And Aurelia … he looked at her more often than was strictly necessary.
She was sitting opposite him on the blanket with one hand resting lightly against the grass. When Clara laughed, Aurelia’s mouth curved before she seemed aware of it. When Thomas launched into some embellished account of a fellow officer who had once fallen into a ditch while attempting to impress a colonel’s daughter, Aurelia actually laughed aloud, low and warm and wholly unguarded. Owen felt the sound somewhere under his ribs. He had not felt so relaxed in years.
Aurelia reached for the little dish of strawberries at the same moment he did. Their hands merely brushed above the blanket, his fingers grazing the side of hers before both of them drew back with the speed that would have been amusing, had Owen not felt the contact travel through him like a struck match.
“Oh, sorry,” she blushed, pressing her fingers to her lips, looking utterly lovely.
“No, it was I,” he replied, feeling that his voice was altered by the smallest degree.
Thomas was still talking. Clara was still laughing. The park continued around them with all its ordinary sounds. No one had noticed. After all, there was nothing to notice. And yet, Owen was absurdly aware of the exact place where her hand had touched his.
He felt his heart full in a way he had never known it before. The thought came to him unexpectedly and, once it had come, refused to be denied. There had been afternoons abroad when he had known relief, certainly. He had moments between engagements and evenings of camaraderie, which were the rough and temporary comforts of men who had survived the same chaos.
But relaxation was something else. It implied ease without vigilance, pleasure without debt, and a lowering of the internal guard he had scarcely realized was always there.
And with that came another, stranger thought: perhaps it was possible to move on from some part of it after all.
He did not mean forget. He knew better than that. But perhaps a life might still be built around the cracks, if not over them.
It was a dangerous sort of hope, and he distrusted it immediately.
Still, it remained.
When the meal was finished and the plates packed away, Thomas rose and extended a hand to Clara.
“Come,” he urged tenderly. “The lake is there, and I refuse to believe anyone can have spent a proper spring afternoon in the park without at least pretending to be a child for ten minutes.”
Clara looked delighted. “Pretending?”
Thomas grinned. “Very well, then. Without being one.”
She placed her hand in his and got up at once.
Aurelia looked after them with a mild look of protest. “Do not go too far.”
“We shall remain entirely respectable,” Thomas promised.
“You are incapable of it,” Owen scoffed, though he could barely hide his amusement.
“On the contrary, I am at my most respectable when in love.”
Clara flushed beautifully. Aurelia made a sound halfway between exasperation and affection, and Thomas, looking pleased with himself, led Clara off toward the edge of the water a little way ahead.
They did not go far, only near enough that the sound of their laughter still carried clearly back to the blanket. For a while, Owen and Aurelia remained where they were, watching the younger pair wade in the shallows, Clara lifting her skirts just enough to keep them dry and then failing entirely when Thomas sent a light splash against her ankle and had to dodge the retaliation.
“They seem very happy,” Owen said, though he wasn’t certain if he were merely thinking aloud.
Beside him, Aurelia smiled. “They do.”
There was a wistfulness in her tone that caught his attention more than the words themselves. She reminded him of someone who was looking at something beautiful from a distance, behind a line she had long ago taught herself not to cross.
Owen found himself wondering whether she was truly as certain as she claimed to be that she did not want marriage. He had accepted it before because she had spoken of it so plainly. But then Aurelia spoke plainly of many things she seemed to feel deeply.
He let the thought rest only a moment before turning away from it. It was not his business. More than that, it was dangerous ground, and they had more important matters between them than whether she had once imagined a different future for herself.
Still, he could not entirely stop looking at her. He thought, with a dangerous suddenness, that perhaps this was the real Aurelia, not the guarded woman who measured every word in a drawing room, but this calmer, easier version of herself. She felt safe to be herself here, and he had done that.
The thought landed with startling force.
