THE GRUDGING CONSORT

five

Letters, and bills, and memoranda, filling his desk in great piles and never seeming to reduce in quantity or increase in quality — and none of it, none of it distracted Arthur for even a moment. He flung himself back in his chair and rubbed at his temples. A few years before, he’d entertained hopes that Tom would apply himself to the management of the family’s business interests. Arthur hadn’t intended such labors to be unrewarded; Tom would have had a substantial salary for it, on top of the income from his private fortune. Not that Arthur would have chucked it all in for a life of leisure, but a partner would have been more than welcome. Perhaps luckily for Arthur’s pocketbook, Tom had scoffed at the idea. His fortune was quite sufficient to achieve brandy, cards, and pleasant company, and he had little interest in anything else. Arthur wondered, not for the first time, how much Owen knew about Tom’s habits. Owen. Arthur shifted uncomfortably and gave up on the idea of soothing the throb of his aching head. He hadn’t seen much of his brother’s fiancé since the engagement, both by his own choice and because Tom had seemed as eager to keep them apart as he was to speak of Owen to Arthur at seemingly every opportunity. The result had been that Arthur saw as little as possible of Tom, too. One thing Tom had said, though, before Arthur ended the subject by abruptly rising from the dinner table, had remained lodged in his brain like a burr. He meant to remove to the city at once upon marrying, stopping at some seaside resort along the way for a honeymoon. This meant Arthur would be free of them both, certainly for the best. He was not so certain his manners would win the battle when pitted against the bitterness of meeting Owen as Tom’s husband. But Arthur had trouble imagining Owen enjoying the life Tom led, a life the latter would never willingly give up, no matter his empty protestations about marriage making him a changed man. Perhaps Owen believed it. Arthur knew better. And that stung the most painfully, knowing that Owen would never be happy. Tom loved himself first and foremost. He might love Owen second, but not as Arthur could have — but no. No, and damn it all, no. He did not regret losing the opportunity to court Owen and discover if there could be more to his feelings than immediate attraction. Arthur told himself that — and told himself again, as often as necessary, usually immediately after remembering the softness of Owen’s hair, or the sparkle of his eyes. Arthur turned to the one letter he’d been ignoring, knowing it would only bring on a headache. As he already had one, it hardly mattered now. Tom was overdue to return by three days, and this note from him no doubt held some flimsy excuse, and possibly a request for a favor. He broke the seal and glanced at it, hardly paying attention. And then his attention was fairly riveted. After reading it through twice, Arthur felt heavy in every limb, more reluctant to rise and to perform his duty than he ever had been. He was no coward, but this — Arthur had never broken any hearts that he was aware of. Breaking Owen’s on Tom’s behalf would be by far the worst thing he had ever done. Cold rage swept over him, giving him both courage and resolution. He would mitigate the damage as best he could. And Tom would be wise never to put himself within reach of Arthur’s fists again. He rose, put the letter in his pocket, and called for his hat and coat. Despite his mother’s continual remonstrances, Owen lounged in the orchard again, dreaming and thinking. He was half waiting for Tom’s return and half, though he didn’t want to admit it, enjoying his last weeks as an unmarried man. As both his parents took great pleasure in reminding him, married life was very unlike his current freedom from care and responsibility. “It’s a heavy burden to be a husband,” his father had told him that very morning, as they drank a final cup of post-breakfast tea. “You must always consider others before yourself. That’s your duty as a man, my boy. You might fail in taking care of your family, a misfortune that could befall anyone, but you can’t fail to try and still hold your head up.” “Won’t I be more of a wife, though?” Owen asked, a trifle flippantly. “The goddess-blessed take the place of a woman in the household, or so the priestesses have always told me.” His father fixed him with a withering stare over the rim of his teacup. He was not a terribly imposing man; he had less than average height, and stood, in fact, perhaps a half inch shorter than his wife; he had never been precisely willowy, and he had become downright stout with