Chapter 56

He was in trouble. He knew it in his bones. It wasn’t the misery that ate at him, or the loneliness. He’d grown used to it.

It was the feeling that a change was coming. The sense that something wonderful lay just around the corner, only to see his hopes dashed and to find he’d given his heart to a woman who did not want him.

‘Good morning.’ She’d come into the breakfast room so quietly that he hadn’t heard. And her voice was hoarse, as though she’d cried herself to sleep after creeping back to her room in the night. Unable to rest, he had gone to the library in search of the brandy bottle and when he returned she was gone from his bed.

‘Good morning,’ he responded. What else could he say to her? What apology could he offer? What explanation could he give that would take the bitterness out of this morning?

She’d come into his life, unwilling. He’d laughed to himself that his mother had chosen the perfect bride, a woman just as unhappy as he was. It would be a case of like drawing to li