“Of what?”
“Of you. I have been afraid ever since we left Scotland,” Matthew acknowledged. “It would take nothing at all for me to love you too much, more than I already admit to, and I don’t know that I should.”
“I think you should,” Lydia offered in an uncertain voice, though there was no jest or mirth in her statement. She held his hand even tighter and said, “I want you to.”
“I cannot understand why you would,” he replied, though he did not pull away. “You who are so good, so kind and wonderful, so filled with love to give to someone more deserving than I… why you would waste it on me is a mystery.”
“Then let us find out together,” Lydia said, surprising even herself with her sudden boldness. “A very wise person has told me that there is nothing to lose in loving someone else, nothing that you already possess, that is. So try, and if you should fail, then you will have lost nothing.”
“And if I hurt you when I fail? That is what frightens me, Lydia,” Matthew explained slowly. “I would rather end my own life than hurt you ever again.”
Lydia paused, recalling the deep sadness to the point of grief she had felt when Matthew ceased writing to her. She had spent months agonizing over the loss, questioning her own actions and wondering what had given him cause to cut her out of his life. She knew he was more than capable of leaving her and never looking back, though she had never understood why.
“I do not ask for my own selfish reasons,” Lydia began hesitantly, not wishing to spoil this important moment with old hurts, “but I want to understand something.”
“Of course,” Matthew said, his confusion and reluctance clear on his face.
Lydia waited, weighing her words carefully so as not to offend. “Why did you never write to me while you were at school?” Matthew stiffened, as though he was not prepared for that question. “I’m sorry, I only wish to know what brought about this terrible chasm between us.”
Matthew was silent for several moments, long enough that Lydia feared she had upset him again. She braced herself for anger or abandonment, readying herself for him to stand up and leave the room without a word. Instead, a light mist crossed over his eyes, as though unshed tears demanded to be released.
“I had nothing to say that I wanted you to hear,” Matthew confessed, his voice breaking with emotion. “I tried so many times to write to you, to send word of all the good times I was having or the achievements I’d made in my lessons. But every time I put pen to paper, all that poured forth were endless cries of my misery and loneliness. I would rather you had believed that I was too busy to write to a little girl, or that I had outgrown you. It was better than imagining you reading my letters and sharing in the darkness I felt.”
“But not even a word to tell me you’d gone away?” Lydia asked. Her question was not accusing, but rather pleading for understanding.
“I barely told anyone,” Matthew answered. “I knew that life at sea and abroad could be dangerous, and I had thought it better for you to know nothing than to wonder what might happen to me. It was completely selfish, Lydia, and I’m sorry. I was thinking only of how it would hurt to know you were unhappy, and not thinking of how you must have thought the worst of me.”
“I truly understand, Matthew,” Lydia promised him, clinging to his hand as though a lifeline. “But why did it make you so angry with me that I stopped writing in return?”
“That’s precisely what you must understand,” Matthew answered with a sense of urgency flooding his voice. He leaned closer as though he could will her to comprehend with just the intensity of his words. “I do not know how to be a good and selfless person. I don’t know what it means to accept someone’s love for me without wondering why they’re doing it.”
“You’re not a selfless person?” Lydia asked softly, a small smile lightening her tone. “Did you not just purchase an entire ship so that I might get home?”
“Don’t you see?” Matthew countered, looking wounded. “I did not do it for you and I’m sorry for it. I should have done it for your benefit and I truly wish I had. No, I did it so I would not have to spend a single spare moment with you for fear that I would fall in love. Even that gesture, even when I do something that others may perceive as gentlemanly and caring, it was wholly for my own selfishness.”
Lydia smiled reassuringly, then reached up her hand slowly to caress Matthew’s cheek. She waited as though reaching for a ferocious animal, wondering if it would bite. When she finally pressed her hand against him lovingly, all of Matthew’s defenses fell before her.
“I want you to fall in love with me,” she whispered, her eyes searching his.
“I am afraid that I will hurt you,” he answered mournfully.
“If I could promise that you will not hurt me, would you try?” Lydia asked genuinely. Matthew looked deep into her eyes, and she willed him to see the truth her in her words. “I promise that I will expect nothing from you, and that I cannot be hurt any more than I already have. So will you only try to love me and permit me to love you in return?”
“I will,” he finally answered.
“That is all I ask,” she promised with a joyful smile. “That you should try, and that you permit me to love you in return. If we are not capable of such feats, then nothing will have changed. I will remain here, you will return to your business abroad, and we will wave at one another from our distant windows each night.”
“I cannot think of anything so sad as knowing you would permit me to treat you thus,” Matthew said. “I feel like a cad for even accepting such a proposal.”
“Ah, but it was one that I knew long before we married,” Lydia reminded him. “You have never once been dishonest with me or led me astray with false intentions. You have stated very plainly that you are not capable of the sort of love I require, and I agreed to marry you anyway. But if you have had some change of heart and wish to show me what love you can give, no matter how small, then that is sufficient. It is all that I require.”
“Why?” Matthew demanded suddenly, his blue eyes taking on a steely glare. “Why would you permit me to steal from you that which you deserve when I cannot provide it?”
“First because I have no choice,” Lydia answered evenly, unbothered by his insistence that he was wrong. “But more because, like it or no, I believe in you, Matthew. I believe in you. I always have known you to be a good and honorable man, and that will have to be enough.”
Chapter 25
Lydia awoke the next morning to a bright sunshine streaming in through the windows. Everything about the new day was different and unexpected. She could not remember the last time she had felt such hopeful elation upon waking, and it was a feeling she intended to cling to for some time. The darkness of running from her family, hurrying home without Uncle Julius discovering her, then keeping away from the Dowager Countess had left her tired and empty inside.