middle age. He wore old-fashioned breeches and never went without a watch-chain draped over a waistcoat, always brown. Thirty years of overseeing clerks, though, had given him a gimlet eye that could make a bolder youth than Owen wish to become invisible. “Have you paid no attention whatsoever to the running of this household?” he asked. Owen detected a trap, but he couldn’t think of a way to avoid springing it. “Of course?” His father let out a harrumphing sound. “If you had, then you’d know your mother’s labors are at least as onerous as mine, and never-ending to boot. Be thankful if your only duties are those of a husband. Which reminds me. I should take her tea up to the sewing-room.” With that, he poured a fresh cup to his wife’s specifications and bore it away upstairs. Owen watched him go rather wistfully. He could readily imagine — and had, perhaps, spent a little too much time imagining — Tom showing him every pleasure possible to be had in a marriage bed, but Tom bringing him tea with his own hands, rather than simply ringing for a servant? That vision wouldn’t quite form. And now Tom was gone again, off to the capital to arrange some business matter or other. He had left for the first time only the day after his proposal some two months before, telling Owen breezily that he must see his solicitor about the marriage settlements, and not to trouble his pretty head about it. When Owen pointed out that he was the son of a solicitor and had been trained almost from birth in points of law, filling in for his father’s clerks whenever necessary, Tom looked very cross and told him he would have no need for such knowledge once they were married. He had bowed and departed before Owen could formulate a reply. On his return, they forgot it all in the delight of a reunion. Before Tom’s subsequent journeys to the city, Owen took care not to say anything else that could cause a quarrel. Tom had never apologized, though, nor said anything to make Owen think his mind had changed. He had also continued to be absent as much as he was present, always with some very important reason for going. Their wedding date was in less than a fortnight, Tom was away again, and Owen’s sense of misgiving had grown like some overnourished, misshapen plant that had taken root down in his depths, where he could not dig it out no matter how he tried. He had no wish to be a solicitor, much to Mr. Honeyfield’s disappointment. But why should he not have a man’s place in the world, all the same? Mirreith’s priestesses were very clear on Owen’s destined role in life, and so he had not taken up a proper profession. That didn’t mean he couldn’t understand anything beyond getting dressed in the morning and harrying the cook to see that she made the right sort of biscuits. Not that running a household was an easy matter, as his father had pointed out. Nor that the women he knew weren’t quite capable of managing their own affairs, although Owen’s mother, trusting her husband’s expertise, left all such to him. Owen went round and round, but he still couldn’t find a way that leaving him entirely ignorant of their financial standing, and Owen’s own rights in their marriage for the goddess’s sake, was quite right on Tom’s part. Oh, if only Tom would come home. When he smiled, and whispered in Owen’s ear how lovely he was and how happy they would be, all his doubts fell away. And what a waste, to feel so dreary and anxious on a day like this. A few puffy white clouds scudded by, casting passing shadows over sun-drenched grass studded with wildflowers. Cornflowers and clusters of pale yarrow nodded in the breeze, with scarlet poppies interspersed. Bees rose and fell above and between, their buzz a gentle counterpoint to the shushing of the leafy canopy above Owen’s head. Dread knotted his stomach. Why, oh why had Tom stayed away so long? He should have returned three days before, and Owen hadn’t even had a letter. “Master Owen!” He started out of his thoughts and turned to see Martha, the housemaid, waving from the bottom of the garden. “Master Owen, Mr. Drake is here to see you.” Owen’s heart leapt in his chest and he followed suit, jumping up and running for the house before he could even take a full breath. “Thank you, Martha!” he called out as he ran past. “Master Owen, wait—” But Owen couldn’t possibly wait for Martha to announce him. Tom had come home, they’d be married in twelve days, and all would be well. He burst into the drawing-room through the side door. A moment later, he stopped, his whole body suddenly cold, as Arthur Drake turned to greet him, lips drawn down into a frown and some terrible emotion darkening his eyes.