Love Practically (The Penn-Leiths of Thistle Muir, #1)

by Nichole Van

Gracious! I dinnae even know if ye had another wife afore mysel—” “I haven’t been married before.” The words snapped out of him. “But ye were betrothed to Miss Honoria Hampstead.” “Yes. I was betrothed to that woman. And then she betrayed me.”

“Very well. Do you want to hear more? The most vicious cut of all?” Fox laughed, a bitter crack of sound. “I should not have been at Coorg. But I was sent to the slaughter—because of Susan, because of Honoria—and dispatched to the front lines. I was deliberately sent to Coorg to die.” Leah felt the blood drain from her face. “Pardon?” Surely he didn’t mean— Had she misheard? Sent to die?!

“And now these same people hold Madeline’s future in their hands. My niece destroyed everything by being conceived, and I ruined everything by refusing to die. We are, the both of us, unwanted dross.”

“Ye ken I cannae think a straight thought when ye kiss me. I havenae loved ye for twenty years tae be so blissfully distracted.” The words slipped free without thought. Her adoration of him such a constant in her life, she neglected to guard her tongue. Leah forgot he did not know. Fox froze. His head snapped up, and he took a staggering step back. “Pardon?” he frowned.

“We did meet before this past spring. Twenty years ago. At a week-long house party in Staffordshire hosted by Mrs. Gordon.” He gave a long, slow blink, trying to accommodate the information. “We met at a house party? And in England, no less?” “My Uncle and Aunt Leith were attempting to marry me off,” she said. “’Twas the summer of ’19.”

He whirled on her quickly in the tight space, instantly pinning her to the stone wall with his larger body. He kissed her, savagely, hungrily. “Are you offering another sort of forgetting, wife?” His mouth burned hot on her neck. Tears pricked Leah’s eyes, even as her fingers threaded into his hair. “Why is the thought of me loving ye so terrible?” He stilled against her, air gusting from his lungs. “It’s not . . . oh, Leah . . . it’s Dennis and . . . and . . .” He rested his forehead against hers, shaking his head. “It’s just . . . there is so much old pain . . .” He swallowed. “I don’t know how—”

The tiny form of Malcolm’s stillborn son already lay wrapped in a muslin shroud atop the dining table. Aileen had screamed for hours.

“It won’t be long now,” the doctor had murmured to Malcolm, Fox, and Leah in the upstairs hall not ten minutes past, eyes red-rimmed. “Sometimes, there is nothing I can do tae stop the bleeding.” Malcolm had immediately returned to his wife’s side. Fox had watched him through a crack in the open door. How the larger man had climbed so very carefully into the bed, cradling Aileen’s swollen body against his and pressing his forehead to her hair, tears streaming soundlessly down his cheeks.

But even in that, Leah was already miles ahead of him. As usual. The thought of her love had sent panic churning in his chest because . . . well, because Fox feared he didn’t have the strength to love her back. Not as maturely she loved him. In his experience, love only ever ended in heartache, whether through betrayal or loss. And the pain of loving and then losing Leah would be shattering.

Leah did as she always did, Fox now realized. The world fell apart and she . . . set to. She sorted everything. The management of Thistle Muir and its farmlands instantly fell to her capable shoulders.

“Besides, dinnae ye have some secret thing ye must run off tae London for?” Her blood-shot eyes pinned him where he sat on the edge of the bed. Fox felt winded. This wasn’t Leah. This wasn’t his wife. She might be insistent on certain points, but she was never unkind. Not to him. Not to anyone. He had never seen this fractious side of her. He didn’t realize she had a fractious side. She is grieving, he reminded himself.

Until that moment, Fox hadn’t realized to what extent the harmony in their marriage relied upon her goodwill. On Leah constantly reaching out to him, helping him, accommodating him. And now, with her retreat . . . he didn’t know what to do. How he might hold her to him. Women always leave you, a part of him whispered. You knew this was how it would end. Only . . . he hadn’t thought it would be so soon.

The emotion he felt for Leah was nothing like that. It was more of a warm, steady hum. A sense of rightness, completeness.

