Page 55 of The Wedding-Crashing Duchess

“This is precisely why I did not want to describe the marriage,” she said. “Ronan and I are learning to live in the same house, and only beginning to speak honestly, although that does not mean I know what our marriage will become.”

Charity reached for her hand.

“No one is asking you to name it before you are ready,” she said. “I only wanted to know whether you were frightened, lonely, or regretting the choice you made, and nothing you have told me sounds like regret.”

Augusta looked at their joined hands.

“No,” she said quietly. “I do not regret it.”

Matilda tilted her head.

“Do you still think he murdered the woman?”

“No,” Augusta replied immediately.

The answer came without thought, and its certainty surprised even her.

Both sisters stared at her as Matilda leaned back in her chair.

“That was the quickest answer you have given since you arrived,” she said. “You spent an entire church ceremony certain that he was a murderer, and now you did not even stop to consider it.”

“I know he did not do it,” Augusta said, although she could not explain how certainty had taken root. “There were witnesses, and he was inside the house, and perhaps I should have accepted that from the beginning.”

“That explains why you know he could not have been the man you saw,” Charity said carefully. “It does not explain why you sounded offended by the possibility.”

Augusta looked towards the fire.

“I feel safe with him,” she admitted. “I do not know when that changed, and perhaps I should not feel it so completely when I have known him for such a short time, yet I do. When I am alone with him, I do not think about the cane or the figure in the garden anymore, and even when he is angry, I know he would never hurt me.”

Charity’s hand tightened gently around hers.

“Then trust what you have learned, although you need not stop asking questions,” she said. “Safety is not always something the mind proves in a tidy argument, and sometimes it is recognized through a hundred small moments that are difficult to explain separately.”

“It still feels foolish,” Augusta replied. “I distrusted Duncan for far longer, and he gave me fewer reasons to fear him.”

“You also knew Duncan wanted Charity, while you had no idea what Ronan wanted from you,” Matilda said. “Perhaps that made him more frightening.”

Augusta looked at her younger sister with reluctant surprise.

“That is almost sensible.”

“I am often sensible,” Matilda replied. “No one notices when I am hungry.”

Charity laughed softly and released Augusta’s hand.

“Temperance is arranging a ball next week,” she said as she reached for the teapot again. “She asked me to make certain you attended, and I told her I would invite you before you could invent a reason to remain at Ravenhill.”

Augusta’s attention shifted.

“A ball?”

“Yes,” Charity replied. “It will be smaller than the usual gatherings, although half the people we know will still attend, and Temperance insists that marriage is no excuse for disappearing from society. You should come, and Ronan should come with you.”

“I will come,” Augusta said, although her confidence weakened at the mention of her husband. “I cannot promise Ronan will agree, since he considers most social gatherings pretentious performances designed to exhaust sensible people.”

“Then tell him the ball will provide an excellent opportunity to observe pretentious performances at close range,” Charity suggested. “He may find that more appealing than dancing.”

Matilda smiled.