“Didn’t you? She’s ideal for it—too new to society to know all the whispers, too unconnected to challenge your narrative. A blank slate for you to mould as you please.”
“How dare you—”
“How dareIwhat? Speak truth? You’ve been punishing yourself since that day, Adrian, and now you’ve trapped someone else in it.”
“That’s enough!” Marianne’s voice cut sharply through theirs. Both turned toward her.
“Lady Catherine,” she said evenly, “you’re clearly exhausted from travel and speaking from emotion rather than reason. And as for you, Your Grace,”—she turned to Adrian, whose face was white with fury—“perhaps you should attend to that correspondence you mentioned earlier.”
“Marianne—”
“Please.” Her tone brooked no argument. “We all need a moment to collect ourselves.”
Adrian looked like he wanted to argue, but something in her expression stopped him. He nodded stiffly and strode out, the door closing with careful control behind him.
Catherine sank back into her chair, suddenly looking very young. “I’ve made a mess of things.”
“Yes,” Marianne agreed, sitting across from her. “You have.”
“I didn’t mean... I was simply so… angry. He married you without telling me. His own sister.”
“And that hurt you.”
“Shouldn’t it?” Tears welled in Catherine’s eyes. “We were inseparable once. He was my protector, my confidant, my best friend. And then the accident happened—and everything changed.”
Marianne reached into her reticule and withdrew a delicate linen handkerchief, the edges embroidered with tiny forget-me-nots that her mother had stitched years ago. She handed it across the polished breakfast table to Catherine, noting how the younger woman’s fingers trembled slightly as she accepted it. “Tell me about before.”
Catherine dabbed at her eyes with careful movements, the morning light from the tall windows catching the tears thatstill clung to her lashes. She took a shuddering breath before speaking, her voice thick with emotion.
“He was different. Still serious—Adrian was born serious—but he laughed sometimes. He played music constantly. He had friends, interests beyond the estate. He was... alive.”
“And after?” Marianne prompted gently, leaning forward slightly in her chair, the silk of her morning dress rustling softly with the movement.
Catherine’s expression crumpled, fresh grief washing over her delicate features.
“After, he was a stranger wearing my brother’s face. Cold, distant, formal. He wouldn’t let me apologise, wouldn’t let me thank him, wouldn’t let me near him at all. Every conversation was about the weather or the estate or nothing at all.” She looked up at Marianne, her blue eyes swimming with unshed tears, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper. “Then I heard he’d married you, and I thought... I hoped...”
“That things would be different?” Marianne supplied softly, her heart aching for the pain radiating from the young woman across from her.
“That he was healing. But seeing you both just now, the way he looks at you... It’s not healing. It’s just another kind of fever.”
Marianne considered Catherine’s words carefully, weighing each syllable, understanding the fear behind them.
The morning sun had climbed higher now, casting long shadows across the breakfast room’s elegant wallpaper. She could hear the distant sounds of servants going about their morning duties, the normal rhythm of the household continuing despite the emotional upheaval in this room.
“Your brother is… complicated,” she said at last.
Catherine’s laugh was a bitter, broken sound that seemed to echo off the high ceiling. “That’s one way to put it. Diplomatic, even.”
“He’s also trying,” Marianne said softly. “In his own way, he’s trying to live again. Yes, our marriage was sudden. Yes, there was scandal. But, Catherine, I need you to understand something.”
She leaned forward across the expanse of white tablecloth, past the abandoned plates of barely touched breakfast, her voice taking on an intensity that made Catherine look up sharply. “I chose him too. Not the title, not the fortune, and certainly not the safety marriage was meant to offer me.Him.”
Catherine blinked, her brows knitting. “After a few short days?”
Marianne’s gaze did not waver. “Days, hours, minutes—it hardly signifies. When one soul recognises another, time ceases to matter.”
“That’s romantic nonsense.” But even as Catherine said it, there was a wistfulness in her tone, a longing for that kind of certainty.
