obvious she’s happy, even though she’s had to become a morning person. The time stamps on her emails are early as hell.”
“At least she’s finding time to reach out and put things in writing,” Freddie said.
A silence, pregnant with meaning, stretched between us.
I nudged him with my foot. “I’ve seen the woman visiting you.”
Freddie turned inward. “I can’t, Bex. Not now. Not with you.”
“Fred,” I began, shifting so that I was next to him. “I started so many texts, Freddie. I wanted to email. But I didn’t—”
“You can stop right there. You didn’t,” he said.
His face had turned pink. My heart simultaneously rose into my throat and sank into my feet.
“I hate that we made you feel alone,” I said.
“But you don’t hate that you left me alone.”
I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t. Leaving, and hiding, had been easier for me than staying and dealing with the fallout. Maybe we should have stayed. For Freddie, for the family, for The Firm. But I knew I’d make that same decision again. Nick and I had an entire lifetime ahead in which we’d doubtless, and often, surrender our personal needs for family and country, so even in the face of Freddie’s anguish, I couldn’t rightly say I felt regret.
“I know this was hard for you,” I said instead. “But it was hard for us, too, Freddie. That was our wedding day, and it was an epic disaster. I don’t think either one of us was in our right mind. Put yourself in Nick’s shoes.”
“You think I haven’t ever put myself in Nick’s shoes?” Freddie hissed.
“He would not have gotten his feet back underneath him if we’d stayed here,” I pressed on, opting to ignore his implication. “I hate seeing you like this and knowing it’s my fault, Freddie. I hate it. But staying would have killed us, and…we’re married. We have to be each other’s priority.”
“Yes, being cut out was a nasty reminder that we’re not three anymore,” he said. “We’re two and one. Things were already changing, and then they got infinitely worse.”
He appeared, for a split second, to check the door for any sign of Nick. “I don’t have a right to have expected more from Nick, but it was shitty that you abandoned me to deal with this by myself. I’d already been pretending I didn’t care that you chose him, that it didn’t hurt, that my heart wasn’t broken. But when you ran, it was like it happened all over again, only this time I had to go through it in public.”
His sad eyes, blue pools so similar to Nick’s, cut me to the quick. Then he dipped his head toward me, the better to speak quietly as his voice cracked. “You were there. You are the only other person who really knows how it was. How low we both were. And then the worst thing I’ve ever done, ever, became public. And you left, Bex. And I had to be the face of it alone.”
The front door opened. Freddie leapt away from me so fast that the railing actually rattled.
“Hello,” said Nick stiffly. His sunglasses made it hard to tell which one of us he was looking at more closely.
“Hello, yes, hi. Bex and I were just catching up,” Freddie said, looking anywhere but at either of us.
Nick took this in for a second, and then pointed at the dossier Freddie was still bookmarking. “Bit late to start cramming now.”
“I don’t need to cram. I read it twice last night,” Freddie said. “I’m excited to hear how they were able to tell that the bloke they found with the tapestry had died by choking on a cheese sandwich.”
“And I hear congratulations are in order,” Nick said. “Father tells me Gran is making you a Counsellor of State. It’s an honor, being one of her official proxies.” Nick’s tone had mounted into one of false joviality. “And to get it before the direct heir does? It’s unheard of.”
“Father has come to respect what I can contribute. I was touched to know Gran agrees,” Freddie said loftily. “I’m sure you’ll get there.”
“Quite,” Nick said coldly. “Well done, you.”
“Yes, it’s nice to have this one thing, at least,” Freddie said.
Both men glanced at me, before we heard the crunch of the Range Rover’s tires on gravel.
“I think I’ll ride up front,” said Freddie, stalking over to the car and disappearing inside.
I reached for Nick’s hand. “At least he didn’t use the word fine?”