It wasn't until their third night at Longford Court that Maddox realised his family was keeping him from Emily. As they're rested in one another's arms after celebrating the first private moments they'd had since Maddox had left her before dawn, Emily commented, "You have been very busy. I've scarcely seen you today."
Maddox began listing all the errands and tasks he'd been set to in the course of the day. Sitting with his father while his mother rested. Helping Longford and Stocke sort through the mail and write answers to letters sent to the earl or the countess. Consulting with his sister Daisy about arrangements to convey the visiting children to the nearby estate of Aunt Susan (actually his father's cousin, who was married to an old friend of his father).
The list went on, and—apart from sitting with his father, which was a privilege—none of them needed him in particular. Or, if he was needed—and he had no objection to playing his part in lightening his mother's burdens—Emily could have helped, too.
He had been silent for too long. "I understand that your family needs you," Emily assured him.
"Are they treating you well?" Maddox asked her.
The brief pause before she answered told him that the Redepenning family had closed ranks against the outsider. "They have been very civil," Emily said. "I am perfectly content, Maddox. You do what you need, and I will be here when you have time for me."
Civil. Maddox had seen the English upper classes' version of civil before. "Are they giving you frostbite, my love?"
He must have sounded as grim as he felt, because Emily hastened to reassure him. "No one has been rude, Maddox." She fluttered her hand across his chest, and—despite the topic and their recent work out—his breeding organs stirred to attention. "I am an outsider here, and they are concerned about your father. Yes, and your mother, too."
An outsider? The woman who held his heart? He opened his mouth to object, but she placed her fingers on his lips.
"You cannot expect them to welcome me with open arms, Maddox. I am older than you, a stage performer, part Indian, of scandalous birth. I have told you that a match between us is impossible." She ran her hand down his body to squeeze the part of him that was not interested in the conversation. "We are good friends. We have this. Let that be enough."
Maddox shook his head. "I love you, Emily. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want the honour of being your husband."
"We have this," Emily repeated, with another squeeze. He allowed himself to be distracted, but tomorrow, he'd be having a word with those who made his chosen mate feel that she was not good enough.
***
As usual, when the first rays of dawn lit the eastern sky, Maddox left Emily's room to return to the one he shared with Stocke. He went back to bed, but lay waiting for the household to awake, fretting over his family's attitude and what he might do about it.
He breakfasted with Emily, and turned away any suggestions from his brothers and sisters that he might sit elsewhere, or join another conversation, or fetch something from another room.
"I need to practice before the steward needs his office," Emily told him, when they were finished. Every corner of the house was in use, but Emily had been given access to the steward's office for her twice-daily violin practice: first straight after breakfast, before the steward arrived, and later immediately before dinner, after he had left. Maddox escorted her across the house, then went looking for his mother. She was easy to find, for she seldom left the room that had been converted into a bed chamber for his father. He let himself into the room without knocking.
As always, the earl's appearance came as a shock. In his mind's eye, Maddox still saw the golden hero of his childhood, as tall as a tree, strong and active. The height remained, but Father's body had wasted as his ability to tolerate food waned. Maddox had helped yesterday with Father's sponge bath, and had seen the emaciated body under the sheet.
Today, little of it showed. The useless arm was tucked out of sight, though the arm he could still somewhat use lay above the sheet.
It was pulled up across the chest to tuck under his chin and the other shoulder.
He was asleep, his mouth slightly slack, his age etched in his wrinkles, his once guinea-bright hair now a thinning mop of greyish white.
Mama held his free hand. She was old, too, Maddox suddenly realised. When she was active, it wasn't particularly apparent, her personality lighting her countenance so that age became irrelevant.
In repose, gazing sadly at the love of her life, all her years descended.
He must have made a sound, for she turned and in a fraction of a second she pasted on a welcoming smile. "Joseph. Darling."
"You are the only one who calls me Joseph," he said, crossing the room to kiss her cheek. When he was awarded his barony while still a schoolboy, most people called him by his title, Maddox, though his contemporaries immediately seized on the nickname 'Mad'. "How is Father today?"
Mama shook her head. "He is sinking, Joseph. I am glad you arrived home while he was still with us."
"I'm glad to be here, too." He pulled another chair up beside his mother's and took a seat. "I'd like to introduce Emily to Father. She is the woman I plan to marry, Mama."
Mama frowned. "Joseph, no! I cannot like it."
"You do not know her, Mama. Have you even met her?" As far as he was aware, Mama had barely put her nose out into the public rooms since they arrived, and Emily had certainly not been invited into Father's sick room.
Mama waved a hand in negation, with a slight shake of her head. "I'm sure Miss Kilbrierry is charming, but Joseph you cannot have thought. A stage performer? And you must be aware that she is older, and single, and not English, and theatrical people do not work by the same rules. I understand that, Joseph, and I am not criticising her. She has been welcomed under my roof for your sake, dearest. But marriage? I cannot like it."
Maddox stood, the urge to pace almost overwhelming. "No, Mama. She has not been welcomed. She has been tolerated by people who have already judged her and found her wanting."
"Joseph..."
"No, Mama. Let me finish. Emily Kilbrierry is a world-class concert performer, that is true. She has a God-given talent with the violin that she shares with the world. And yes, she had a half-Indian mother, though her father and maternal grandfather were both English."
"Her mother was a woman of low reputation, Joseph," Mama protested.
Maddox was not having such hypocrisy. "A woman forced into the same way of life as my brother's wife, who has been welcomed into this family, and who is one of the people currently giving my beloved the cold shoulder."
"Miss Kilbrierry is allowing you into her bed in your parent's house, and—by repute—you are not the first."
Maddox nodded. "She has given me that privilege. Need I remind you of your own history and that of various other ladies of the family? And that is not to mention behaviour that has been tolerated in my brothers and other males in the family. I love her, Mama. She resists my suit because of all the things you mention, but particularly because she does not want to cause a rift between me and my family."
Mama pressed her lips together to suppress a smile, but Maddox wasn't finished. "It won't work. I will never be happy without her, and I do not plan to give her up. If you and the family reject her, it will be you who creates the rift she fears."
"You are threatening me, Joseph?" The countess lifted one elegant eyebrow, a trick she had caught from her husband.
"No, Mama. I am telling you. If England makes my wife unhappy, we shall stay out of England."
They had been so absorbed in their argument that the sound from the bed caught them by surprise. Father's good eye was open, and he cleared his throat before emitting a sound that Maddox could not interpret.
Mama bent closer, taking his hand again. "Love, Stephen?"
Father blinked twice, the code he had developed to say yes.
"You love our Joseph?"
One blink, and another sound that Mama translated as "Love. Good. Love is good? Stephen, are you saying that you approve of Joseph's plan to marry Miss Kilbrierry."
She tried several different words for the sounds Father used in reply, until she hit on, "Joseph is an adult. Yes, Stephen. You are right." Tears stood out in her eyes as she held out her free hand to her son. "I am sorry, Joseph. I worry for you, and I forget that you have been on your own in the world for these ten years and more. I will get to know your Miss Kilbrierry. I cannot promise to like her, or to be happy with the match, but I will respect your choice, and I will ensure the rest of the family knows my will in this, and that of your father."
Maddox had no difficulty understanding the repeated sound that meant "Good." The undamaged side of his father's face smiled, and Mama bent to kiss his cheek.
"Chee er," Father said.
"Yes, Stephen, we will bring her here so you can see her," Mama promised.