Page 140 of The Language of Love

Chapter 24

“Are you sure you’re feeling up to it?” Henry asked when Annis invited him to her chambers

He was more than a little concerned about his wife. She’d looked dreadful at dinner. And afterward she’d sat in his study with a book in her hands, never turning a page.

“Yes, I’m well enough,” she assured him, her smile more of a rictus.

“Then I shall be up in half an hour.”

After she left, Henry turned to the message that had been waiting for him after dinner.

It was terse, but then Jonathan Green was a man of few words, one reason that Henry had hired him in London.

“I arrived just a few hours ago. I didn’t contact you immediately as I was busy following our quarry. I am staying at the Crown under the name of Ned Bowen. I have a significant amount of information to impart. Please advise when and where we might meet.”

Henry quickly jotted out an equally brief reply and rang for a servant.

A footman opened the door a few moments later. “Please give this to Haskell and tell him to deliver it to the Crown right away.” Haskell was one of the new grooms he’d hired before leaving London. Jonathan Green had recommended the man, and Henry trusted him implicitly.

Once the servant had gone, Henry threw Green’s message into the fire and snuffed the candles before leaving. Just as he was closing the door to his study, he saw a flash of royal blue out of the corner of his eye, the same color as one of Julia’s cloaks.

Henry frowned. It was almost midnight; what the hell was she doing?

He barely hesitated before heading down the stairs after her.

But when he got to the ground floor, only a few seconds behind Julia, he did not see any sign of her. How the devil had she disappeared so quickly?

He investigated the rooms up and down the corridor, but they were all empty. Just as he closed the last door, a maid came from the hallway that led to the foyer.

“Did Lady Rotherhithe pass you?”

Fear suffused the girl’s features, as if Henry might eat her. “The countess, my lord?”

“The dowager,” he clarified, not for the first time wishing there was a less confusing title for Julia.

“No, my lord. I passed nobody.”

Which made Henry wonder why she’d needed clarification about the women, but he left it alone and headed back up the stairs. Whatever Julia was up to, he didn’t have time to follow her; he would already be late getting to Annis.

As he made the not insignificant journey to their chambers, he thought about how she’d looked at dinner: frightened.

Henry desperately wished that she would confide in him, but he’d given her several opportunities to clear the air and she’d told him nothing. He could hardly badger her to tell him the truth when she’d already claimed to do so.

Perhaps you don’t need to badger her, but just show her some kindness.

I’m never cruel to her.

Cruel, no, but you’ve been reserved and distant since that letter from Avington, and you know it. So does she.

The accusation, which had more than a grain of truth, annoyed Henry. He had kept her at a distance these past weeks. Not to punish her for her attachment to Avington—or so he told himself—but to keep himself from developing… expectations.

Perhaps you might confess what you know instead of waiting for her to come to you.

But Henry couldn’t. He simply couldn’t.

By the time his valet finished shaving him, he was fifteen minutes late and Annis startled when he entered her room. For once, she was not reading, just staring blankly at the opposite wall.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Rather than snuff the candles, as he’d been doing for weeks when he came to her bed, he left them burning. He needed to see her.