Thalia felt as though her smile stretched too tight over her own lips. “It’s not entirely out of the question,” she said.
“Lydia is so thrilled you are part of the family,” Joyce said. “She has hardly stopped talking about you since the wedding. It seems she thinks you are the ideal bride for Maxwell.”
“But you disagree?”
“Not in the slightest,” Joyce said, looking back out across the ballroom. “It’s clear he esteems you.”
Esteems. Notloves.
Thalia felt the distinction as though she had marked it in the ground with a blade. A line in the sand.
Maxwell liked her. He clearly thought a great deal of her art, whatever he had claimed the first time they met, and he was prepared to publicly support her.
But that was as far as it went. He didn’t love her.
“You are very fortunate,” Joyce continued. “Very few husbands are as kind. I should know.”
Thalia glanced sharply at the older woman. “Your marriage was an unhappy one?”
“Most are, my dear. We married for all the wrong reasons, and we were deeply unhappy about it. He was willing to overlook the fact I had a child with another man in exchange for my father’s favor, and I was obliged to bring Lydia up as though she were his. Knowing that as soon as I bore a son, my daughter would get nothing. It’s a cruel system, and we are the victims of it.”
We married for all the wrong reasons.
Thalia didn’t have to ask to know the right reasons, including love and very little else. Reasons that, naturally, she did not have.
“One cannot expect too much from one’s husband,” Joyce said, watching as Maxwell smiled at a young lady by his side. Jealousy fired in Thalia’s stomach, hot and uncomfortable.
She knew Maxwell would never enter into any sort of arrangement with another young lady. He was better than that, and she believed in the strength of his lust for her. But she couldn’t help the wave of possessiveness that came over her when she saw him smile at another lady.
He hadn’t given her his heart; thus, he could offer it to someone else.
They had not married for love. What would happen if he ever fell in love with someone else? This was not an arrangement they could ever escape. Would she have to sit back and watch him love someone he could never have?
How could either of them be satisfied with such an existence?
“He is a good husband,” Joyce said, oblivious to Thalia’s inner turmoil, “but he is still a man, and he will behave as a man behaves. I offer you this advice now, in the hope that it will save you some future pain.” She looked at Thalia with such open sympathy on her face; it made Thalia’s stomach twist. “I know you want more from him, my dear, but you should not set your expectations too high.”
“Because he will inevitably disappoint me?” Thalia asked.
“That is the reality of marriage. If one goes in expecting the world of one’s husband, one is bound to be disappointed. And I want to save you from feeling hurt. Trust me, I have been there before.”
Joyce had been in a loveless marriage, and it had rendered her bitter and suspicious of the world. Prolonged misery had that effect on a person, and Thalia wanted no part in it.
She glanced around the room, feeling numb again. Maxwell was with Simon, smiling and laughing, turning that laugh toward a new lady. No doubt it meant nothing in his mind, but she could not help turning over every interaction in her mind, trying to feel her way through to the point where everything finally made sense again.
Her heart hurt.
She wanted to cry.
Joyce took herself away, and Thalia wished she could do the same, but just as she was searching for a way to escape, a lady and gentleman came to speak with her. The lady was young, and with the kind of curves that Venus would have wept at. Thalia immediately wanted to sculpt her, perhaps commit her to marble—a glorious medium that would match the overt voluptuousness of her figure.
In contrast, her husband was tall and refined, his hair turning silver, but his blue eyes were focused. Thalia recognized him as being the Duke of Kirkford, one of Maxwell’s acquaintances. Which meant the lady by his side, her arm tucked neatly into his, must be his wife.
“Your Grace,” the lady said. “It issucha delight to finally meet you and speak with you. I’m the Duchess of Kirkford, but you must call me Madeline. This is my husband, His Grace the Duke of Kirkford, but you may call him Wilhelm. I insist upon it; he gets so stuffy if you address him formally.”
She beamed at Thalia, and Thalia saw instantly the love that these two shared.
Despite their differences in appearance and even their disparity in age, they were wholly in love. Madeline glanced up at her husband with a small, private smile, and his hand came to cover hers. On the outside, they appeared perfectly normal, but at every opportunity, they touched each other in a casually affectionate way.
