“Lady Blackwood attended to him,” he said.
“Ah.” Julian’s mouth curved with something that was not quite a smile. “The new duchess. I confess, I was rather surprised by your letter announcing the marriage. Surprised and—if I am honest—somewhat concerned.”
“Your concern is misplaced.”
“Is it?” Julian moved away from the window, settling himself into the chair opposite Thaddeus’s desk with the relaxed posture of a man preparing for a lengthy conversation. “You write to inform me that you have married a woman you once described as ‘insufferably opinionated and entirely unsuited to polite company,’ give no explanation beyond ‘circumstances demanded it,’ and expect me to accept this without question?”
Thaddeus’s jaw tightened. “The circumstances were exactly as I stated. A scandal threatened both Lady Maribel’s reputation and Oliver’s prospects. Marriage was the logical solution.”
“Logic.” Julian’s voice was soft, but something sharp lurked beneath its gentleness. “Yes, that sounds precisely like you. Tell me—did you propose to her, or did you simply inform her that matrimony had become necessary?”
The memory rose unbidden: the library at the Whitmore ball, Lady Forsythe’s delighted malice, Maribel’s face draining of colour as she understood what discovery would cost her. His own voice, flat and certain:We will marry. Tomorrow, if it can be arranged.
“I made my intentions clear,” Thaddeus said.
“I am certain you did. With all the warmth and tenderness of a man dictating terms to his solicitor.” Julian leaned forward, his expression losing its careful neutrality. “Thaddeus. You married this woman to protect her reputation, and of course, that of the boy. But from what I observed during the ten minutes it took me to reach your study, you are treating her like an inconvenience you cannot quite manage to dismiss.”
“I am treating her exactly as our arrangement dictates. We married for practical reasons. She remains here for Oliver’s benefit. The terms were clearly established.”
“And what were those terms, precisely? That you would share a name and a household whilst maintaining the emotional distance of strangers?” Julian’s voice had gone quiet in the way it did when he was truly angry—a dangerous sort of calm that Thaddeus had learned to recognise during their years of service together. “That you would sleep in separate chambers and speakin careful formalities and pretend the woman you wed does not exist beyond her utility as the boy’s caretaker?”
“The arrangement suits us both.”
“Does it? Because the woman I passed in the corridor just now looked as though she were holding herself together through sheer stubbornness. And you—” Julian gestured toward him with something approaching disgust. “You look like a man being slowly torn apart.”
Thaddeus stood with a sigh and tiredly walked to the sideboard where crystal decanters caught the morning light. His hands were steady as he poured brandy into a glass—steady because he had spent years learning to master the tremors that threatened whenever emotions pressed too close to the surface.
“I did what was necessary,” he said. “For Oliver. For her. If you disapprove of my methods?—”
“I do not disapprove of protecting them. I disapprove of you punishing yourself and making this far more difficult than it needs to be.” He sighed. “You married her, Thaddeus. She is your wife. And from what little I observed before you sequestered yourself in here, she is doing everything in her power to give that child what he needs whilst you hide behind your correspondence and your schedules and your control.”
The brandy burned going down. Thaddeus welcomed the pain of it, the sharp clarity it brought. “You know nothing of what transpires in this household.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“There is nothing to enlighten. Lady Blackwood performs her duties admirably. Oliver thrives under her care. The arrangement functions exactly as intended.”
“Does it? I am not a stranger to the arrangement between a man and a woman who feel no love or passion. The least you could do is accept that this woman lives in your home and… well, perhaps attempt to befriend her. She is raising the boy. What harm can it do to allow her to know you?”
Thaddeus frowned at this.
What harm? Far too much, he decided. He knew not how to truly allow anyone to know him.
“You presume too much,” he said.
Julian rose from his chair tiredly, as though it had taken much of him to speak to his friend. “I presume only what I see. And what I see is my closest friend slowly destroying himself because he believes caring for people is a weakness rather than a strength.” He crossed to stand beside Thaddeus, his voice dropping to something gentler. “Nicholas would not have wanted this for you. You know that, surely.”
The name felt like a fist to the chest. Thaddeus’s grip tightened on his glass until the crystal groaned in protest.
“Do not?—”
“He would have wanted you to live, Thaddeus. To be happy. To build at least a familiarity with the woman you married rather than treating her like another obligation to be managed and controlled.” Julian placed a hand on his shoulder—a brief pressure, swiftly withdrawn. “He would have wanted better for you than this half-life you have constructed.”
Thaddeus set down his glass before he could shatter it. “If you have quite finished dispensing advice on matters you know nothing about?—”
“I know you,” Julian interrupted. “I know that beneath all this ice and distance is a man capable of extraordinary feeling. I have seen you weep over fallen comrades. I have watched you rage against injustice with a fury that could move mountains. And I know—Iknow—that you are not as indifferent to your wife as you pretend to be.”
The study door opened before Thaddeus could form a response.
