Not Quite a Husband (30 page)

As they made their way out of the cemetery, Callista was again the first person to spot Leo: He and Matthew waited for them by the Asquith carriage, poor Matthew practically invisible against Leo’s luminosity.

A cauldron of emotions spilled over in Bryony. Tenderness. Longing. Pure bedazzled admiration. And happiness enough to float the entire Royal Navy.

Callista embraced both Leo and Matthew. “Leo, you ugly stoat, welcome home. Matthew, my goodness, you are more gorgeous every time I see you. And when are you going to offer for me? I’m not getting any younger.”

Matthew chuckled softly.

“Soon, Callista, soon. Just now on the Channel crossing Matthew was moaning your name when he thought we were going down,” said Leo, smiling. He shook hands with her stepbrother. “Angus, good to see you.”

For Bryony, probably out of consideration of her elderly knees, he spared her a full smile, which would have sent her pitching forward into the side of the carriage. “Mrs. Marsden.”

He really should have addressed her as Miss Asquith. An annulment meant that they’d never been legally married. But the way he said Mrs. Marsden, as if they were alone and he had every intention of stripping her naked, made her heart pound. As did the signal he sent via his mourning attire—besides the crape armband, he also wore a black hatband. She could already hear the gossips:
He came to the funeral dressed as if the deceased were still his father-in-law, as if he were still married to Bryony Asquith
.

“Messieurs Marsden,” she answered. “Thank you for coming.”

“We were wondering if you wouldn’t care to come to our house for tea,” said Matthew.

“I think that is a lovely idea,” said Callista.

“I’m not sure,” said Bryony. “We are not supposed to be moving in society so soon after our father’s passing.”

“You are not moving in society,” Leo said firmly. “It’s just family.”

The only family connection the Asquiths and Marsdens had between them was Leo and Bryony’s annulled marriage.

“You are absolutely right, Leo,” said Callista. “Shall we?”

“What about Mrs. Asquith?” Bryony asked. “Only Paul is there with her and Paul took Father’s passing rather hard himself.”

“I will keep them company,” Angus volunteered. “The two of you go.”

“Still …”

“It’s all right,” said Callista. “We won’t stay long.”

Angus took the Asquith carriage home. Everyone else piled into the Wyden carriage. During the ride, Bryony learned that Matthew had left his holiday in Biarritz to meet Leo in Paris. And when he couldn’t persuade Leo to go to Biarritz with him, had decided to accompany Leo to London instead.

They’d literally just detrained at Victoria Station when they learned that Geoffrey Asquith’s funeral was being held that very afternoon. They had barely enough time to buy Leo his mourning crape and rush home to change out of their traveling clothes before driving to the service.

“Leo robbed me of my coat,” said Matthew. “He had to look good.”

“Liar.” Leo smiled. “Matthew insisted that I take his coat, since I couldn’t go to my father-in-law’s funeral in a lounge suit, which was all I had at that point.”

My father-in-law
. Flustered, Bryony kept her face turned toward the window, so that she did not have to deal with the rampant curiosity in the carriage.

Callista pulled Bryony aside after they alit, before they entered the Wyden house. “Did the two of you marry again? Please tell me yes. If he is my brother-in-law again, he is less likely to kill me for what I did.”

Bryony looked at her a moment, then leaned in and whispered in her ear. “He won’t kill you. He just wants you committed to an asylum.”

The Wyden house was full of men. Jeremy and Will had come up from Oxfordshire without their spouses and children: Matthew and Leo would shortly go down to the family seat to meet everyone.

“I can’t tell you how glad we are you ladies could join us,” said Will. “Jeremy was born mute, I am so quiet and retiring, Matthew never knows any good gossip, and Leo is the most boring person in the world.”

“Just you wait,” said Leo. “My wife never stops talking once she starts.”

Jeremy choked on his whiskey and coughed. Leo slapped him between the shoulder blades. Bryony was glad she hadn’t started on her tea yet. Or she would have joined Jeremy in the choking.

My wife
.

“So, Callista, I understand you managed to pull off a fairly substantial confidence trick despite Leo’s vigilance,” said Matthew. “How did you do that?”

“No, Callista, don’t confess. You know what will
happen afterward.” Will imitated firing a gun. “Have you ever seen Leo with a firearm?”

“More to the point, have you ever seen my wife with a scalpel?” asked Leo. There was just enough menace in his voice to make Bryony feel like the veriest medical assassin.

Callista had the grace to blush. “My father was in on it. I figured Leo would check any claims I made, so Father stayed home for a week or so and we let it be known that he was not feeling well.”

“How did you know I’d left Leh?” asked Bryony. She’d forgotten about that part.

“That was pure accident. Someone I knew turned out to be Mrs. Braeburn’s niece. When she received a letter Mrs. Braeburn wrote her saying that they were departing Leh for the Kalash Valleys with a Mrs. Marsden who was a physician, she came to me and asked if that wasn’t Bryony. I told her to say nothing to Mrs. Braeburn about it.”

“So you knew she was in the Chitral region and you made me go all the way to Leh first?”

“Well, if I told you I knew where she was you’d have just told me to cable her myself and leave you alone. And please don’t kill me. Are you glad you have your wife back?”

“Jeremy, do you still keep a pistol in the library?”