“I havenae lied to ye, Fox. I love yourself, but I’ve realized over the past few weeks that love needs to be fed. I cannae go it alone with ye.” She motioned at the space between them. “I want more, and at the moment, my patience is too worn and weary. Were I tae die, would ye even weep?” No. The word bolted through him.

“Sometimes,” he said, letting the words fall slowly into the silence between them, “when a person has suffered loss after loss, it becomes almost impossible to open the heart to love again. It has nothing to do with the worthiness of the person before them and everything to do with the paralyzing fear of grief . . . with something being irreparably broken within.”

“Though there might be a thread of truth to that, I disagree. A heart can always accept love.”

But the heart is always better for loving.” It was Fox’s turn to snort. “How is Malcolm better off at the moment?” He waved a hand toward the door behind him, voice rising. “How is his suffering, in any way, a good thing?” “Because it means he loved! It means he faced the fear of loss, and let love in anyway!”

Joy and grief are two sides of the same coin. Ye cannae have one without the other. It’s foolishness in the extreme tae be so consumed by the possibility of loss that ye miss the joy of love entirely. Sorrow means the heart loved true.”

“Love has tae be fed. It starves otherwise. And I fear I am starving in this marriage.

Aileen’s loss rattled, abrading a hollow void in Leah’s chest that, ironically, felt suffocating. Leah attempted to escape the feeling by immersing herself in the numbness of routine—organizing the farmhands, balancing the dairy accounts, responding to Ethan’s letters and assuring him that she did not need his help. But even numbness eluded her from time to time.

This was the worst part of loss, Leah thought. The endless ambush of emotion. The sense that the worst had passed and then bam! Something unexpected—a sound, a smell, an image—would bring grief crashing down again.

They needed to meet each other as equals in their marriage—equals in effort and affection. Of a surety, Fox cared something for her. He wasn’t a callous man. But as Leah watched Malcolm mourn his Aileen, she realized that Fox would not find Leah’s own loss unbearable. To him, her death would be more inconvenience than devastation. Leah wanted to be more than an inconvenience to Fox Carnegie.

“Happiness and love are akin tae strawberries.” His voice turned hoarse, and he glanced at his dwindling whisky. “Ye have tae glut yourself when the occasion arises—create memories tae see ye through the dark seasons.”

And perhaps he is. Ye cannae control his behavior. Ye cannae force him to eat the strawberries, as it were. Ye can only taste of them yourself and invite him to join ye.”

Leah will return when she feels strong enough to deal with me.

She would make demands to test his love—sell your officer’s commission, take me to India—and he would race to obey.

That was the most harrowing request of all. To entrust her with the softest, most fragile part of himself. And though she never said so outright, her own goodness inspired him to become a better man.

This was Leah, he thought. This was what Leah did. She quietly inserted herself into one’s life and silently went about improving things, until one day, you realized everything was better for her presence. Her soul—bright and love-filled—expanded outward, taking everyone into her care.

But right now, the home thudding under his sternum was not a place, but a person. Leah. She was home to him. All his exhaustion, the weary thinness of his soul, had slowly healed under the care of her hands. She had nurtured and prodded and loved him back from the half-life he had been living. It blindsided him then. A deep welling of emotion rising upward and scouring all pain and doubt in its wake. A brilliant white-hot wave of . . . love. Complete. Undeniable. Yes. This was love. He loved her. Fox Carnegie loves Leah Penn-Leith.

All she wanted was his friendship, his love, his heart. She wanted to know him in every sense, for him to trust her with the whole picture of his life. I can do that, he thought. I can match her courage. Love shouldn’t be frightening. It wasn’t a game between winner and loser. It should simply . . . be.

He wanted Leah back—her sensible voice in his ear, her warm body snuggled against his of an evening, her rich laughter as she played with Madeline. But more importantly, he wanted her to know. To understand how deeply he loved her. To pledge his commitment to match her caring with the force of his own. He wanted it all.

Not the dreaded letter that he had been anticipating, the one from Madeline’s father that would force Fox to give his niece over to the man’s care.

