“Is that right?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Did you father ever bring your mother out here? Did he ever make a picnic for her? Did he ever cancel his plans just to spend the day in her company.”
Caspian snorted. “Of course not.”
“There you have it then. Not like him at all.”
Caspian felt his chest swell and he took her hand, giving the back of it a kiss. If his father had seen the way that Caspian needed his wife’s opinion to make him feel better about himself, he would have sneered in shame and recoiled in horror.
“I wish you had told me that sooner,” he chuckled. “I could have used you several times.”
“Well, I am here now.”
“It is ironic in many ways…” Caspian looked to the sparkling blue of the water, watching the ripples peel across the surface. “The only reason I married in the first place was because of a contract that my father had arranged before he died. I did not want it. I did not care for it. But honor and duty, and the constant fear of my father’s judgement is what forced me to see it through. I only ever wanted to make him proud of me.”
“How is that ironic?”
He tore his eyes from the water and found Thalia’s once more. “I married to please him, even beyond the grave. I did as I always do and put myself last, needing him to be proud of me – as if I needed to prove that I was worth his name. And had I not done so, I never would have married you, and I never would have come to realize that it doesn’t matter what my father thinks ofme.” His smile grew as his heart thumped hard in his chest as if it was trying to escape. “It never did matter.”
A single tear fell from Thalia’s eye and she wiped it away. “Better that you realize late than never.”
“Better that I met you, to show me the way.” He took her hand and pulled it into his chest. “Which wouldn’t have happened was it not for my father in the first past.” He chuckled softly. “It’s all rather confusing, when you think about it like that.”
“I suggest you try not to think about it.”
“Oh?”
“No…” She shuffled closer and her hand rested on his lap. “Just be glad that it did happen, and then do everything you can to ensure that you don’t go backwards.”
“Backwards?”
“The man I married,” Thalia confirmed. “Would you be surprised to learn that I didn’t much like him.”
Caspian scoffed. “Surprised? Not at all. You made it rather obvious.”
“My point exactly,” she said. “That man, I did not like. That man, I did not want to marry, just as I did not want to spend any timewith him. But this man…” He was still holding her hand, but she pulled it free and rested it on the side of his face. “This man, I kind of like.”
“Only kind of?”
“Don’t get too far ahead of yourself, Your Grace. I hardly know you.”
“Best that we change that then.”
“Yes,” she agreed with a grin. “It is best that we do.”
There was nothing left to say, so they said nothing. When words were no longer needed, there was but one thing to do, and Caspian did it without hesitation or second thought.
The sun shone warm overhead. The pond shimmered and sparkled crystal blue. Birds sung in treetops. The wind gently rustled through the trees. And Caspian and Thalia, lost in the moment, alone in the world it seemed, kissed one another in ways that were once anathema to this marriage but were now wholly natural.
Their marriage was far from perfect. They still had so far to go. But they were heading in the right direction, both were eager to see where it led to, and for now that was more than enough.
Chapter Twenty
“What are you thinking about?” Thalia asked Caspian.
“Hhmm?” he said back without looking at her. His stare was saved for the ceiling, which he had been looking at for the past few minutes without so much as a word said.
“What are you thinking about?” she murmured as she turned on her side and shifted closer to her husband.
“Nothing.”
