Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas

Author:Sherry Thomas [Thomas, Sherry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Historical, Regency, General
ISBN: 9780553592436
Google: dsb_85atDIsC
Amazon: 0553592432
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2009-05-18T23:00:00+00:00

Across the river, on the opposite edge of the valley, a man herded a flock of goats up a hidden footpath toward a deodar forest at the top of the slope—the hills and ridges here, though still rugged, were nowhere near as lofty or fearsome as those they’d passed earlier in their travels. She watched the goats’ bleating progress, until they disappeared around an outcrop.

“Are you returning to Cambridge straightaway?” she asked, without quite looking at him.

“No.”

“Oh,” she said, still not looking at him. “Why not?”

If he did, they would be travel companions for at least another three weeks. He could not manage it. To look upon her and know that he’d lost her through his own misdeed—love had become a thing of nails and spikes, every breath a re-impaling, every pulse a bright, sharp pain.

“I need to go to Delhi first, to wait for my luggage to arrive from Gilgit. I also want to see Charlie and the children again one more time before I leave India.”

For him and Bryony it was good-bye and farewell come Nowshera.

“Well, say hello to Charlie for me. He called on me twice when I was in Delhi but I was never home to him.”

Poor, conscientious Charlie.

“Is there any chance you will stay in London for good this time? Or will you be setting out for Shanghai after two weeks?”

She plucked at her skirt, a sturdy, dun-colored garment made especially for riding astride, with buttons and buckles for holding the extra lengths of the skirt on either side up and out of the way when she was not in the saddle.

“Shanghai has a terrible climate. San Francisco is much better. Or New Zealand, perhaps—I hear it is beautiful.”

The pain was almost blinding. He had done this to her. Once she had been one of the finest doctors in all of London, now she was a nomad whose life had shrunk to one tent and two steamer trunks.

“It’s time to stop, Bryony. Don’t keep running away.”

“I don’t know that I can stop.”

“Give it a try. Stay in London for some time. It would make your father happy.”

She raised her face, her expression incredulous. “Where did you get that idea? My father is as indifferent to me as I am to him.”

“You are not indifferent to him. You are angry at him. And he is not indifferent to you: He has no idea what to do with you.”

“He didn’t need to do anything with me. He only had to be there. He could have written his books anywhere.”

“So he wasn’t there. So he was a grieving widower who ran away from the place where he’d once been happy. But don’t you see, once he came back, he gave you everything you ever asked of him.”

“What do you mean?” She looked at him blankly.

He was beginning to have the impression he was going after an iceberg with a match. “When it became known that he’d agreed to let you go to medical school, all the neighbors thought he was mad.

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