“I know.”
“And marriage meant responsibility..”
“But not feeling. I know. It is not as though I entered into this marriage expecting anything else.”
Nathaniel looked at her. One look at her made it perfectly clear that even if she had not expected it before, she now did. He wished she did not, for the rejection would have been easier even if it hurt more.
“Feelings complicate responsibility.”
Margaret shook her head gently.
“No,” she said. “It complicates control. You believe if you allow yourself to care, you will lose sight of what is important and fail someone, and so you choose distance. Am I right in saying that, Nathaniel?”
“Yes.”
Margaret’s voice softened.
“That is a lonely way to live.”
Nathaniel gave a faint, humorless smile, for it indeed was.
“I am accustomed to it.”
“But you do not have to be.”
“You speak as though this is simple.”
“It is. It is a simpler way to be than trying to be a hundred different men at once, in any case. It is far more honest, too.”
Her words lingered. For a while they stood there in the quiet of the hall, not saying a word. Then Margaret glanced toward the staircase.
“It is very late, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
They climbed the stairs together without speaking further. In the corridor outside her chamber, however, Nathaniel stopped. This had been their pattern since the wedding. He let her get closer, only for him to pull away. He did not want to do that anymore. He could not do it to her anymore.
“I know how you think of me,” he said shortly.
“Then you should know that I want you to be kinder to yourself.”
With a sigh, he briskly wiped his hands against the fabric of his trousers to dry them.
“I told you about my father,” he continued. “He was a reckless man, one that almost ruined us. I know that I do things that you might not understand, but I– I cannot become him, Margaret.”
“So you will keep me at arm’s length, just in case you cannot control yourself at all?”
“Look at what I just did! Look at what I did at that ball, when we were caught and then we… I need to control myself.”
“You need to control both of us, you mean.”
He looked at her then, truly looked at her, and the guilt was thick in his throat. It was not a crime to kiss his wife, nor to dare feeling something beyond a polite respect for her, but he could not.
“I do not want to control you,” he said quietly. “I suppose I am punishing myself.”
“For something that you did not even do,” she nodded.
Margaret reached for her handle, but she paused. Nathaniel saw the hesitation before she spoke. She turned back toward him, the lantern light catching softly in her eyes.
