"You seemed distracted at dinner the other evening," Vanessa said, breaking the silence. Her voice was carefully light, but there was an undercurrent of something beneath it, curiosity, perhaps, or concern. "I wondered if something was troubling you."
"Distracted?"
“You regarded me with such fixed astonishment that I felt compelled to consult my glass, fearing some monstrous transformation had occurred in my absence.”
Martin felt heat creep up his neck. He had been staring. He had told himself he was being subtle, but apparently his subtlety left much to be desired. The knowledge that she had noticed…that she had been aware of his attention made his stomach tighten with a mixture of embarrassment and hope.
"I was merely... lost in thought," he said. "Estate matters. Tedious business."
"How convenient that your estate matters required you to stare at me across the dinner table."
"I was not staring."
"You were. Edward noticed. He asked me afterward if I had done something to offend you."
Damnation. If Edward had noticed, things were worse than he had feared. Edward was many things;loyal, good-natured, occasionally oblivious, but when it came to his sister, he could be surprisingly perceptive.
"I apologise if I caused you any discomfort," Martin said stiffly. "It was not my intention."
"I did not say I was discomforted. Merely... curious." She turned to look at him directly, and there was something in her eyes…a question, perhaps, or a challenge. "You have been behaving strangely of late, Martin. At the ball, at dinner, and now here. I find myself wondering what has changed."
Everything,he thought.Everything has changed. I have read your letters and I know what you feel for me, and I cannot erase it from my memory, and I have no idea what to do with this knowledge.
"Nothing has changed," he said. "I am precisely as I have always been."
"Then perhaps I am only now noticing what was always there." She looked away, her profile sharp against the grey morning sky. "Or perhaps I am imagining things. I have been told I have an overactive imagination."
"Who told you that?"
"You did. Three years ago. At the Worthington ball."
Martin frowned, searching his memory. "I do not recall…"
"I had expressed an opinion about Lord Byron's personal life, and you said that I clearly possessed more imagination than judgment. You were quite cutting about it, actually."
He remembered now. She had been defending Byron against accusations of moral turpitude, arguing with passionate conviction that an artist's personal failings did not diminish his art. Martin had disagreed, partly because he genuinely held the opposing view, and partly because arguing with Vanessa was the only form of intimacy available to him.
He had not realised his words had stung.
The memory surfaced now with painful clarity of Vanessa's face falling, the spark of hurt in her eyes before she had maskedit with a laugh. She had covered well, but he had seen it. He had simply chosen not to acknowledge it at the time.
How many other wounds had he inflicted without knowing? How many careless words had landed like blows, chipping away at her confidence, feeding her conviction that he did not regard her?
The thought was deeply uncomfortable.
"I did not mean…" he began.
"It does not matter. It was years ago." Her voice was light, but something in it suggested otherwise. "I have since learned to keep my imagination to myself."
The words landed like a blow.I have learned to keep my imagination to myself.And now her imagination, her private thoughts and feelings and desires sat in his desk drawer, exposed and vulnerable, read by the very man she had been hiding them from.
He was a villain. He should tell her. He should confess everything and throw himself upon her mercy.
Instead, he said nothing.
They rode on.
***
