Page 51 of The Wedding-Crashing Duchess

“I dismissed them so that we would not discuss my first marriage before half the household,” he sighed. “There are things that can only be admitted in the company of those that one trusts.”

You trust me. Augusta felt a bubble of excitement in her stomach. It was very much like Ronan to admit the sweetest of things in moments as tense as this.

He leaned back and looked at Augusta with an expression she had never seen on him before. The certainty that usually defined him had disappeared, leaving something more exposed and considerably less comfortable.

“I do not speak to Sarah about Eleanor,” he said, “since every answer would require me to admit how little I knew my own wife. I do not know how to tell a child that her parents lived beneath the same roof as strangers. Eleanor was frightened of me from the first time we met.”

“She told you this?” Augusta couldn’t help but ask. “She told you that is frightened, to your face?”

“Not directly, no,” he shook his head. “But it wasn’t a difficult thing to gauge. I could tell that she was in her reactions, and how she behaved around me. Not everything has to be said out loud to be known.”

He looked at her then, and she wondered for a moment if he was still referring to his late wife. Still, Augusta did not dare interrupt.

Ronan looked down at his hand. “You know, you speak of propriety, and perhaps she was a perfect example of it. She behaved as she had been taught, smiled when spoken to, agreed with whatever I proposed, and never complained. So, everyone believed the marriage was respectable. I told myself that she was reserved, and that affection might develop once she became accustomed to me, although I made no real effort to help that happen.”

“Did you speak to her about her fear?” Augusta asked. Suddenly, she wondered if this was the reason that he held such strong opinions about the topic of propriety.

“No,” Ronan replied. “How could I? We were never close enough to have a conversation like that. I thought keeping my distance would make her more comfortable, so I left her alone and provided everything she might require. When she seemed uneasy in my presence, I shortened the visit rather than asking what I had done.”

“You may have believed you were being considerate,” Augusta tried to understand.

“I believed many things that allowed me to avoid an uncomfortable conversation,” Ronan shrugged his shoulders.

Augusta studied his face, wondering if there was any regret in how he handled the marriage. She thought of their own marriage, and how he had told her that being friends was the most important thing that they could do.

“You said you made no effort to become friends with her?” she asked, carefully. “Is that right?”

“There is a certain level of familiarity that needs to be developed between two people for them to be friends with one another,” Ronan replied. “We didn’t have that. All her responses to my questions were well-rehearsed and predictable. I lacked the patience to search for the person beneath those responses. When she agreed with me, I accepted the agreement, even when I knew she was probably saying what she thought a wife should say.”

“You have just spent half the evening criticizing society for teaching people to perform,” Augusta said softly. “Perhaps you know what it cost her more clearly now.”

“I never tried to become her friend, either,” Ronan continued, and she could hear the guilt in his voice. “I convinced myself that friendship was unnecessary in a marriage arranged for duty, and I believed that treating her with courtesy was sufficient. I never raised my voice to her, I never denied her anything, and never demanded her company, so I considered myself a decent husband.”

Augusta tried to imagine what their marriage must have looked like once more. They had a child together, so surely there must have been some degree of closeness between them.

That was the part that confused her.

“But...” she said, biting down on her lip. “How is it possible that you were not. close?”

He seemed to understand her immediately.

“I touched her once, on our wedding night, since an heir was expected and neither of us questioned whether expectation was reason enough. She was afraid, and I never touched her again after that night.”

The idea alone made her heart wrench. Surely, such a relationship must have been confusing and lonely for both people involved.

“She always kept her distance after that,” Ronan continued, his gaze fixed upon the wineglass in his hand. “I told myself that leaving her alone was the most considerate thing I could do. Whenever she seemed uncomfortable in my presence, I withdrew before she had to ask. I believed it was better to remain hidden in my study and spare her the burden of my company than to force her to discover that there was nothing to fear.”

Augusta did not speak, although the silence between them had changed, and it no longer felt like part of their game.

“The truth is that I chose the easier course,” Ronan said, setting the glass down. “Showing her that she had nothing to fear would have required patience, honesty, and a willingness to be rejected more than once, while distance required nothing from me.”

“Ronan,” Augusta said quietly, “you cannot know that every attempt would have failed, although you also cannot return to that marriage and change what happened.”

“No,” he replied, finally meeting her eyes. “I cannot.”

A silence fell between them again. But somehow, Augusta felt as though she understood him better now.

“But now you know,” he said after a moment, “why I have nothing to offer Sarah when she asks about her mother. What am I to say? If anything, I am ashamed to tell my daughter that I knew so little about the woman who gave her life.”