“They are the under-steward and apprentice housekeeper from Muirford House,” Fox continued. “Hadley has loaned them to us for the foreseeable future, and they are here to help.”

As you intimated the last time we spoke, I haven’t been good about returning the love and support you show me. I aim to fix that. After all, I share the burdens of those I love.”

“I know you want to ensure that Malcolm is well-cared for. It’s one of the thousand things I adore about you—how thoroughly you love those in your care. But you need rest.

You need someone to hold and care for you. And while I do that, Mr. Garvis and Mrs. Burns will see that Malcolm, Thistle Muir, and the entire farm are well in hand.”

Grief for everything Malcolm had lost and would forever mourn. Grief for herself and her loveless marriage that, at the moment, felt all too full of love. Fox said nothing. No platitudes. No patting her shoulder. No there, there, it’s not so bad as all that. He did not dismiss her pain. Instead, he offered his shoulder as rest. As strength to her.

But she had missed him so, and he was cradling her with such care. As if she were treasured, beloved.

Finally, he stripped down to his shirt and trousers, sank beside her in bed, and tugged them both under the counterpane, curling her into his body. Leah snuggled into his chest, the starchy smell of his shirt, the sandalwood of his shaving soap. How she had missed him. Missed them. Missed this. The blessed heat of him brought another bout of greiting. How did she have any tears left? And yet, he soothed her . . . his hand in her hair, the thud of his heart under her ear, the gentle sound of air flowing through his lungs.

Pushing upright, she saw Fox seated before the fire, still in shirtsleeves, looking deliciously disheveled and masculine.

Fox dished his own plate and then poured her a glass of red wine from a decanter. His glass held only water, Leah noted, and her heart swelled with gladness. That he was holding true to his vows of sobriety, even given the trying nature of the present circumstances.

“I’m here. We’re in this together, you and I. No more separations.” He took in a deep slow breath. “More importantly, no more secrets.” She stilled at that, blinking rapidly. “No more secrets?” she whispered. “No more.” Silence. Leah’s heart pounded in her chest. Did he mean . . . The openness of his eyes . . . “Ye will tell me all?” Leah couldn’t suppress the hopeful catch in her voice. “Ye will trust me?” “Of course, I trust you. Anything you want to know. Every last memory, every thought and feeling.” Oh!

“The damage is done. All we can do is fight the duke.” “The duke?!” “Yes.” Fox grimaced. “The Duke of Westhampton. Madeline’s grandfather.” “Grandfather? Madeline’s grandfather is a duke?!”

What had happened in India? “Where to begin?” He shook his head. “Perhaps with my betrothal to Miss Honoria Hampstead when I was still enlisted with the 64th in the West Indies.

“When I arrived in London, my sister, Susan—who had been living with our uncle there—begged to accompany me to India. She had seen so little of the world and was desperate for an adventure. As she had finally reached her majority, our uncle had no authority to stay her decision. I, foolishly, was only too happy to indulge her. “In short, Dennis, Susan, and I embarked for India.

Fox swallowed, looking into the fire. “Over the years, he had a way of preying on women who did not have a strong male protector. Women who would be unable to seek reparations for his improper behavior.”

Once we reached India, I gave Dennis my ultimatum—marry Susan or leave her be. There was no in-between. Dennis chose marriage, and Susan accepted. True to his nature, Dennis attempted to shirk his commitment by postponing their nuptials for six months. No doubt he was simply buying time, hoping to find a way out of the snare. “Unfortunately, I was too distracted by Honoria at the time to give Dennis my full attention.

Though a gentleman’s daughter, Susan was well beneath him socially. Dennis feared his father would cut him off if His Grace learned of the disadvantageous marriage. Only my stern words, sterner threats, and our long-standing friendship ensured Dennis and Susan made it to the altar. But Dennis insisted on a secret marriage, telling no one.

“Unbeknownst to me at the time, Dennis had begun to flirt and exchange letters with Honoria. He regretted his marriage to Susan and the paltriness of her dowry compared to the largess Honoria now offered.

And so, he called in favors, transferring me to another regiment and ensuring I was sent to forefront of the conflict with the Coorg. Dennis had hoped it would be a death sentence.”