“Then we can have nothing more to say to one another.”
At that, she looked at him, really looked at him, at the way his mouth quivered at the corners, the way something burned alongside the fury in his eyes, the way his skin seemed drawn tight across his forehead and cheekbones. The tips of his eyelashes were pale and invisible from a distance. She knew that. She knew how soft the back of his neck felt under her fingertips, and the low sound he’d made when she wrapped her legs around him.
She knew so much, and yet so little, of the man she had married.
“I suppose there is not,” she said, not allowing herself the luxury of regret as she brushed past him. They had been such good friends before their marriage, before the intricacies of emotion had interrupted their friendship.
But to tell him that she had craved his every touch, that even now she longed to tell him it had been her in the gardens, that she had known it was him, would be impossible. They had agreed, from the offset, that this would not be a union troubled by undue affection or love. She would not be the one to break that, even if everything else had changed.
Nathanial went out of his way to avoid Theo over the next few days. He dined out when she dined in, and endeavoured only to leave his dressing room when he was sure she had left the house.
Three days after their argument, however, he could no longer avoid her. Cassandra had written, inviting them to visit little William Haddington, and duty awaited.
Theo waited for him in a fetching blue pelisse that made her look especially well, if a little pale. Then again, she had been pale ever since the damn masquerade. Occasionally, he wondered if he had gone too far, or taken out too much of his anger on her. After all, this was their agreement: she could do what she liked with whom she pleased.
He had just not supposed she would do it, and especially not after he had kissed her. Yet she had. It was not, logically, a choice she was obligated to regret, but he hated that she had made it.
And she had accompanied Montague to the masquerade. If he had been the one to take her into the gardens, no doubt she would have gone.
It was clear now she was miserable. But Nathanial, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he should not care, could not move past it.
“Smile,” he said as he handed her into the carriage. “Or do you want my sister to believe we’re fighting?”
“Is that to be our fate every time we appear together?” she asked, her voice dull.
“That is the fate of most couples, Theo, little as you might like to think it.”
She glanced away to her gloves, which she worried. He hadn’t noticed before how she plucked at the stitching whenshe was nervous, how when her mind was occupied, her fingers fluttered, and she remained oblivious.
“We will not find the process too arduous, I am sure,” Nathanial said, as though he, too, was oblivious.
Theo said nothing more, and all too soon, they arrived. He helped her down from the carriage, fingers tightening around hers when she tried to pull away, as he’d known she would. If appearances were all they had left, by God he would not let them go now.
“Come, my dear,” he said, tucking her hand into his arm. She glanced up at him once then, a frightened glance that made his chest squeeze in irritation and repentance, but once again said nothing as the butler showed them inside.
Cassandra lay reclined on a sofa in the Yellow Saloon, her face pale but her hair pinned neatly behind her back. As always, she wore a pretty, muslin gown, and Nathanial reflected that not even the indignities of childbirth could keep his sister from fashion. A wetnurse in the corner cradled baby William, who appeared to be sleeping.
Cassandra placed a finger to her lips and beckoned them forwards. “Brother,” she said, her gaze flicking to Theo’s face and away. “How good of you to come.”
Theo pulled her hand from his arm. “You look well. And baby William is very sweet.”
“He’s a darling,” Cassandra said, “and about time we had a boy. I merely hope there are more to come.”
Nathanial kept quiet. Montague’s presence irked him enough that he would keep Theo on a leash, if he must, to ensure her safety, but he did not appreciate the thought that the only way to control Montague was by providing heirs.
William chose that moment to awaken, and he was passed to his mother, who showed him off with a proud face. Nathanial considered his nephew to look much as babies tended: small, red-faced, and oddly wrinkled. Theo was effusive in her praise,however, and Cassandra slowly started to unbend as Theo gushed over William’s tiny, waving fists and delicate features.
Cassandra slid him a meaningful look as Theo took the baby into her arms and held him against her chest. And for a moment—just a moment, before she glanced up at him, her face stricken—her expression dissolved into such gentle joy he could hardly bear looking at her.
“Well, Nathanial?” Cassandra asked, nodding at Theo. “Does not your bride look well with a child in her arms?”
“Theo always looks well,” he said shortly, prompting another quick glance from Theo, this time one of surprise.
“He cries so very quietly,” Theo said, half in awe as she stroked William’s cheek.
“Yes, he truly is a dear,” Cassandra said, reaching for William back. “And I believe he takes after his father.”
In Nathanial’s opinion, this squirming infant resembled no adult human.
