An Infamous Marriage by Susanna Fraser

reunion going. He hadn’t felt so out of control since his ship had got caught in a hurricane the first time he crossed the Atlantic.
    Her eyebrows arched. Even at this distance Jack could see the flashes of green amid the clear light brown of her eyes. The same eyes he’d remembered as dull and muddy. “Indeed it has,” she said. “Will you come in? You’ve had a cold ride of it, I fear.”
    He had, and once inside they could talk without an audience. Jeremiah still lingered outside the stable with Prince. Jack could see a pair of maids peeking out from the scullery, and he would wager a week’s pay that the remainder of the grooms and herdsmen were listening from the stable and barn doors. So he crossed the muddy space separating them and offered his wife his arm. She took it, though the pressure of her fingertips was so light he could hardly feel their touch.
    Together they walked inside, handing his greatcoat and her cloak into the keeping of a gaping housemaid at the door. Elizabeth led him to the parlor, where she sat gracefully on a straight-backed chair on one side of the hearth and gestured for him to take the seat opposite.
    Jack remained on his feet. He leaned against the mantel, letting the warmth of the fire soak into his chilled limbs and soothe his aching leg. The room had not changed much, though he thought Elizabeth might’ve had the sofa and chairs re-covered. Hadn’t they been a darker green? Or perhaps she’d only had them cleaned, or he was remembering another parlor altogether. Good God, why was he thinking about chairs? And why was his wife poised so calmly on one? Shouldn’t she be fainting in shock at his sudden appearance, or fluttering and calling for her smelling salts? Wasn’t that what wives did, at least the pale, mousy, ladylike ones? What business had she looking in command of herself and the situation? He was the husband. He was the general, the hero of Queenston Heights.
    He’d been ready for fainting and hysterics. He’d been ready for raging over his long absence. He was not ready for her calm, self-controlled reality. Abruptly he realized she’d had just as long to imagine this meeting as he had. She must have a strategy, too. Until he could get her off hers and onto his, she would occupy the high ground.
    He could not comfort her, for she hadn’t broken down. He could not speak words of love and joy at seeing her again, for they would ring hollow. Damn the woman, what was she playing at?
    “One of us must speak,” he ground out between gritted teeth.
    “And now you have.” Was that a flicker of amusement, evanescent in those marvelous eyes? “Pray continue,” she added.
    “Have you nothing to say, madam?”
    “On the contrary. There is much I could say. But I am eager to hear what you have to say for yourself.”
    One would almost think she was the aggrieved party. “You began this.”
    “Indeed? Began what, sir?”
    “That—that letter you wrote when Mama died.” He hadn’t meant to blurt out his grievance so abruptly, but Elizabeth’s icy calm threw him off balance.
    She raised her eyebrows. “What of it? I informed you as quickly as I could.”
    “ Informed is the right word! I have never read a colder letter in my life. I would think it shameful to write so paltry a letter of condolence to the family of an officer who died under my command if I’d known him for but a single day and taken him into instant dislike. And to get such a letter from my own wife informing me of the loss of my own mother! I thought you must’ve been busy that day and grieving yourself—but nothing more for months, and then only a report on the income from the Grange?”
    She didn’t look at him as he paced back and forth before the fire, instead staring fixedly at the flickering flames. “Shall I tell you whom I saw, and what I learned, on the morning your mother died?”
    Her voice was careful, controlled, as if she was holding her memories and emotions back with a curb