William nodded. “I know.”
They fell silent for a moment before he spoke again.
“Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me what you actually feel for her. Not what you’re afraid of. Not what you might become. But what you actually feel.”
James looked at the window. He thought about coming through the front door yesterday and seeing her in the entrance hall and feeling, in the one second before the hall had rearranged itself into what it actually was, simply… home.
“I love her,” he admitted with a sigh. “I realized it in London, sitting alone after Caroline left—which is not the most dignified context for an epiphany, but there it is.” He looked down at the desk. “I realized I had known for some time and had been finding increasingly sophisticated reasons not to name it.” He paused. “I wrote her a letter, and I came home early because I could not send it before saying the words in person. But in the end… I foolishly let her leave.”
William studied him briefly.
“You let her leave because you love her,” he said.
“I let her leave because I love her and I was afraid of being who I am.” James exhaled. “Which, I now understand, is not a distinction that would comfort her.”
“It is not a distinction that comforts anyone,” William pointed out.
“No.”
He reached up and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose, seeming to contemplate something.
“Do you remember when Cecily and I were newly married?” he asked.
James frowned slightly. “She left too.”
“She did. Because I hurt her.” William gave a humorless smile. “I was terrified. Not of marriage, but of losing someone. I was terrified of turning out like my parents.”
James said nothing.
“I convinced myself she deserved better than a man who spent half his life believing affection was a weakness.” William shook his head. “I thought walking away would spare her. Instead, it nearly broke us both.”
James raised an eyebrow. “That isn’t the same.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You weren’t…” He struggled to get the words out.
“Me,” William supplied.
“No.”
“You think your past makes you uniquely dangerous.”
James’s jaw ticked, and he looked away.
“Do you know what marriage teaches you?” William pressed.
James shook his head.
“That the greatest damage is rarely done by the faults we’re afraid of. It’s done by the silence.”
James felt his heart clench. “You didn’t see her.”
“No. But you didn’t see yourself.” William’s voice softened.
