“I do not think so,” Maria said gently. “He has no such obligations. If he told us to cease our discussions in public, we would have had to.”
Anna looked to Theodora for support, knowing that she had been more suspicious of Spencer than anyone else. Theodora, who had been reading, sighed and closed the book.
“I do not think that he had ulterior motives, either,” she confessed. “I did not speak particularly nicely to him, and he took it well. He was nice to all of us, which, given the circumstances he found us in, he did not have to be. If he were doing this for control, he would have simply forbidden you from coming to see us, which he has not.”
Anna did not understand why her friends did not see things the way that she did. Her husband had been their enemy for a long time, but a single meeting with him was all it had taken for them to forgive him completely. It did not make any sense, and Anna wondered just what had happened to them.
“I cannot believe you all,” she huffed. “This is the man who betrayed my marriage! You all hated him a mere two weeks ago, and now he is your favorite person.”
“That is not what we are saying at all,” Evelina argued. “All that we are telling you is that he is not evil. He should not have left you for as long as he did, no, and he should have told you where he was by now, but you read enough books to know that that does not indicate cruelty.”
“It feels that way.”
“And it may well do for a while, but think about it, Anna. Perhaps this is simply the part of the novel where you must let your guard down and trust him first.”
“He does not deserve it.”
“I would not say that. He has come home. It is now up to you to show him why he should stay. If you do that, and you trust him enough to do so, it may be reciprocated, and then you will have what you wanted all along.”
Anna folded her arms, pouting for a moment before realizing how foolish it made her look. She was acting like a child, and it was no wonder that Spencer delighted in teasing her when she was so easy to irritate.
“What if you are wrong, and he leaves again as he has told me he plans to?”
“Then we shall accept that we were wrong,” Maria promised. “We shall declare that you are always correct and far more intelligent than we, and you may laud it over us for the rest of our lives.”
Anna would have been satisfied by that if it were what she wanted. She hoped that she was wrong. She hoped more than anything that her husband would prove himself so that they could be happy, but she could not believe it.
And yet, her friends were settled in their beliefs. Spencer was not a cruel man, and he was trying. If she did not trust her husband, then she would have to trust her friends on the matter instead.
“Very well,” she conceded. “Shall we begin our new book, then?”
The ladies agreed, and they began to read. They had selected the art history book, and nobody was more pleased with that than Theodora. She had been reading it during their discussion and was further along than the others, and Anna wished that she could feel a non-romantic passion like that again. She had been consumed by the kiss that she and Spencer had shared the weekbefore, and was unable to think of anything else unless she was angry with him.
She turned the page when one of her friends did, and hoped that nobody asked her for her thoughts on it. If they realized that she was not paying attention, they would ask her why, and she did not dare disclose that she had been so intimate with a man she proclaimed not to trust.
Once again, she thought of how it felt to be beneath him rather than reading, and she firmly closed her book. Her friends all turned to her, which caused her eyes to widen, as she had forgotten that they were there.
“Can you not concentrate?” Evelina asked. “I know that you have been facing a lot of difficulties right now. Perhaps reading is not the best idea for you right now?”
“On the contrary,” Maria replied. “It is for the best that she has an escape. The history of art may not be the best subject, though.”
“Do not worry. I know how much Theodora has wanted to read something other than romance. I do not want to be the reason why we go back to it.”
“Very well,” Maria offered, “then you can listen to our advice. You are to live as though you are in a romance, and trust your husband. Who knows? You may even fall in love doing so.”
Anna did not believe that at all, but there was nothing else for her to do. She was tired of waiting for Spencer to abandon her again, and she wanted to enjoy her life with her husband, but that would never be possible if she were always suspicious of him. She had to let him try, even if it meant swallowing her pride.
When she returned home, she thought to wait for him in the dining hall, but then she considered that he had been avoiding meals with her. If she wanted to see him, she would have to go to him herself.
She made her way to his study, knowing better than to enter unannounced. She knocked on the door, and then she heard the rustling of papers and the closing of drawers before she heard his voice telling her to enter.
“Oh! Good evening, Anna.”
He seemed surprised to see her, which she could hardly blame him for. It had been days since they had interacted, and Anna did not know how much of that was her choice and how much was his.
“Good evening,” she greeted.
“Did you enjoy your club meeting?”
