Clio blinked at him as though she had never seen him before, let alone now.
“Very well,” she said in a voice that didn’t even sound like hers. “I’ll see you at the wedding, then.”
When Hector left the house, he felt as though he was leaving something precious behind. Something that he feared he would never get back.
CHAPTER 15
“Are you ready?”
Clio startled—she was doing this so frequently these past few days—when Phoebe spoke to her from the doorway. How long had she been sitting at her dressing table, seeing nothing, thinking about nothing?
She was about to reply in the affirmative—she was replying to everything in the affirmative, just to avoid having to make any decisions—when Phoebe heaved a sigh.
“No,” she answered on Clio’s behalf. “You’re not.”
“Of course I am,” Clio replied mechanically. “It’s my wedding day.”
Phoebe huffed out a sigh, then crossed to Clio, pulled her up, and led them both to the side of Clio’s bed. Phoebe wrapped an arm around Clio and maneuvered the younger woman like a dolluntil Phoebe’s cheek was pressed to Clio’s head, Clio’s cheek to Phoebe’s shoulder.
“On my wedding day,” Phoebe said, “I had the most wretched attack of nerves. No,” she amended, “I was downright dreading it.”
Clio felt a flicker of what might have been fondness, though she still felt as though things were happening to her at a great distance. It was better than the alternative. Ever since she’d returned to England, she’d felt like a rabbit in a snare; every time she tried to escape, it had only tightened around her with a more choking grip.
She just … wasn’t fighting any longer. It might not get her free, but at least it wasn’t getting worse.
“I remember,” Clio said, because it seemed like a response was required. “You and Aaron didn’t get on at first.”
“Indeed, we did not,” Phoebe agreed. “But I’m not telling you this to argue that you and Metford are going to fall in love and ride off into the sunset together.”
Clio actually felt the full force of that surprise.
“You aren’t?”
Phoebe pulled back enough to give Clio a smile that was full of horrible understanding and kindness. It made Clio want to cry, and she couldnotbegin to cry.
“No,” Phoebe said gently. “It means that I understand why, even if you are marrying a good man, you might be grieving the other life that you lost by doing so.”
Something inside Clio stirred, and she worried that letting herself acknowledge it would break the dam she’d carefully built up.
“I think he is a good man,” Clio said quietly.
That was part of what she couldn’t understand. Hector was kind—well, he was annoying and persnickety, and he didn’t care at all about rules. But he’d been gentle with her when she’d let herself be vulnerable, and when she’d been left without choices, he’d tried to give some back to her.
And yes, perhaps it stung that he was willing to flee the breadth of England to avoid actually remaining in a marriage to her, but she understood that he intended kindness. His kindness was just … gruff.
But he was good. He was the kind of good that stopped to pull a woman from a carriage accident, even after she’d insulted him in a shop.
“So maybe,” Phoebe said, “you’re asking yourself why, if he’s a good man, you are unable to accept the idea of this marriage?”
“Am I horrible?” Clio asked, closing her eyes against the onslaught of something breaking inside her. “Why can I not just … be happy enough? Why am I always looking to something else, something further, something I can’t have?”
She was crying. Oh, Lord, this was the one thing she wanted to avoid, but here she was. She was crying—but Phoebe was there, pulling Clio in for a hug, rubbing soothing circles on her back like Clio was a child.
“Oh, dear heart,no, no, you aren’t horrible at all,” Phoebe soothed. “You are just someone who has been pushed to make a choice before she was ready, and who is being asked to feel a certain way about it before you’re ready. But you can take your time. It won’t happen any other way, really. So just … be kind with yourself about it, all right?”
Clio clung to Phoebe like she was the sole thing keeping her from being swept beneath a flood.
“And what if I can’t?” she sobbed into her sister’s shoulder, making a wet mess of them both.
