Free Enlightened by Joanna Chambers

my sunny girl.”
    David gazed at the other man earnestly. “And she will be again. She’s had a hard time of it, but she’ll come round, with Donald’s help. She’s strong, and no woman could want a more attentive husband.”
    A faint nod at that and a matching smile, happy and melancholy all at once. “They are happy together. A true love match. That’s—” He broke off, closing his eyes and tensing again. David raised himself from his chair and leaned over the other man, concerned but not knowing what to do.
    After a minute, Chalmers opened his eyes and gestured shakily at the jug on his nightstand. David carefully poured him a cup of what looked like plain water and held it to Chalmers’s lips, slipping his arm around the other man’s shoulders to support him while he drank. He could feel Chalmers’s shoulder blades through his nightshirt, sharp and frail, and the weight of him was puny on David’s arm. He was like a husk, dried out and ready to blow away with the winds.
    Once Chalmers had drunk his fill and rested for a minute, he began to talk again.
    “My Kitty married a man she loves, thank God. It’s the only reason to marry, lad.”
    David watched his friend. Chalmers knew better than anyone how often people married for reasons other than love. His own marriage was a cold affair. What was more, Elizabeth, his oldest and favourite daughter, had married Sir Alasdair Kinnell after being disappointed in love by David himself. David, guilty over his clumsy rejection of her, had been relieved to hear of the marriage, glad that she’d married so well. It was only later that he learned how Kinnell was abusing her.
    “I did not marry for love,” Chalmers said. “Margaret was the daughter of a senior man at the bar. Four years older than I. Her father let it be known she had a good dowry, and that he’d give my career a leg up.” He closed his eyes. “I was ambitious back then.”
    David was not surprised to hear that Chalmers’s marriage had been devoid of any tender feelings, even at the beginning. Chalmers’s wife was a proud, haughty woman. She’d shown no affection and little respect for her husband in all the time David had known Chalmers, and she didn’t bother to hide her contempt for anyone he invited into their home whom she considered to be inferior.
    “I would not change anything now,” Chalmers continued. “I have four wonderful girls who I love more than life. But the truth is, our marriage was never a happy one. She was always cold.” He closed his eyes again, breathing against another wave of pain. For a while he was silent, then he added, “And perhaps I was too. We were never more than strangers who lived in the same house.”
    David couldn’t help but contrast the bleak picture Chalmers presented with his own parents’ quiet contentment. They had never had the money or position enjoyed by Chalmers and his wife, but they had something else far more valuable, a deep love for one another that had survived a hundred trials—lost babies and bad harvests and severe winters. No matter how bad things had ever been for them, they always had each other to lean on.
    “It must have been difficult,” David murmured, “to live like that. Like strangers.”
    “I didn’t realise how much, till I met someone I truly cared for,” Chalmers confessed, his voice raw with emotion. He paused before adding, “I did not set out to do it. She was a client—a widow. We became friends first. Then, much later, lovers.”
    David was shocked. He’d never even guessed at this. Chalmers had given no hint of it before. “Does she know about this?” he asked. “Your illness, I mean?”
    Chalmers shook his head. He closed his eyes, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. Eventually, he said, “She passed away three years ago.”
    “Ah God, Chalmers, I’m sorry.”
    “At the time, it was terrible. There was no one I could speak to about her. She was the love of my life, and I had to act as though