“It is one of those paradoxes life seems determined to teach us. That sometimes it is the fracture that allows something finer to take root.”
Dorothy’s heart gave a curious ache at that, and before she could stop herself, she asked, “Do you believe such things truly happen outside of myths?”
His gaze lifted to hers, searching, and for a moment, the study felt far smaller than it was, the air between them drawn taut. “I do,” Magnus said at last. “Though perhaps not as suddenly as in a tale. Sometimes what is broken does not mend swiftly. But given time, care...” His eyes flicked toward Eugenia, then back to Dorothy. “... something stronger may grow where before there was only loss.”
Dorothy’s breath caught, though she forced a faint smile to her lips. “Then you think there is hope in beginnings that come after sorrow?”
“Perhaps,” Magnus said simply, and the way he said it left her strangely unmoored, as though he spoke of something more than flowers and fables.
Dorothy glanced at him, her heart stirring. For all the strangeness of their union, for all that it had begun in shadow and obligation, she wondered, just for an instant, if there might yet be something like the hyacinth waiting to grow between them.
It seemed, in that instant, as though Magnus sensed the direction of her thoughts, for when Dorothy’s eyes lingered on him, he immediately looked away, reaching for a paper on his desk as though it required urgent attention.
Seizing the moment, she said lightly, “Would you care to help Eugenia sketch a hyacinth, Your Grace? She has it in mind to add one to her painting, and I daresay your guidance would be of use.”
Magnus glanced up at her, the briefest flicker of uncertainty crossing his features. His eyes met hers, only to retreat again, as though the very act of deciding how to answer cost him some effort. “That is all very well, but it will have to wait until our return from London. For the present, I must settle certain matters before we leave, and there will be little time.” He turned to Eugenia then, softening almost imperceptibly. “Would that be agreeable to you?”
Eugenia gave a little snort of assent and nodded briskly, her curls bouncing with the motion.
To Dorothy’s relief, Magnus’s mouth curved, the barest suggestion of a smile, before he bent again over the papers in his hand. It was fleeting, easily missed, yet it lit something warm in her chest.
She sat back in her chair, her heart strangely unsteady. For reasons she could not name, the smallest ease between him and Eugenia, the smallest glimpse of gentleness in him, unsettled her. Their marriage, born of necessity and shadowed by reserve, was becoming something altogether more confusing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“You smiled.”
Dorothy had not meant for the words to sound so abrupt, but they left her lips before she could reconsider. The carriage jolted slightly as it rolled over the cobbled road, the city pressing nearer with every turn of the wheels. They were in London now, after days of steady travel, yet her mind had not escaped the moment from their conversation in the study.
It had lodged in her thoughts like a splinter, impossible to ignore. He had smiled, softly, as though recalling some secret memory, and the image would not leave her. She had even dared, in the privacy of her heart, to think it resembled jealousy, though she could never confess such a thing aloud, not even to herself.
Magnus turned his head at her words, his dark gaze steady, his expression unreadable save for the faintest lift of his brow. “DidI?” His voice was calm, but she thought she detected the faint edge of amusement beneath it.
She held her breath, studying him across the carriage. The shadows of the window fell across his features, stern and sharp as ever, but she knew what she had seen. He had softened for the briefest moment, and she could not bear not knowing why.
He watched her a moment longer before leaning back against the seat. “I smiled?”
“Not now. The other day. In the study, when we talked about the hyacinth.”
Magnus tilted his head to the side. “Why does it matter?”
Her fingers tightened over the fabric of her gown. It did matter. She did not know why, but it mattered terribly. That smile had unsettled her, raising questions she had no answer to, stirring emotions she had never expected to feel for him. It had been on her mind from the instant it happened, returning to her thoughts again and again as though demanding to be understood.
Magnus’s eyes narrowed, as if he had caught the flicker of something in her expression. “Why does it trouble you so much?” he asked, low and deliberate.
She looked away, unable to meet his stare. It was not trouble, not truly. But secrets were already thick between them, and theweight of them pressed on her more than she cared to admit. Every moment she thought she glimpsed something human, something vulnerable in him, it slipped away again. She wanted to know. She needed to know.
“It just feels different,” she said softly, her voice steadier than her racing heart. “It feels as though we hold too many secrets between us already in this relationship, and it makes everything… strained.”
He regarded her for a long moment, his expression shifting almost imperceptibly, before the faintest curve of his mouth appeared. Not quite a smile, but close enough to catch her breath.
“Relationship,” he murmured, his tone edged with wryness. “You would call this a relationship?”
The words fell like a challenge between them, unexpected and disarming. For a moment, she wondered if he was mocking her. Yet there was something in his eyes, a glimmer of dry humor, perhaps, that unsettled her further. It was teasing, she realized, though teasing of a kind so rare from him that it rattled her composure.
No matter how he chose to define it, there was a relationship between them. Perhaps not in the sense society would so quickly assume, nor in the romantic shape she sometimes feared her heart was bending toward, but in some form that neither of them could escape. Something bound them.
He was diverting from her question; she could see it plainly. His tone, his half-smile, even the way his gaze drifted past her as though seeking escape, all of it told her he wished to turn her aside. But she refused to let him. She leaned forward ever so slightly, meeting his eyes without wavering, her voice steady when she spoke.
