10
The tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence.
SAMUEL JOHNSON, The Idler
A COLD AUTUMN RAIN fell in sheets as the cumbersome traveling chaise containing Lady Helen Brundy and the younger of her twin sons lurched to a stop before the Grosvenor Square town house. The footman, who had been stationed in the foyer for the past two hours so as to be prepared for this vehicle’s arrival, now stepped out onto the portico, unfurled his umbrella, and approached the carriage. He would have opened the door upon the two passengers, but his master, who had been awaiting the arrival of the chaise (or, rather, its occupants) far more impatiently, ran past him, heedless of his own lack of umbrella, hat, or any other protection from the inclement weather save for a caped greatcoat of dark twill. Sir Ethan wrenched the door open and beheld, for the first time in more than two weeks, his wife and child.
Neither had improved during the interim. The green of Lady Helen’s eyes stood out in stark relief against the dark circles beneath them, and although she was swathed in a thick pelisse, he rather thought she had lost weight; certainly, the face framed by its fashionable poke bonnet appeared somewhat thinner than he remembered. But far more striking than his wife’s changed appearance was the deterioration in his son. Master William Brundy, familiarly known as Willie, sat on his mother’s lap, where he had obviously been sleeping, at least until the cessation of the carriage’s movement had awakened him. At age three, he had not yet lost his baby fat, but his plump cheeks were flushed an unnatural red, and his brown eyes, usually bright with mischief, were now dull.
“Willie?” Sir Ethan called softly to him.
“Papa,” Willie moaned miserably, holding out his arms to his father.
Sir Ethan received him willingly, and tucked him within the folds of his greatcoat before holding out his free hand to his wife.
“Oh, Ethan, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” she said, sighing with the relief of a woman whose heart has come home. “Yes, I shall be only too happy to leave the carriage, but don’t you think you should move aside so Matthew may lower the step? Take Willie into the house, and I shall be there directly.”
Sir Ethan was much inclined to linger at her side, but Willie’s appearance was enough to convince him that she was probably right. He gave Matthew a nod that was half instruction and half apology, then carried his son into the house, crooning assurances to the boy that Papa was here, and would very soon set everything to rights.
He only wished he could believe it.
Lady Helen entered the house a moment later, sheltering beneath Matthew’s umbrella and clinging to his arm; alas, Willie’s weight on her right leg had all but cut off the circulation of blood, and that usually reliable limb could no longer support her weight. Once inside, she removed her pelisse, and Sir Ethan’s suspicions that she had lost weight were confirmed.
“You’re looking well, Ethan,” she observed with mingled envy and resentment. How very like a man to go haring off to London, leaving the women of his household to cope with the illness of one child and the clinginess of the three healthy ones, all of whom felt their sibling was claiming more than his fair share of maternal attention. Even as her brain formed the thought, she recognized the unfairness of the charge, and dismissed it without regret. “Yes, Willie, I know you want to stay with Papa, but at least allow him to remove his wet coat!”
With some reluctance, Willie abandoned the shelter of his father’s arms for the mother with whom he had been shut up in a carriage for the better part of two days. Once this garment, along with Lady Helen’s pelisse and bonnet, had been surrendered to Matthew and whisked away to dry before the fire, Sir Ethan addressed himself to his wife. “So you think I look well, do you? I wish I could say the same for you! You look worn to the bone, love.”
“I am. But how very unhandsome of you to say so!”
Sir Ethan offered no answer to this charge, but shifted Willie to one arm so that he might enfold his wife in the other. “But I thought you were going to stay in Lancashire until he was better.”
“I was,” she said, fighting an uncharacteristic urge to burst into tears on her husband’s shoulder. “But he didn’t seem to be getting any better, and finally I thought it might be best to bring him with me, so a doctor might see him.”
“There are doctors in Lancashire,” he pointed out.
These rural practitioners of the medical arts, however, found no favor with Lady Helen, who made a noise which, in a less elegant female, might have been called a snort. “Yes! Old Dr. Forrest, who would no doubt wish to bleed him and dose him with laudanum!” In a more moderate tone, she added, “Perhaps I should have waited, but I had no idea we would be arriving in the worst possible weather for an invalid; it was perfectly fine when we left Lancashire! Then, too, I thought perhaps removing Willie from their sphere might at least keep the other children from falling ill. And I wanted to see you again. I’ve missed you, Ethan.”
There was only one possible response to this confession. He tightened his arm about her and kissed her lingeringly, chuckling a little when Willie’s plump arm released his neck in order to wrap itself around hers, uniting them in a circle of three.
“Oh, it is good to be here,” Lady Helen said with another sigh, this time one of contentment. “I confess, just as the children look to me
