Jane sat in her parlor, staring at her empty cup of tea with unseeing eyes.
“Jane?”
She jerked her head up to find Alicia staring at her. “God, this is your first call since delivering the baby and I am quite possibly the worst hostess of all time. I’m so sorry, Alicia.”
“I’m not worried about your hostessing skills,” Alicia said, taking her hand. “I’m worried aboutyou. Jane, what in the world is going on?”
Jane tilted her head back. “I don’t know if Icantalk to you about it.”
“Why?”
“Because you hate Colin,” she said, leveling her gaze on Alicia and daring her deny the charge.
Alicia sighed. “I admit, I despise what that man did to you. Dragging you out of London, banishing you to the countryside without explanation, tearing you away from me? But…he is your husband. There is no changing that now. And if talking about it would help, I will do my level best not to allow my feelings on the matter to come into play.”
“Feelings,” Jane mused, shutting her eyes.
Alicia sucked in a breath. “Are you saying yours have become involved?”
Jane looked at her. “Perhaps they always were. I felt them growing as we courted, they bloomed when we wed and then…I was crushed after he sent me away. But there were always dreams of him, Alicia. Always these secret hopes that one day he might see me, want me…care for me. And now I’m here and—”
She cut herself off, for the line of her thoughts was very dangerous, indeed. Unspeakable considering that she still didn’t know anything about the man’s mind.
“Are you in love with him? Despite all he’s done?” Alicia asked, and Jane stiffened at those words she had not dared to think to herself, let alone say out loud. Now they hung in the air, a beautiful mirage that felt so very out of reach. “Jane?”
She shook her head and dropped her gaze from Alicia’s seeking one. “Yes,” she said, that one word snapping between them. “I…love him.”
Her sister’s eyes went wide. “Oh, Jane.”
She nodded. “It’s desperate, isn’t it? To feel such a thing for a man who seems to hate me. Even when he touches me, even when he holds me, that hesitation is there.”
“And that makes me wonder how it is possible that you could offer him something so precious as your heart.”
“When Colin and I were first introduced, after the arrangements had been made, he was…he was so very kind. Gentle. We could talk for hours and never run out of topics of conversation. He laughed, he smiled. He was a different person.”
Alicia frowned. “Very well, Idorecall that somewhat. In fact, when you first became engaged, I was actually hopeful for you, that you would find the same love I had found.”
“As was I,” Jane said. “And then he changed.”
“Why, though?” Alicia asked.
Jane threw up her hands. “I have no idea—that’s the problem. One moment he was declaring how happy he was to have me as his bride, how hopeful he was for our future. The next, he pulled away and banished me. I have never understood why. I even wrote to him, after I’d been away a while. Every week for the past three months, I wrote. He never replied, never explained it.”
Alicia folded her arms. “You have not gotten to the point of the story where he is worthy of your love.”
Jane let out a long breath. “Being here with him now, I see him struggling. It’s like a push and pull between us. He wants me near and he can be so tender, so passionate. There are moments when his walls come down and I still see that man with whom I could have had a happy future. But then he pushes me away, almost as if he is compelled to do so.”
“Have you asked him for an explanation?” Alicia asked.
She nodded. “I have tried, but it’s as if he expects me to already know whatever sin I committed. So I feel as though I’m always on the edge of knowing him, knowing anything. But I never go over.”
“It’s unfair of him to do that to you,” her sister insisted. “I know you, and I know you could never do anything so wrong as to deserve what he’s done.”
“Even if I did, there is no making up for something I don’t even understand.” Jane sighed. “It is infinitely frustrating, this loop we’re in.”
“I imagine so,” Alicia said. “And I’m sorry.”
There was a knock in the parlor door and Jane nodded as the butler, Simmons, stepped into the room. “My lady, there is a missive that just arrived for you. It was declared to be urgent by the servant who delivered it.”
