“We need to talk. And not just about this.”
All the fire and anger swept out of her, leaving her bone weary. Ellen sagged against the dirty upholstery, closing her eyes. “Please, Mark. Leave me alone. I can’t do this with you. I don’t have it in me.”
“Ellen.” He said her name so tenderly it brought tears to her eyes. “I’m sorry. I thought…I thought we had agreed this separation was best for both of us. I hadn’t realized—” Mark gently rested his hand on her knee.
Ellen jerked it away, his touch scalding her. “I saidno.” She meant it to come out sharp and hard, like shards of glass. Instead she sounded like she was about to burst into tears.
After several moments of silence, Mark spoke again. “I can tell my presence distresses you. I have no wish to hurt you any further, but we’re married, and our lives affect one another.”
Ellen sighed and opened her eyes to look at him, the man she’d loved, the man who’d left. She remembered the weeks of disbelief and denial, the months of heartbreak and anger, the years of disdain and indifference. “If I hear what you have to say, will you promise to go away?”
Mark hesitated. “I can’t promise to go away, but I can promise to give you some space.”
She was so tired of fighting, of hating, of grieving, of trying so damn hard to live. “Fine.”
“You’ll listen?” Mark sounded uncertain, perhaps wary she had suddenly capitulated.
“Tomorrow. Come tomorrow morning and I shall receive you.”
The cab halted beside the square. Ellen breathed the fresh air, listening to the wind through the trees as she waited for Mark to pay, then exit the cab. She climbed down, ignoring Mark’s offered hand. “Please don’t escort me to the door.”
To his credit, he didn’t.
Ellen slipped inside, ignoring Meeks’s disapproving look, and fell asleep in her bed before she had even undressed.
Chapter Five
Mark, for the second time in two days, knocked on his father-in-law’s door.
This time, Meeks didn’t answer the door. A footman, blinking in the bright Thursday morning sunlight, ushered him inside. “Are you here for Mrs. Glenfall? She stepped out.”
Irritation flooded Mark. He sucked in a breath.Is she avoiding me? Going back on her word?“Mrs. Glenfall told me to be here this morning. It’s eight o’clock, and here I am.” Punctuality was important, he’d never show up late to a meeting with his sailors, nor they him. Duty was important, too. He owed the barony heirs. Which meant Ellen owed him children. It was his responsibility to the family and the estate, and he’d do what he must for her to willingly return to his bed.
Memories of her fierce glare, the hatpin, and her hair gleaming in the lamplight flickered to the forefront of his mind. She wasn’t the childish heiress he remembered. It wouldn’t be nearly as large a sacrifice on his part as he’d thought two days ago.
The footman fidgeted, clearly knowing he was in the middle of a marital spat and uncomfortable with it. “Perhaps she hoped you would come a little later, sir.”
“Where is she?” Mark demanded, gripping his cane in onehand. He had slept little, between the secret jaunt to Marylebone and the tossing and turning he’d done afterward in his bed.
“Where she always is on Thursday mornings, sir,” the young man stammered.
Mark sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose while gathering the shreds of his patience. “And where might that be?”
“Grosvenor Chapel, sir.”
Mark turned, opening the door himself, and stepped outside.
Grosvenor Chapel. Do I know that place? We didn’t get married there, I don’t think.Mark frowned.
He remembered the significance of the church. His chest hollowed, as if someone had reached in and scooped out his heart. Mark turned and walked up the street toward a chapel he’d never been to, but read about in one of his mother’s letters.
He reached the old Georgian church fifteen minutes later. The red brick building with white stone accents, perfectly proportional and symmetrical as all good Georgian buildings, sat cheerfully beside the street. Mark, uneasy, peered around the corner to find a small cemetery. Mark didn’t want to be here. For some reason, his feet wouldn’t carry him away. They stuck to the street. He blinked, and somehow he was leaning against the wrought iron fence, gazing into the old cemetery. Worn and bleached headstones dotted the grass, interspersed with smaller and newer ones. And there, in the back, under the shade of an elm tree, was Ellen. His wife.
Mark couldn’t move. If the church had been on fire, he didn’t think he would’ve reacted. Mark held his hat in one hand, cane in the other, and swallowed the lump in his throat.
Ellen, clad in her gray cloak, knelt at the foot of a small headstone. She reached over and caressed the top of the stone. It was unbearably intimate, yet Mark couldn’t look away. She leaned forward and kissed the tombstone, holding it tight with one ungloved hand.
Mark didn’t know what to think. Or feel. Or say.