"That is absurd," Anthea said, but her voice shook.
"Is it?" Gregory leaned forward. "Anthea, you have been looking for evidence of your inadequacy since the moment you found that letter. Cataloging every mistake, real or imagined. Building a case against yourself. And now you have convinced yourself that you are unworthy—of your position, of your responsibilities, of—" He stopped. "Of me."
"I am unworthy," Anthea whispered. "Do you not see? I had one responsibility. One job. Protect my sisters and help them find good matches. And I failed so completely that Poppy felt her only option was to run away to Scotland."
"She did not run away because you failed," Gregory said. "She ran away because she was frightened of Beatrice and wanted to protect Henry's sisters. That has nothing to do with your competence."
"It has everything to do with it," Anthea insisted. "If I had created an environment where she felt safe coming to me—if I had been paying attention instead of being distracted by my own life—she would not have felt so desperate."
"Or she would have made the same choice anyway," Gregory countered. "Because she is her own person with her own fears and her own judgment. You cannot control everything, Anthea."
"I should not have to control everything," Anthea said, her voice rising. "I should simply be competent enough to notice when my sister is planning something dangerous. But I was too busy being in love with you to do even that basic duty."
There it was. The core of her self-recrimination laid bare.
Gregory was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was very soft.
"So this is my fault? Our marriage—our love—that is what caused this disaster?"
"No," Anthea said quickly. "That is not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?" Gregory asked. "Because it sounds like you are saying that loving me, being happy with me, was a mistake that led directly to your sister's near-ruin."
"I am saying I should have been more careful," Anthea said desperately. "I should have maintained better balance. Should not have let myself become so consumed?—"
"By happiness?" Gregory interrupted. "By love? By finally allowing yourself to want something for yourself instead of sacrificing everything for others?"
"Yes," Anthea said. Then, hearing how that sounded, "No. I do not know. I just—" She pressed her hands to her face. "I just know that the moment I let myself be happy, everything fell apart. And I cannot—I will not—let that happen again."
"So what are you saying?" Gregory's voice had gone very quiet. "That we should go back to being distant? That you should sacrifice our marriage to avoid being distracted by your own emotions?"
"I am saying," Anthea said, lowering her hands, "that you should annul this marriage and find someone better."
The words dropped into the silence like stones into still water.
Gregory stared at her. "What?"
"You heard me," Anthea said, forcing the words out past the tightness in her throat. "You deserve someone competent. Someone who can manage a household and support your ambitions without being so distracted by her own feelings that she fails at basic responsibilities. Someone who?—"
"Stop," Gregory interrupted, his voice sharp. "Stop right there."
He stood, and for a moment Anthea thought he was going to leave. Thought she had finally pushed him too far, proven herself too broken to fix.
But he did not leave. Instead, he paced to the window and back, his jaw working.
"Do you know what I think?" he said finally. "I think you are scared. I think loving me, being happy with me, terrifies you because it means being vulnerable. And you have convinced yourself that the only way to be safe is to be alone. To sacrifice your own happiness to some imagined duty. To prove Beatrice right so you can fulfill her prophecy and never have to risk being hurt."
"That is not?—"
"It is exactly that," Gregory interrupted. He moved back to the bed, kneeling beside it so they were at eye level. "You are looking for excuses to push me away before I can hurt you the way Maxwell did. Before I can prove you right about men being untrustworthy and love being dangerous. And Poppy's elopement gave you the perfect reason."
"I am not—" Anthea stopped. Because he was right. God help her, he was right.
She was terrified. Terrified of being this happy, this vulnerable, this completely exposed to potential pain.
And she had seized on Poppy's elopement as evidence that happiness was dangerous. That love was a distraction. That she could not be trusted with both responsibilities and emotions.
"I do not know how to do this," she whispered. "How to be happy and competent at the same time. How to love you without losing myself."
