“I always appreciated your form. I used to dream of it, and still do, in fact. As established, I was a simpleton.”
“I’ve never asked you, why were you speaking so disdainfully of me?”
The words poured out before I gathered my thoughts. “I dreamed of you, like I said. There was one in particular, ithauntedme. You came down a staircase in this rose-red gown. It was not a fashionable gown, far too low cut and tight. But it was made for you. Your hair was loose, like it is today. You approached me, all pale skin, kissable lips, and impossibly large, mischievous eyes.”
“You were everything I never knew I wanted. I thought I preferred statuesque blondes because that is what I was told to prefer. I was taught to expect certain accomplishments from a prospective bride. My mother raised me to believe that these things were essential in order to maintain the viscountcy, carry on my family name, and make my family proud. I needed to find a bride who was all of those things. And you were none of them. And the moment I saw you, at Lady James’s ball in that red gown—looking exactly as beautiful as you had in my dream, more so, even, because you were there and real—the air left the room. I did not care about duty or honor or respectability. I just wanted to be near you, but I knew you weren’t for me.”
“And so, I drank, I drank until I thought I was clever. And Parker was there, saying all the unbearably crass things I had been thinking. I could not stand him thinking about you that way, could not abide any of them thinking like that. And so, I said all the things that I had been telling myself over and over again. But I said them out loud.”
“I did not consider what my speech would do to your reputation or your prospects. Honestly, I think discouraging your suitors may have been the point. All I knew was that I wanted you. I did not believe I could have you. And I wanted to be sure no one else could either. “
She blinked up at me, eyes an impossibly blue-green shade. Aquamarine? Her cheeks had flushed further, and her lips were parted. A pink tongue darted between them, enticing. I resisted the allure, but it was a near thing.
“You thought I was beautiful?” She breathed.
“Thatis what you took from that? Yes, of course, but there is no past tense.”
“I took a great deal more than that. I just happened to like that part best,” she said with a shy smile.
“I think I have always thought you were beautiful, even before the dreams started. You were beautiful even in that ill-fitting lavender gown covered in lemonade.”
She laughed, a smile teasing at the corner of her lips. “Tragically that was the best of the lot. Aunt Prudence was convinced she could force the gowns to suit me by sheer determination.”
“I liked the color, particularly when wet.”
She chuckled easily, before considering, “You will not speak of me that way again?”
“Never. It was as much of a lie then as it is now. I am, in point of fact, the luckiest man alive.”
She said nothing now. Nothing beyond a thoughtful hum, dropping her eyes to the grass beneath our feet.
“You do not believe me?”
“I’m not certain. I want to believe you.”
“But?”
“I have spent the last year believing my husband found me to be too loud, too vulgar, too unappealing to consider. This has been my truth and it’s a difficult truth to overcome.”
Every time I thought that I comprehended the hurt I had caused the woman at my side, I learned of yet another agony I was responsible for, another atrocity I had committed. I was slightly sick at the thought. No wonder she shied from my touch, it was a wonder she was still willing to be in the same county with me.
I did not have the eloquence to express the feelings in my heart. I settled instead for an empty platitude. “I wish I knew how to convince you of my truth.”
“I do as well. Perhaps time.”
“Anything. Everything.”Forever.
We continued our ride in silence for some time. Since her return she seemed more content to allow the silences to linger, rather than filling them with chatter. I missed her babbling. Even when I had not been paying attention to the content, her husky voice had become a balm to the worries and self-loathing that occupied my own head. Now there was no distraction from it. I was left to sit with the consequences of my actions.
Forty
THORNTON HALL, KENT - OCTOBER 21, 1814
KATE
I wasn’tcertain what to make of his assurances. Did his intentions even matter if the end result was the same? Could I trust the admiration he expressed now more than the disgust he was so free with?
I allowed the silence to fall between us with Andromeda carrying me steadily forward. In the last few days, my husband of few words and even fewer of those kind, had become a veritable poet.
