“I do not know what I want,” she said again, keeping a hold of her aunt’s hands while looking away. “But I do know that… whatever it is, it won’t involve my husband.”
“Meaning?”
She shrugged. “I am not here to change him. I don’t even know if such a thing is possible—or if I want to do so. But I know that he does not, and whatever I might want, he has done enough. More than enough. The least I can do for him is leave him be…”
“Oh, Thalia…” Isadora heard the pain in Thalia’s voice, even if Thalia had not meant for it to be there. “How do you know if you do not even ask? Maybe he?—”
“He doesn’t,” she cut her aunt off. Then she laughed bitterly. “If he’d wanted anything to do with me or Olivia, he has had more than enough time to prove it. No…” A shake of the head. “We are on our own, I think. As to what comes next…” She forced a smile that barely touched her lips. “I suppose I will find out.”
It did not feel good to say, and Thalia’s heart sank a little to hear the words and know them to be the truth.
She knew so little about her husband, and that was purposeful. All she knew was what she felt when she saw him, those few moments when he dared to be around her and show the side that he seemed so desperate to hide.
Deep down, Thalia sensed there was more to the duke. The rare smile that touched his lips when Thalia pushed him. The kind gestures he had shown, like Olivia’s room. And more than once when they met one another’s eyes, the pull she felt, the curiosity he seemed to have for her, always fighting against it because he was so determined to give her nothing.
“You know there will always be a place at my home for you,” her aunt was sure to tell her, still squeezing her hands. “If you ever feel unsafe or… or lonely. If you ever want to leave here, do not hesitate or think yourself a burden. Know that, Thalia.”
“I do,” she told her aunt. “And thank you.”
She said the words but knew they would never come to pass. This was her life now, for better or worse. It might be lonely. It might have no future beyond what was already found. But she was safe, Olivia was safe, and that needed to be enough.
Eleven
“What are you doing?” the soft voice spoke from the doorway.
Ronan snapped his head up in surprise, not expecting company. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to find Olivia standing at the edge of the room, her eyes wide and curious as she watched him.
His first instinct was to scowl and scare her away. Which he did to little effect because, for some reason, Olivia didn’t fear him like she should. She continued to watch him with unabated curiosity, those big eyes fixed upon him as if he was the most interesting thing she had ever seen.
“I am reading,” he growled and then looked back down at his book.
“Why?” she asked.
He suppressed a groan, refusing to look up. “Why what?”
“Why are you reading?”
“Because…” Ronan didn’t know how to answer. Why would he? Why would he ever have to explain such a thing? “Because I wish to do it.”
“Why?” she asked.
Another suppressed groan.
It was an hour before supper, and as Ronan did on most nights, he sat in his personal reading room on the second floor of the western wing, reading whichever book he had chosen for the week, passing the time because when one lived alone there was more than enough of it to kill.
Too much time by far. Until this week, I never considered how empty my life was, how little I have to do and how long the days have become. But now that there is life in this castle, that which I am actively trying to avoid, my monotonous life has a limelight shone upon it in ways I never considered…
“Why?” Olivia asked again, this time taking a nervous step into the reading room.
Ronan looked up again, the scowl still there, the effect the same as earlier. “It is what adults do when they wish to be left alone.”
Olivia nodded with understanding. “What are you reading?”
Ronan knew little about children, but he knew enough to understand that this one wasn’t going to get the hint and leave him be. And most strangely, while he told himself he wanted nothing more than that outcome, there was a part of him that… that was not so much glad for her company but also wasn’t as dismissive as it could be.
Even Ronan had to admit that the girl was cute. With her blonde curls and big blue eyes and those red, swollen cheeks. And she was just so eager and curious, taking the world in as if she was seeing everything for the first time.
She did not care that he was big and scary. She didn’t know enough about him to be afraid or wary. If anything, she seemed to like him. As impossible as that should have been.
