He smiled sheepishly, then corrected his expression.
Amelia understood with alarm why England was of no more use to him.
“You have fallen in love with the doctor…”
Freddy did not even try to deny it. His face brightened with a smile, and he suddenly looked so much more like the vibrant young man she remembered him being.
“I shall not lie to you now that you have figured me out. You always were much too perceptive for your own good. Yes, I have fallen in love with her. But I swear to you that is not the reason why I intend to take you to meet her. She is eminently talented and clever, Amelia. She will know how to cure you. I believe it with my whole heart—which is, admittedly, now hers.”
A strange sense of jealousy came over Amelia. She suppressed it, looking aimlessly around the room as her mind whirred.
“How… This is all very confusing… How long have you loved her for?”
“Since the moment we met, I suspect,” Freddy approached and placed a hand on her shoulder. “But if you are asking seriously, the past year.”
“And you did not think to tell me? We wrote during that time. Unless… did you mention it and I forgot?”
“No, no,” he assured her emphatically. “I mentioned nothing to you in my letters. She has only found out herself in the last month. I have been helping her with her research. And over time… Well, you must understand that these things can happen when two people are forced to work in proximity with one another on a common goal.”
She understood better than he could ever have imagined.
“The doctor must be much older than you.”
“By eight years, but it does not matter to me. She is beautiful, the most impressive woman I have known, excepting you. She is a quiet woman, extremely learned and brave. You would love her, too, sister. Her name is Louise Charpentier.”
“Louise,” Amelia repeated quietly. “And I take it you intend to make her your wife?”
He paused, smiled again.
“I do. And though I have yet to ask her, I am confident that she will accept me. This place, all of it…” He gestured at the room and the overgrown grounds outdoors. “It is time you and I left this behind. Oxford has always looked down on our family. And they have had good reasons to in the past. But I no longer wish to be associated with the errors of our parents. I loved Father. I even loved Mother, though she was a disruptive force at the best of times.”
“It was not her fault. She was sick.”
“So are you. With a different sickness, yes. But you have not spent your life making those who love you miserable just because you are suffering. You have always tried to live well and generously. It was not the same for Mother.”
“You judge her unfairly. She was never in her right mind. She could not live in any way except how she did.”
“And Father? The way he enabled the worst parts of her? The way he abandoned us, his own children, even when we needed him?”
When Freddy frowned, he looked so much like their late father. It hurt Amelia’s heart. He was right. Not everything had been their parents’ fault. Butsomethings had.
She thought about what Nicholas had said two nights ago. That people made their own choices and did not have to be beholden to anyone. She was not sure he was right. But maybe she was not either, and the truth existed somewhere between her determinism and the chaos he relished.
She also thought about his insistence that she decide for herself. Was it possible that he was saying something more? That he was eager for their marriage to end so they both could move on?
“Sister, this place is cursed. I want nothing more to do with it, nor with England.”
“Which is why you want me to come with you to France—not just to meet the doctor.”
“It is my hope you will live with us, yes. Is that such a terrible thing to want?”
Amelia withheld her answer, not sure what she wanted to reply. Until he left England, she and Frederick had been inseparable. He had been the one stable force in her life. Her protector sinceshe was born. It was only natural that he would want her to come with him.
Especially since some part of him believes I need him. I see that now. The way he looks at me with hope and pity. He loves me, he believes in me, but I am still a sick woman in his eyes—one he must save from herself because he feels that is his responsibility.
And when Nicholas looked at her, it was completely different.
He did not pity her.
