“Nothing wrong with the food,” said Frith, his tone placating. He earned a ferocious scowl from Sir Roger, which he ignored. “Best claret I’ve had this year.”
Benjamin grew conscious of a tiny, barely perceptible, desire to laugh. The impulse startled him.
“Well, well,” said his uncle. “Who knows? If I’ve made a mistake, I’ll gladly apologize. Indeed, I beg your pardon for springing my idea on you with no preparation. Will you, nonetheless, allow me to tell the story of my grieving, as I had hoped to do?”
Such was the power of his personality that none of the younger men refused. Even Sir Roger merely glared at his half-eaten meal.
“And afterward, should you wish to do the same, I’ll gladly hear it,” said Benjamin’s uncle. He smiled.
Uncle Arthur had always had the most engaging smile, Benjamin thought. He suddenly recalled a day twenty years past, when his young uncle had caught him slipping a frog between a bullying cousin’s bedsheets. That day, Uncle Arthur’s grin had quirked with shared mischief. Tonight, his expression showed kindness and sympathy and the focus of a keen intellect. Impossible to resist, really.
In the end, Benjamin found the talk that evening surprisingly gripping. Grief had more guises than he’d realized, and there was a crumb of comfort in knowing that other men labored under its yoke. Not that it made the least difference after the goodbyes had been said and the reality of his solitary life descended upon him once more. Reality remained, as it had these last years, bleak.
One
Benjamin rode over the last low ridge and drew rein to look down on his home. It was a vast relief to be back, far from the incessant noise of London. The mellow red brick of the house, twined with ivy, the pointed gables and ranks of leaded windows, were as familiar as his own face in the mirror. Furness Hall had been the seat of his family for two hundred years, built when the first baron received his title from King James. The place was a pleasing balance of grand and comfortable, Benjamin thought. And Somerset’s mild climate kept the lawn and shrubberies green all winter, though the trees were bare. Not one stray leaf marred the sweep of sod before the front door, he saw approvingly. The hedges were neat and square—a picture of tranquility. A man could be still with his thoughts here, and he longed for nothing else.
He left his horse at the stables and entered the house to a welcome hush. Everything was just as he wished it in his home, with no demands and no surprises. He’d heard a neighbor claim, when he thought Benjamin couldn’t hear, that Furness Hall had gone gloomy since its mistress died. He could not have cared less about the fellow’s opinion. What did he know of grief? Or anything else for that matter? He was obviously a dolt.
A shrill shout broke the silence as Benjamin turned toward the library, followed by pounding footsteps. A small figure erupted from the back of the entry hall. “The lord’s home,” cried the small boy.
Benjamin cringed. Four-year-old Geoffrey was a whirlwind of disruptive energy. He never seemed to speak below a shout, and he was forever beating on pans or capering about waving sticks like a demented imp.
“The lord’s home,” shouted the boy again, skidding to a stop before Benjamin and staring up at him. His red-gold hair flopped over his brow. He shoved it back with a grubby hand.
Benjamin’s jaw tightened. His small son’s face was so like Alice’s—it was uncannily painful. In a bloody terror of death and birth, he’d traded beloved female features for an erratic miniature copy. He could tell himself it wasn’t Geoffrey’s fault that his mother had died bringing him into the world. He knew it wasn’t. But that didn’t make it any easier to look at him.
A nursery maid came running, put her hands on Geoffrey’s shoulders, and urged him away. Staring back over his shoulder, the boy went. His deep blue eyes reproduced Alice’s in color and shape, but she’d never gazed at Benjamin so pugnaciously. Of course she hadn’t. She’d been all loving support and gentle approbation. But she was gone.
Benjamin headed for his library. If he had peace and quiet, he could manage the blow that fate had dealt him. Was that so much to ask? He didn’t think so.
Shutting the door behind him, he sat in his customary place before the fire. Alice’s