a seven-year chasm gaping between them. ‘That went well,’ Avaline said.

‘I thought the last bit was odd.’ And touching.

Avaline’s bright smile softened, making her even more beautiful. ‘The loss of you aged your father greatly. You cannot imagine what having you back means to your parents, especially His Grace. I think one reaches a certain age where one comes to grips with their own mortality, but never the mortality of a child. To lose you was for your father to lose part of his immortality.’ She blushed and looked away. ‘You’re staring.’

Damn right he was staring. The most beautiful woman in the world was his wife. ‘You’re lovely. I was thinking the miniature doesn’t do you credit.’ Fortis fished in the pocket of his waistcoat for it. He’d put it there first thing this morning when he’d dressed. He brought it out now and flipped it open, studying the comparison.

‘You have it with you?’ Avaline asked, surprised.

‘Yes. I carry it with me always. It’s never left my pocket, except of course when I look at it.’ He felt sheepish over the admission. ‘I suppose it’s a silly habit now that I can look at you every day.’ He put it back into his pocket.

‘You never use to stare,’ Avaline ventured, the intensity of his gaze causing her to flush.

‘I’m making up for lost time.’ Fortis smiled.

‘You didn’t use to do that either. Smile,’ Avaline commented, a little smile of her own playing on her pink lips. He’d made a study of those lips over the past hours. His eyes knew intimately the enticing fullness of her bottom lip, the symmetrical perfection of the upper. It was a mouth that invited kisses and he wanted to oblige, although he wasn’t certain how that might be received, how he might be received by this wife who’d been glad of his presence last night, but who had retreated in the light of day.

‘I imagine there will be a lot of things I didn’t used to do. I’ve been given a second chance to be a better husband, a better man, and I intend to make the most of it.’ Whatever he remembered or didn’t remember, he knew that much at least. He’d been lucky. It was nothing short of a miracle he’d come out of that forest. He could agree to that, but he could see that his words had taken Avaline by surprise. She didn’t know what to make of them or of him. But they couldn’t sort that out standing in the middle of the hall where servants might overhear them.

‘Take my arm, Avaline, and walk with me. Give me a tour of all the improvements you’ve made.’ He smiled encouragingly and he hoped calmly, all the while his heart thudding in his chest at the prospect of this angel’s fingers on his sleeve, of her skirts brushing softly against his trouser leg as they strolled. Yet Avaline hesitated. ‘I am your husband and you are my wife. You needn’t be afraid to touch me, Avaline. I will not break like glass nor dissolve in a heap like ash.’

Slowly, Avaline took his arm, her fingertips ever so light on his sleeve. It was a start.

Chapter Three

His arm was as strong and as real beneath her fingers today as it had been last night, yet losing him was exactly what Avaline feared. Not in the sense that he’d dissolve physically, but that another, less tangible, piece of him would indeed evaporate if held up to scrutiny, the piece that had played the hero, who’d swept her up into his arms, who’d been solicitous of her needs, aware of the shock she must feel over his reappearance. He’d not pushed her to consummate their reunion last night, which hadn’t surprised her. Fortis had never shown interest in her bed beyond his wedding-night duties. What had surprised her, though, was the concern he’d shown for her well-being when he’d left her at her bedroom door. That was the man she didn’t want to lose, not before she could discover him, this more mature, less self-centred version of the husband who’d come home. Yet it was this very newness that hindered her now as they walked in the garden, silence between them once more. What should she say? There was so much to say, but none of it seemed quite the right place to start.

‘Shall we start with last night?’ Fortis ventured as they turned down a path lined with oaks that formed a vibrant canopy of changing leaves overhead. He was taking charge just as he had in the drawing room. It had been courageous of him to invite his family’s questions, to offer himself openly, and it had cost him something. She’d sensed he hadn’t been entirely comfortable with it.

She’d wanted to reach out and take his hand in the drawing room, to let him know he wasn’t alone. But the Fortis she’d married wouldn’t have wanted such sentiment. He would have seen it as an assault on his strength, so she’d not risked it. Perhaps she had not risked it for herself either. She could not allow this heroics-induced empathy she felt for the man who’d swept her up in his arms, who’d come to her aid against Hayworth, also sweep away the realities of their marriage.

Fortis had made his position on wedding her very clear before he’d left. So clear those words were still burned in her mind seven years later.