Page 26 of The Duke and His Jilted Bride

He tried and failed to hide a smile behind his hand. “What I heard on our carriage ride here begs to differ.”

Rolling her eyes now, she sat and opened her book. A loon apparently had a wingspan of up to five feet, which was alarming, and she read about this for several minutes before she looked over at Evander again. He was, not shockingly, much more interesting than the book.

“What do you think?” he said, noticing her. “About the book?”

“Erm…” She squinted down at the pages in her lap. “Well, I think you were right.” She turned a page. “And I also think I never want to come face-to-face with a loon. What are you reading?”

“The same thing I was reading on the coach.” He said it without looking up. “It’s not a very good distraction, by virtue of not being a very good book.”

She waited for him to continue. He did not. The fire crackled. She looked at the illustration of the loon again, which was a very regal-looking bird despite everything. And then she asked, “From what?”

Evander looked up now, and she thought for a moment he was not going to answer. Then he said, "Various things."

He poured brandy at some later point. She was not certain when it was, but a glass appeared on the small table beside her chair and he was back in his own chair with his book and his own glass, taking a sip. She picked up the glass and smelled it, then she took a sip. It warmed her thoroughly and she sighed.

“It is a very unladylike drink,” she said. “You must not tell anyone you gave it to me.”

He had closed his book and crossed one leg over the other, looking into the fire. “Your Aunt Violet made me swear I would sneak brandy to you in secret when I thought you needed one. She said you liked it, though she had tried for years to make you dislike it.”

“Aunt Violet talks too much.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “She said your father had a taste for it as well – joked it was an inheritance as well as that house in Perthshire.”

Aurelia started at the mention of her father. She took another fortifying sip, then set the glass down. “How much did Aunt Violet say about him?”

“A little. He told me how they died, and how young you were.”

She looked at the fire through the glass.

“You can tell me in your own words,” he said.

Did she want to? Not particularly. But he was her husband and would be her husband for ever, which meant she had to tell him at some point. And he might as well know now rather than later, before Aunt Violet kept talking and made her seem pathetic.

She seized her brandy before beginning, and it traced a hot path down her throat. “You spoke of Perthshire… They were traveling so they could winter there. The plan was that we would all go. But I had fallen ill while we were in London, staying with Violet and her husband. Her husband was ill as well. So it was decided they would leave first and we would join them once we were healthy again. But on the road across the border, there was a collision between their coach and a stagecoach coming the other way.”

“I see,” he murmured.

She turned the glass in her hand. “I was seven, and I didn't understand it properly for several days. And then I did all at once… And there was hardly time to process because Violet’s husband died suddenly too from his fever.”

He said nothing.

“Aunt Violet… I can hardly remember that time, but I remember her not crying in front of me ever. She told me that I had to live with her, and that we would keep each other safe from everything from now on.” A small pause. “She was right, mostly. She did keep me very safe for a very long time. I owe her everything. I think other widows would have succumbed to their grief. But not Violet.”

“A remarkable thing from her.”

“Yes, but who knows what it cost her in the end.” Aurelia considered this, and then decided she didn’t want to unearth any more that evening. She finished her brandy and put it down, and Evander placed the bottle beside her without asking.

“What were your parents like?” she asked, fixing the fire. “Frederick hardly ever spoke of them.”

He looked like he didn’t want to rehash the past either, but she had shared so much, he must have felt she was due something from him.

“My mother died when Frederick was twelve. She was… I’m not quite sure how to describe her. A simple woman overall. Her mother was Russian but largely disconnected from her family.” He turned his glass in his hand. “My father was… For the most part, he was exacting. He had high standards for himself and everyone else. He was not a cruel man. Just not a particularly warm one.”

“And you? Did you meet his standards?”

“For the most part. I fared better than Freddy. But we never quite worked out how to live side-by-side. I think he realised toward the end how economical he had been with his affection, especially after Mother died. But he never apologised. Then he died when I was nineteen and we didn't get the chance to try again. But these things happen, and we move on.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “You were a child. It was up to him to fix things between you, and he should have been brave enough, or humble enough, to try. That’s how I think I would be with my children, anyway…”