“I think men are generally frustrating sometimes,” Dorothy said.
Bridget frowned. Her sister’s reply was far too fond, indicating that Dorothy did not really believe her husband as frustrating. At least, he was not frustratinglike Bridget’s husband was.
Bridget sighed. Of course, Dorothy would not understand with her doting husband, who had genuinelywantedto marry her.
Dorothy shielded her eyes from the sun and turned her head to face Bridget. “What is it that your husband has done?” Dorothy asked.
Bridget bit the inside of her cheek, trying to decide how best to convey her feelings. In truth, it was not really about the pleasure he had refused to give her. No, it was something much deeper than that, but Bridget was struggling to give exact shape to what she felt inside her soul, all the way down to her core.
“I find that my marriage is lacking,” she began tentatively.
“In what way?”
Bridget sighed. “There is nothing affectionate between us. I feel… I don’t know how I feel.”
Dorothy furrowed her brow, as though there was something she wished to say, but instead, she remained silent while Bridget gathered her thoughts.
“It is though there is a silent war waging between Lewis and me,” Bridget said.
“What is the prize?”
Bridget blinked. “What?”
“You describe your marriage as awar,” Dorothy explained. “That seems to imply that there is something of value to be won. What is it that you are both trying to win?”
“I…” Bridget trailed off.
Her first, instinctive thought was that they were fighting forcontrol, but that made no rational sense. Lewis was her husband. He was the one who controlled the course of their marriage, and there was nothing she could do about that.
“I suppose we are trying to determine who each of us is going to be,” Bridget said instead. “And who we are to one another.”
Dorothy slowly nodded. “Well, marriage does have a way of making you reconsider how you see yourself.”
“I am uncertain that I want to reconsider myself,” Bridget said dryly. “I like who I am, and if Lewis does not…”
Dorothy raised an eyebrow. “Do you believe that your husband dislikes you?”
Bridget said. She tossed her head back onto the linen spread beneath them and stared at the tree branches above her head. “I do not know if it is dislike per se.”
“But?” Dorothy prompted.
“But…no matter what I do, Lewis always seems so cold to me,” Bridget said flatly. “He is insistent on me being the perfect duchess, and I worry that his image of a perfect duchess is one that I shall never measure up to. He wants me to be something that I am not.”
Bridget glanced at her sister, anticipating a remark about how there was only so much that could be expected from a marriage of convenience. Dorothy said nothing, however, only looking toward the sky with a thoughtful look.
“I fear he will never see the real me. Worse, he will never desire the real me,” Bridget said. “He is never going to really want me, much less love me. I know it is a marriage of convenience, and I thought I had made my peace with that. But I have not. I do not know that I ever will.”
“I am not entirely certain that your husband holds all the blame,” Dorothy said.
Bridget frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You say that he does not see the real you,” Dorothy said. “Have you made any earnest efforts to show him the real you?”
“Of course, I have!”
Dorothy raised an eyebrow, doubt clearly painted across her face.
Bridget looked away from her sister, turning her attention to the tree roots beside her. Despite her clearly voiced defiance, doubt bloomed inside her chest. Hadn’t she tried to prove just how unsuitable she was, from the very start of her courtship with Lewis, in the hopes that he would find her unworthy as a wife? And hadn’t she tried several schemes to persuade him to annul the marriage?
