When the set concluded, she returned with color in her cheeks and brightness in her expression. She had scarcely come to a stop before another gentleman stepped forward.
This one did not hesitate.
Sutton.
Julien recognized the type immediately. Easy in manner, confident without effort, entirely at home in a room like this. He spoke, and Caroline’s attention fixed on him at once. There was no uncertainty in it, no polite distraction. She listened. She responded. She laughed.
Not because she was meant to. Because she wanted to. William Sutton had charmed her, as he had so many other young ladies. And it appeared as if he might be equally charmed by Miss Ashworth.
Julien felt something tighten, sharp and immediate, though he could not have said precisely why.
Sutton claimed one dance, and then without hesitation, as it ended, placed his name upon her dance card for yet another. There was no mistaking his intent. Whatever had been open and curious in her attention now had direction. It returned to the same place again and again, drawn there without hesitation.
Julien remained where he was, watching it happen.
He had told himself he was doing the honorable thing. Allowing her a chance to experience the season, to be courted and dance and partake of all the gaiety it offered. And now that choice was one he could only regret.
The clarity of it settled with uncomfortable precision. He had stepped aside, for reasons sound and reasons not, and another man had stepped forward to take a place at her side. Sutton had crossed the floor without hesitation, claimed her time, and secured her attention before Julien had even decided whether he meant to act.
Across the room, Sutton bent his head toward her with easy familiarity, as though he had known her far longer than the space of a single evening. Caroline did not pull away. She did not hesitate. If anything, she leaned toward him, her interest unmistakable.
Julien exhaled slowly.
It had been the right decision.
It had also been a mistake.
When the music ended, she did not look for him. There was no reason she should have done so. He had offered her nothing to look for.
He did not approach her. There was no claim to assert, no place he had not deliberately yielded.
He turned before the evening was over and left the ballroom, unwilling to remain and watch the consequences of his own restraint take further shape before him. Eleanor would be well chaperoned by Lady Ensley, one of their late mother’s dearest friends.Because he couldn’t simply stand there and watch his greatest regret take shape right before his eyes.
Chapter
One
Tuesday Morning
Caroline had thought herself prepared.
She had known, in that vague and sensible way one always imagined such things, that witnessing a dear friend’s happiness—particularly when that happiness was long delayed and hard won—might stir in her a degree of introspection she would rather avoid. It was only natural, after all, to measure one’s own circumstances against so vivid an example of what might have been. She had anticipated it, had even resolved to meet it with good humor and the same generosity of spirit Eleanor would have for her. She was determined that nothing in her own situation should diminish the joy of Eleanor’s long-awaited marriage.
However, the wound was deep. And there was no way she could have anticipated quite how deeply and painfully the dull blade of comparison would cut.
Eleanor stood across the room now, her hand resting lightly upon Adrian’s arm, her expression composed but unmistakably altered by the quiet certainty of what she had gained. There was no artifice in it, no careful arrangement of features meantto suggest contentment where none existed. It was real, and because it was real, it was all the more striking. The happiness and supreme satisfaction displayed by both was complete in a way that left no room for doubt. Caroline had known her friend for years, had seen her in every variety of social setting and under any number of pressures, and yet she could not recall ever having seen her look quite so deeply content. Not merely pleased. Not merely relieved. But certain, in a way that seemed to anchor her, as though she had at last arrived precisely where she had been meant to be all along.
It was a beautiful thing. And an envious one. But even in her covetous heart, there was no begrudgement. Eleanor deserved happiness. But that didn’t mean she was not equally deserving of it. Further came the realization that, even if William had not fled, abandoning her for his actress, she’d have never known that happiness at his side.
That, perhaps, was the most telling part of it. There had been a time when the sight of a wedding—particularly one born of affection rather than convenience—would have turned her thoughts immediately in his direction, prompting some familiar and weary calculation of where she stood, what she might expect, and how much longer she ought to wait. That reflex was gone now, and in its absence she discovered something far less easily dismissed.
It was not the loss of him that troubled her. It was the loss of what had once seemed possible. Or rather, what had once seemed inevitable.
For years, she had occupied a peculiar position—neither fully claimed nor entirely free, held in a kind of suspended expectation that had allowed others to assume her future would resolve itself in due course. It had been inconvenient at times, even frustrating, but it had also provided a certain protection. There had always been the understanding, however ill-defined,that she was not truly available, that her path, however meandering, led somewhere definite.
Now, that understanding had been stripped away. In its place remained something far less comfortable.
Freedom, perhaps, if one wished to name it generously. But it was a freedom accompanied by a degree of scrutiny she had not previously been required to endure, and by a narrative that had taken on a life of its own entirely beyond her control. People did not speak of her as they once had. They spoke of her with that particular mixture of interest and pity reserved for a woman who had been, if not quite jilted, then certainly disappointed in a manner sufficiently public to invite commentary.
