Isabelle and Alexander by Rebecca Anderson (new books to read TXT) 📗

may not agree with him, at least not marriage to me, and just lately he’s fallen on a difficulty.”

A laugh escaped her unbidden as she realized what she’d said. Fallen.

“Oh, dear,” Isabelle gasped and covered her mouth. Talk­ing nonsense to an animal was one thing, but poking fun of her husband’s injury was right out of line. She attempted to repress the giggle that bubbled in her chest. Horrified at her inability to manage herself, she let the laugh emerge and run its course. It felt uncontrolled, hysterical. Gasping for breath, she felt tears run down her cheeks. Every sense of propriety revolted at her display. As did the fox, running back into the hole beneath the wall.

Isabelle wiped her eyes, pressed a hand to her chest, and calmed her breathing.

“Sorry,” she said, as if to the fox, the field, the country itself. “I am so terribly sorry. I beg your pardon.”

She felt a strange loss now that the fox had disappeared. Her display of hysteria left her feeling uncontrolled and afraid. If she couldn’t even manage to take a walk without exploding into inappropriate conduct, how could she be the wife Alexander expected her to be?

And more than that, how could she care for his needs?

How in the world was she to do the job that was now hers?

Actions grew to habits over the next few days. Mornings, after she dressed, Isabelle would go to the kitchen, pick up the tray of food Mae had prepared, carry it to the parlor door, and stop. There, she’d take a deep, bracing breath and place a brave, calm smile on her face before she entered the room.

Depending on his ability to rest in the night, Alexander would treat her with silence, contempt, or disdain. After only a few days, she could tell before he attempted to speak how his mood would be. His female admirers had been correct. He did indeed have an expressive brow.

As Isabelle walked in, she decided that his brow was expressing a deeply masked gratitude for his long-suffering and nurturing wife.

Very deeply masked.

Isabelle smiled politely and announced breakfast. “Mae has made you a soft-boiled egg and milk toast.” She pulled the chair on which she’d sit to feed him up to the couch. “I hope you slept well,” she added, not expecting an answer.

“Have any messages come from Kenworthy?” Every day his voice seemed to get stronger, or at least Isabelle thought it did. He didn’t speak to her enough for her to form an accurate assessment.

“Yes, he’s sent a letter just this morning. And I would be delighted to read it to you after you’ve eaten.”

His scowl caused her to amend her condition. “After you’ve eaten three bites of this lovely egg.”

“Who needs three bites to finish a boiled egg?” he muttered, his hoarse, whispery voice gaining some volume.

“I suppose that depends on how large the bites are to begin with,” she said, dipping her spoon into the egg cup.

Apparently disinterested in a philosophical discussion, Alexander opened his mouth to eat. He made short work of the meal, and Isabelle refrained only with difficulty from praising his effort. Last time she’d mentioned how well he’d eaten, he’d gruffly made her to understand that swallowing food prepared as though for babies and delivered directly to his mouth was not something that deserved praise.

Noted.

But if she couldn’t praise that, what could she mention? That his voice was getting stronger? He might raise it to shout at her.

She remembered how Doctor Kelley had repeatedly mentioned that Alexander was not unkind, he was unwell. That this was not his usual temperament. Apparently, it was becoming clear to the kind doctor that Isabelle did not know her husband at all. As it happened, when it came to waiting for Alexander to regain his usual disposition, Doctor Kelley had significantly more patience than Isabelle had.

As she put aside the tray, she pulled out this morning’s letter from Mr. Kenworthy. “Would you like me to read it aloud?” she asked.

“How else am I to know what it says?” he asked, his voice curt.

“You can read it yourself,” she said. “I can hold the paper for you if there is information you’d prefer to keep private.”

He looked at her for a short moment and then said, “No, I am certain none of this is surreptitious. Heaven knows I’ve no privacy left.” It was as close as he’d come to mentioning any of the indelicate details of his affliction.

Isabelle could well imagine how, for a man who loved his moments alone, even his loss of mobility might be eclipsed by his loss of privacy.

“May I?” she asked, gesturing to the couch on which he lay. When he didn’t reply, she sat perched on the couch near his hip. “Am I causing you pain?”

He sighed. “No pain,” he said, which would have been a good thing but for the understanding that lack of feeling likely meant lack of healing.

“Thank you for allowing me to sit here,” Isabelle said, understanding that it would surely help Alexander to feel that he had made the decision. “I don’t recall us ever sitting so near to one another before.”

Instead of engaging in a conversation about their relative closeness, Alexander exhaled dismissively. “Nothing is as it was before.”

The weighty shock with which these words fell on Isabelle’s ears and heart was as unexpected as it was painful. Nothing? Not the closeness they’d felt that prompted him to invite her to visit Wellsgate? In a wash of fear, she began to understand that if they’d not come to the country, he’d not have been injured. Perhaps he blamed her for his accident. Perhaps he was correct to do so.

This, however, was not the moment to discuss such a thing. She cracked the seal on Mr. Kenworthy’s letter and held it in front of Alexander. “Can you see it?” she managed to say, swallowing her shame and tears.

He hummed in response, which she took to mean “yes.” As he read,