He rolled his eyes. “Yes, that’s why I’ve indulged you hiding away in Cornwall…because I’m determined to see you wed by Michaelmas.”
She snorted a laugh. “Well, I suppose I could try. Though the last time I rushed a courtship, you didn’t quite like the results.”
He could not laugh with her about the close call they had endured with Erasmus Montgomery. When his face fell, so did hers. She moved toward him to take his hand and stared up into his face. “I’m sorry. I ought not to tease. Even after a year, I know this still affects you. And now it is all tangled up in your own impending marriage.”
He swallowed. That was, he supposed, true. Abigail was Montgomery’s widow…the bastard’s only legal wife. But Nathan had stopped considering her in that way months and months ago. When he thought of her, it was always about her intelligence, her wit, her sharp tongue, or more recently, how she felt in his arms.
“Nathan?”
He jolted. “I’m sorry. Woolgathering, I suppose.”
“Are we going to talk about her?” Ophelia asked, and this time her tone was much more serious.
“Abigail?” he asked.
She nodded, her face becoming even more serious. “Yes. Her. Am I going to meet her before I’m forced to call her sister?”
He let out his breath in a long sigh and released her hand. He paced away. “She is coming for tea later,” he said. “So yes, you will meet her. And we can talk about her all you like. What do you wish to know?”
“It isn’t what I wish to know so much as my concerns about what I already do.”
“Ophelia—”
She raised a hand. “Don’t say my name that way. Don’t try to pretend I’m being ridiculous. I have a right to my feelings and to be protective of you when it comes to a woman you will be tied to for the rest of your life.”
He pursed his lips, forcing himself to tamp down a sudden urge to defend his fiancée. “Yes, you were clear in your letter that you had questions. I guessed you also had concerns. But you have not yet met Abigail, so I hope you haven’t prejudged her.”
“How can I not?” She paced across the room just as she’d promised to earlier. “Consider who she was linked to, married to! Consider that she only just escaped the scandal of her husband’s death and now she has stepped into another one with you.”
He shook his head. “I never said—”
“That your hasty plan to marry this woman was because of a scandal?” his sister asked. She arched a brow. “Come now, Nathan. You had to know I’d find out either by my own ways or from the fact that so many in my acquaintance were champing at the bit to tell me.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “They are talking. Even all the way in Cornwall.”
“Of course they are.” She gave him a much gentler look. “They always are.”
“Neither scandal is her fault.”
She drew back. “How can you say that?”
“Do you think it was your fault that Erasmus Montgomery lied to and attempted to seduce you?” he asked, holding her gaze evenly.
She shifted. “Sometimes.”
It was as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He took a long step toward her. “Ophelia…”
“I am an intelligent person,” she said softly. “And yet I missed the signs that Montgomery was a liar and a charlatan. When I feel that way, when I torment myself over it, I remind myself that I only had limited contact with him. Just a few stolen moments where he convinced me I wanted whatever lie he was selling.”
“That is true,” he said. “I’m glad you can see it.”
“Then why can’t you see the opposite facts about Abigail? She was married to the man for five years. How could she have not known his true character? How could she not have been complicit in his bad deeds?”
He flinched because he, too, had those thoughts when he first met Abigail. His harsh words about those thoughts were part of why she had been so determined to hate him over the past year. And he had come to realize, quite quickly, that he was wrong. So was his sister.
“If you have an open mind when you meet her, you will see her character, her mind, her heart. You will see that she is not the villain you have created in your mind.”
“You want to protect me,” Ophelia said. “You must grant me the permission to feel the same desire when it comes to you.”
He sighed, then caught her hand and tugged her in for a brief hug. “I appreciate you riding to my defense. In this case, I don’t require it.”
She tilted her head. “Do you care for this woman?”
He blinked. There was a question he hadn’t allowed himself to consider overly much during the last year. But did he care?
“I won’t tell you that Abigail and I have not butted heads. It seems our pastime. But I have come to…like her.”
He said it and realized it was true. He did like the woman he had once called a menace. She was still a menace, of course…but that was no longer said in seriousness. Perhaps it never had been.
Ophelia pulled a face. “High praise for the woman you shall spend your life with. Nathan—”
He held up a hand. “The banns have already been read for the first time, Ophelia. The second is but a few days away. The marriage is happening, so there is no use in talking ’round and ’round in circles about it. You’ll meet her and you’ll see who she is.”
His sister pinched her lips. “Fine. I suppose I will. Now, it has been a long trip and I think I’ll go to my chamber and freshen up before she arrives.”
She leaned up to kiss his cheek, then turned to go. He caught her arm before she could. “Ophelia,” he said softly. “Just promise me you’ll be…nice.”
She shifted. “Ugh. Very well, I will try. For you.”
She slipped away, leaving him to watch her go. And to grapple with the fact that he wanted Ophelia to like Abigail. Which meant he was far more invested in what their lives would look like intertwined than he had originally allowed himself to believe.
Abigail’s hands were shaking as she followed Gardner to the parlor. He announced her and then stepped aside to allow her entry.
She found Nathan first, standing by the window. Their eyes locked and her heart made the funniest flutter. She hadn’t seen him in nearly a week, and she realized in that moment that she’d truly missed him. It was unconscionable.
He began to cross to her and she let her gaze flit around the room, looking for his sister. A young lady stood at the sideboard, setting down the teapot in her hand. She was pretty, with blond hair and a lovely pink dress that was fitted to perfection. She had to be Ophelia. Her eyes looked too much like Nathan’s not to be. Eyes that bored into her, though her expression was neutral as she flicked her gaze over Abigail from head to toe.
“Good afternoon,” Nathan said as he reached her. “I’m so glad you’ve arrived. May I present to you my sister, Lady Ophelia. Ophelia, this is Abigail. Mrs. Montgomery.”
Abigail flinched at the use of her married name. So did Ophelia, so at least they had that in common. She extended a hand toward the young woman and tried to make her smile bright. “My lady.”