He ignored her as he went for the broken shards. He stared at them for a moment, the look on his face unreadable. Then he swept them off the desk and into the drawer in one movement.
“Please, Ophelia…” He did not look at her, as if he were physically incapable. “Leave.”
She thought to run, to escape his anger. Only… as Ophelia looked closer at her husband, she saw that he was not at allangry. His scowled. He clenched his jaw. But it wasn’t fury that poured from him. If anything, it was shame…
“What are they?” she asked gently. “Why do you… Are you trying to put them back together?”
“I asked you to leave.” His voice was low and distant. “For once, I would appreciate it if you did as you were told.”
“I –”
“Do not argue,” he spoke over her. Not sharply, but with pain in his voice. “Just go.”
Ophelia wanted to stay. More than that, she wanted to help him. But if there was one thing that she knew about her husband, it was how closed off he was. Not a man to show any emotion, a fear of the weakness it would appear as to others, his walls were up, and trying to climb them might make things infinitely worse.
“I will go,” she said as she stepped around the desk, not once looking away from him. “But if you wish to talk, I am here. About anything, Adrian. Anything at all.”
He did not look at her. He did not speak. He acted as if she were not there at all, staring at the desk in a heavy silence.
Ophelia sighed. She would not push. Nor would she argue. But it frustrated her to no end that her husband was so closed off. Howcould this marriage ever grow, ever change, if he would not open up?
Not that he wanted to open up…. Not that he wanted to change. That was the realization that she landed on as soon as she left his office, and that left her feeling not just frustrated, not just upset, but deeply depressed.
She could change the garden. She could refurbish every room in the manor. But it would make no real difference so long as her husband stayed as he was. And by the looks of things, that was exactly how he meant for it to be.
CHAPTER 13
Sleep did not come easily that night to Ophelia… or at all.
Try as she might, she could not stop thinking about Adrian and that strange moment in his office. The broken shards that he kept were one thing, but his reaction to them was another thing entirely.
He is just so closed off. So resistant to opening up… to letting someone else in.
While Ophelia could understand his emotional detachment, as he had lived alone for so long and likely did not know how to be emotionally vulnerable, what she could not allow was for it to continue. For so long as he remained detached from the world, their marriage would stagnate. And that wasn’t to say that Ophelia wished for their marriage to turn into some wondrous thing; she also did not like the idea of it not changing at all.
This marriage, while not ideal, was for life. If there was even the most remote chance that it might turn into more, that happiness and companionship could be found, she needed to try.
But how could she if Adrian had no desire? How could she make him see that change was not such a bad thing? Truly, she had no idea.
So, she tossed, and she turned and knew the second her head hit the pillow that sleep would not find her. Not while her mind turned.
As a little girl, when she had struggled to sleep, her father would make her a glass of warm milk. For reasons she did not know, it always seemed to do the trick, so she figured that she might as well give it a try.
Slipping on her robe, Ophelia crept from her room and into the darkness that consumed the manor. The silence was deafening. Each step saw a floorboard creak that made her pause and wince because it crashed through the hallways.
The journey to the kitchens took much longer than it ought to have, as she moved so slowly. But she reached it in time, smiling to herself because the curtains were open, allowing for the moon’s white light to shine throughout as if day had arrived early.
Her smile dropped when she stepped into the room and saw who was there.
“Oh!” She came to a sudden stop and almost turned and rushed back upstairs. “I… I did not know you were…”
Adrian stood by the stovetop. He wore a robe across his broad shoulders. The light from the moon softened even before reaching him. And as was always the way, his expression was one of angst and deep concern.
“Ophelia?” He frowned when he saw her. “What are you doing awake?”
“I…” She took in the scene properly. Adrian was not just at the stovetop, but he gently stirred a pot above an open flame. It was a most strange sight, and the last thing she would have ever expected. “I might ask you the same thing.”
“I could not sleep,” he said simply and turned back to the pot. “It is a silly remedy, but I find that a glass of warm milk sometimes helps.”
