Page 22 of Tales of a Society Nothing

“Because I can’t stop loving you. I’ve worked with other agents, and I don’t want to see them hurt or killed, but they’re not my wife. They’re not a piece of my heart. I don’t know if I could go on if something happened to you, especially if it was my fault.”

“You seem to have gone on pretty well for three years, and I assure you there were times I was in danger.”

Ambrose wanted to cover his ears. “That was why I didn’t come after you. I had to let you go. The only way I could allow you to put yourself in such danger was by keeping you as far away from me as possible.”

“The only way you couldallowme to put myself in danger?”

Ambrose sighed. “You see? I haven’t really changed, Maggie. And neither have you. In fact, you’ve become more of who you always were, and we’re further apart than we ever have been. I want you back, yes, but how long before I leave you behind for my own mission? How long before I try to keep you safe, and you see it as a prison sentence?”

She nodded, the pink fading from her cheeks. She looked tired and miserable, and Ambrose wanted to take her in his arms and make her smile again, make her happy. But that happiness would be fleeting, and in the end, they’d both be more miserable than before.

She lifted her spectacles and carefully placed them on her nose. “Do you want a divorce?”

Ambrose sat so quickly, the wound in his side screamed in pain. “No!”

She eyed him levelly. How could she look so calm when she was proposing divorce? “I know it’s difficult to obtain, but we both have connections. You could divorce me on grounds of abandonment. Or perhaps we could acquire an annulment.”

“No.”

“You’re a viscount, Holyoake. You need a wife and an heir. It’s been clear for some time that I can’t give you an heir. Now it seems I can’t even be a wife.”

They were back to Holyoake, and he supposed he deserved that, considering he’d told her their marriage would never work. “I don’t care about an heir. I have brothers and cousins and nephews enough to carry on the line. It’s not as though we are an old lineage.” In fact, Ambrose was only the second Viscount Holyoake. He had been about two when his father had been made a viscount as a reward for his service to the Crown.

“You never will be with that attitude.”

“It’s better if I don’t have children,” he said. “I don’t want to be the sort of father mine was.”

Her expression softened, but she didn’t argue the point. Ambrose had followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming an agent for the Crown and being away from home for weeks at a time. Ambrose had hardly known his father. He’d admired him and the accolades he received, but the man himself was a stranger. When he’d been killed in the line of duty when Ambrose was sixteen, Ambrose had wanted to grieve. But it was difficult to grieve the loss of a man he’d never really known. Still, he’d felt the great weight of his new title on his shoulders. He was young to shoulder responsibility for his mother and siblings, not to mention the estate that had been given to the family when his father had been given his title. There were tenants to look after, lands to manage.

Maggie had been there to comfort Ambrose, of course, and she seemed to understand that his anxiety came from his new responsibilities more than the loss of his father. She’d been younger than he but mature enough to help him arrange everything so that he might return to finish his schooling. Even then, she’d put her own desires aside to help him, writing to him when she observed a problem at the estate or when strife erupted in his family.

And now she wanted a divorce. It was as though she was asking him to cut off one of his limbs. He couldn’t imagine not having her in his life.

“Your father was a great man,” she said.

“But he wasn’t a great husband or a great father. I’ve already failed as a husband. God knows, I don’t need to fail as a father.”

“I doubt I would be a very good mother, and that has nothing to do with my own mother. She was wonderful. You are not destined to become like your father. Instead, I think we’ve both chosen lives of service.”

“That’s what we call it anyway. We both know it’s the thrill of the hunt, the lure of danger that we’ve really chosen.”

“Speaking of which, I believe we have a house to break into and documents to pilfer.”

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to stay here where it’s safe and”—he looked about the shabby room—“minimally comfortable.”

“Not a chance. If this is the end, then I think we conclude things with one last mission together.”

“I’ll try not to protect you from danger.”

“And I’ll try not to strangle you.”

“It seems we both have our work cut out for us.”

---