Leo was standing by Bryony’s chair. She placed
her hand on his sleeve. “We are all safe now. And Callista is very sorry.”

Leo looked at Bryony a long moment. His hand touched hers briefly and he smiled. “There is never a pistol in this house.”

Bryony was uncomfortable with public displays of intimacy. But she let her hand remain under Leo’s for another two seconds before pulling it back to her lap.

“Sorry, Leo,” Callista said, shamefaced.

“Now what I want to know is what happened when you found Bryony, Leo,” said Will. “Did you just say your sister sent me, pack up everything and come with me this moment?”

“More or less.”

“And she came away with you?”

“More or less.” Leo tossed Bryony a mischievous look. “Although there might have been laudanum, drugging, and a midnight abduction involved.”

“Now that’s a much better story,” said Matthew. “I would pay to read that one.”

“And for his knavery, Leo lost one of his—more important parts,” said Bryony.

“No!” Matthew and Will shouted in unison.

“Bryony!” Callista squeaked.

“Kidney,” Leo cried. “It was just a kidney. A man can live a perfectly vigorous life with one kidney.”

“You can call it a kidney if you want,” said Bryony.

Will hooted. Callista covered her eyes. Leo covered his entire face, his shoulders shaking with mirth. Bryony couldn’t help it—she laughed, laughed so much that she had to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief.

This
was what she’d once imagined marriage to him would be like, this festive normalcy, this sense of warmth and ease and belonging.

“So what really happened?” asked Jeremy.

Jeremy had the seriousness and authority of one who’d been groomed since birth for responsibilities. When he asked questions, people answered.

“Ah, the dreaded what-really-happened question,” said Leo, still smiling. “Tell him, Bryony.”

Now she knew what it had felt like for him when she asked him to tell the Braeburns why they had to leave right away. But she had not his talent for shaping words into a separate reality. She swallowed. “It was very simple, really. When Leo came, I wanted to go with him. I was—I was never so happy to see anyone in my life.”

Leo leaned back in his chair, his head tilted. For a moment she thought he would mock her. He’d told such a beautiful—and ultimately true—version of their story to the Braeburns, and all she had to say
to his brothers was these two plain lines. And then she noticed the shimmer of tears in his eyes.

He did not cry. But she almost did. It was a while before she was sufficiently herself again to rejoin the conversation.

And after that she could not stop smiling.

She glowed. There was no other word for it, as if the walls around her heart had at last crumpled enough to reveal her hidden capacity for joy, for life. And what a radiant thing it was. Even her silence beamed softly, a mere absence of words rather than the dark void it had so often been.

They were asked about their ride to Chakdarra and the consequent siege. There was talk of Charlie and Charlie’s motherless children. Callista flirted outrageously with Matthew. And throughout it all, Leo, drunk on hope, watched Bryony.

With every one of her smiles their past receded a little further; their future became not only more possible, but more secure. Suddenly he could think of such prosaic things as the size of writing desks, the weight of service china, the color of wallpapers and curtains—his head was full of them, the lovely, minute details of a new life together.

Bryony and Callista stayed for over an hour, until
Callista rose and said that they must go home to check on Mrs. Asquith. Bryony came to her feet rather slowly, as if she was having too much fun to wish to leave yet.

Matthew elbowed Leo. “Leo, why is your wife leaving with her sister?”

“Because our marriage is a secret, that’s why,” said Leo. He turned to Bryony. “Before you go, may I have a word, Mrs. Marsden?”

He only meant to give her Toddy’s old letter, but as soon as they were out in the hall she grabbed him by the lapel and kissed him. He crushed her fiercely against himself.

“When will you ask for your post back?” he whispered in her ear. “I miss the smell of industrial-strength solvents.”

She laughed softly. “Soon. And when will you have papers read at the mathematical society again? I rather like having my husband called a genius for reasons that are not clear to me.”

My husband
. The words rolled off her tongue, easy and beautiful. He kissed her fervently. “Soon. My brilliance quite overflowed on the way home. I have four notebooks to show for it.”

“Good. We don’t want people to think I love you for your looks alone.”

“In that case we should also put you in some
rather revealing gowns once in a while, so that people don’t think I married you for your accomplishments alone.”

She laughed again—she probably had no idea how beautiful she was when she laughed, like the dawn of a new day. Her laughter quieted after a few seconds. There came a long moment of silence. She gazed up into his eyes.

“I know why you keep referring to me as your wife. But I’m not pregnant, Leo.”

He hadn’t truly hoped, but still it was not easy to hear. It would be wonderful to have a child together, to commit not just to each other, but to a growing life, a continuation and natural extension of their love.

“You don’t need to be,” he said. “Children are not essential to my life. Only you are. You have always been. And nothing has changed.”

Her lashes lowered. “You will make me cry,” she murmured.

“It’s all right to cry,” he whispered back, “when you get home, that is. Crying is not allowed in the Wyden house: It’s the Marsden rule.”

Her lips quivered. After a while, she looked up, her eyes still bright with unshed tears. “Did you say you wanted a word with me, sir?”

He’d forgotten entirely. He pulled the envelope
out of his pocket and pressed it into her hands. “For you. Something I promised. And tomorrow morning I’ll call on you: We’ll go to Cambridge.”