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She must have seen the struggle etched into the lines of his face, into the rigidity in his body, because she didn’t push for more. “You are being rather unfair,” she said.

“I know,” was all he could say.

When he was sure she wouldn't push further, he set the basin on the night table and lay back against the headboard beside her, his shirt still open at the collar and his weight settled.

Now that he was a bit more clearheaded, he could not help but feel embarrassed at how eagerly he’d pounced upon her. He hadn’t even gotten out of his clothes. But then again…Juliet was a delectably beautiful woman, and he was beginning to see how increasingly lucky he was that he could be the one she called husband…that it was he who could touch her in her most intimate place…that it was his name she screamed as she reached her completion.

Then she shifted, moving against his side, her head settling onto his chest, her arms across his ribs. So, he put his arm around her.

The fire put a low, amber warmth across the ceiling. The house was entirely still. Outside, a late coach passed faintly on the cobblestones below the window, then the street went quiet, and the room was all close warmth and firelight.

“You are good at this,” she said.

“At what?”

“Saying nothing.” She shifted slightly. “Most men fill quiet with words that don’t mean anything. You don’t.”

“I have very little I want to say that means nothing.”

She was quiet for a while, her fingers making small movements against his ribs.

“My father’s house was very loud,” she said. “He spoke constantly; at dinner, over anyone else speaking, over the servants. He had opinions about everything, and silence…” She stopped a moment, and Adam could almost feel the hesitation in her body. “He treated silence as a slight. As though being quiet meant you were plotting against him.”

Adam didn’t realize he was stroking her back in a circular motion until he was already doing it. “He sounds like a very tiresome man,” he said, and Juliet chuckled…but the sound was almost hollow.

“My mother was not like him,” she said, the fire putting a low flicker across the ceiling. “She died when I was fifteen from a fever. She was ill for three weeks and then… she was simply gone.”

This time, Adam did not quite know what exactly to say…but he also felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest, the pain propelling him to open his mouth.

“I…I am so sorry, Juliet,” he murmured into her hair, still rubbing soothing circles around her back.

Even though it felt inadequate, he could stop it; it was the only way to offer comfort that he could think of. So, he didn’t stop.

“Before that…” She stopped, her fingers spasming around him, then she tried again. “She was the only person who never told me what I was doing wrong. She used to sit with me in the library before supper, and we would both read. Not together, exactly. Just next to each other. And she never once corrected my posture or told me to put the book down and practice my French.” Now, she paused. “I did not know that was unusual. I just thought all mothers were like that.”

Adam thought about his own mother, who had been pleasant and remote, and who had died when he was young. He thought about what it was like to grow up in a house where warmth is structural—present as a feature, not as a feeling. And he thought that, maybe, he had at least a little something in common with the woman he’d claimed as his wife.

Perhaps, they could be kindred spirits…he and his wife.

“After she died, my father brought in the instructors,” Juliet said. “A new one every few months. Posture. Diction. Deportment. The correct way to enter a room, to leave one, to address a countess, to eat a pear without looking as though you had ever climbed a tree in your life.” Her voice stayed even. “I had climbed a great many trees. My father found it undignified.”

“How old were you?” he said. “When you started climbing them.”

“Four.” He felt the small movement against his chest that meant she was pressing her lips together. “There was a great oak near the east wall at Clarkston Hall. I could see all the way to the river from the top.”

He said nothing.

“I spent every morning in the stables as well,” she said. “My mother used to come and watch me ride. She would bring a book and sit on the fence rail and stay until I was done.” She paused, and her voice grew quieter. “She never told me it was unladylike. She just watched. I have not thought about that in a very long time.”

Adam hummed. “Do you want to stop talking about it?” he asked her, his tone soft…softer than he’d ever let it be in the past…five or so years.

There’d been no woman to soften up for, and yet, now in this moment, he found that the cords of his throat could release, letting words of comfort he never knew he could give flow past.

Juliet shook her head against his chest. “No, I…I want to tell you.”

Adam’s lips curved. “Then I will gladly listen.”

“My grandmother came when she could,” she said. “You remember her: Lady Worthington. My father has always tolerated her the way a man tolerates his mother-in-law. Like a drafty window, a nuisance he has not gotten round to fixing.