“Her circumstances were difficult,” he said. “Not identical to yours, but close enough that I recognized the pattern. Financial pressure, a family willing to look the other way if it meant preserving appearances, and a young woman with very little real control over her future.”
Margaret watched him now, her expression carefully guarded.
“I helped where I could,” Nathaniel continued. “The same way that I did with your family.”
There was no pride in his voice when he said it, only a matter-of-fact acceptance of responsibility.
“I never intended to pursue a match with her,” he added after a moment. “Not once.”
Margaret’s fingers tightened slightly against the fabric of her dress. It did not help her to see that she was different, but he preferred honesty.
“But she believed otherwise,” she said quietly. “Is that what you are trying to say?”
Nathaniel exhaled through his nose.
“Yes.”
The single word carried a trace of frustration.
“I was careful,” he went on. “Or at least I believed I was. I made it clear that my involvement was practical and nothing more, yet Arabella has always been skilled at hearing only the parts of a conversation that suit her.”
Margaret looked back toward the window, watching the countryside slide past.
“And then you married me.”
“Yes.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Silence settled between them again, though it was less brittle than before. Margaret turned his explanation over in her mind, testing it against what she already knew of both of them.
It made sense. Too much sense, perhaps.
Nathaniel had always involved himself in other people’s problems with an intensity that bordered on reckless. She herself was proof of that. Without his intervention, her family’s situation might have collapsed entirely.
“I can believe that you helped her,” Margaret said after a while.
Nathaniel did not react immediately.
“But I cannot pretend that erases what I witnessed,” she continued. “Or the fact that she behaved as though she had some claim upon you.”
“She does not, for what it is worth.”
Margaret met his gaze briefly before looking away again.
“Perhaps not,” she said softly. “But trust is a difficult thing to repair once it has been broken.”
Nathaniel accepted the statement without protest. The carriage continued forward in quiet rhythm, the road gradually turning back toward Ravensmere in the growing light of morning.
Margaret rested her hands more loosely now, though the uncertainty in her eyes remained. She half accepted what he had told her, he could see that.
But she did not yet know what to believe.
CHAPTER 31
Margaret had not expected the day to unfold as it had.
By late afternoon she stood in one of the smaller receiving rooms at Ravensmere, the same quiet chamber where Nathaniel often met with his solicitor. The tall windows admitted a cool, steady light, and the room had been arranged with deliberate formality; a writing desk at the center, several chairs placed in careful order, and two gentlemen already seated near the far wall.
