“Nathan,” Ophelia said with a bright smile.
He pushed to his feet with one final glare for Rhys and then embraced his sister. “I hope you had a marvelous time.”
She smiled at Pippa and Rhys. “Truly marvelous. Thank you both for hosting me and for letting me indulge myself as a token aunt to Kenley. I adore him.”
“It was our pleasure,” Rhys said. “We would love to do it again, perhaps at my country estate later in the summer.”
“I would love it,” Ophelia said.
Any annoyance Nathan had been feeling toward his friends and their prying faded away at the pleasure on his sister’s face. Ophelia had shied away from London after last year’s events. She’d pretended she was fine, but he’d felt her big personality shrink and hadn’t liked it. But the fire was back in her now. The brightness and boldness that he both loved and which drove him mad.
“Look at your schedules,” he said with a nod to his friends. “And we will do the same.”
“We’ll talk about it next time we see you,” Pippa said as she put an arm around Ophelia. “Which must be soon. All of us must have supper together.”
They began to walk toward the foyer together, their heads together as they schemed. Rhys and Nathan followed, but as Ophelia and Pippa continued to talk at the carriage door, Rhys stopped him. “I know we push,” he said. “Everyone just wants you both to be happy.”
Nathan stared at his friend. “But all of you have the same definition of what happy is. And Abigail might not ever allow for it. Even if I did want it. So we’ll have to find our own way.”
Rhys nodded, but there was no mistaking the disappointment in his eyes as he shook Nathan’s hand. It stung, almost like he’d done something wrong that he couldn’t take back.
So he got into the carriage feeling very out of sorts, humming with even more tension than he’d felt when he arrived.
“You look cross,” Ophelia said as the carriage began to move.
Nathan huffed out a breath. “Yes, that seems to be the consensus amongst those who feel they can comment on my life.”
“I’m your sister—it is my prerogative,” Ophelia said. “And shouldn’t you be blissful in these first few days of your marriage? The fact that you are harrumphing like a bear does not bode well.”
She looked truly concerned, and Nathan did his best to relax a little. Loosen his shoulders. “I’m very well, I promise you. I am happy.”
She didn’t look convinced. He didn’t feel convinced either, but that was beside the point.
“I wish I could have prevented you from being forced into this union,” she said softly. “You saved me last year and I could not save you.”
He tilted his head. “The material difference being that I caused my own troubles whereas you did not, and that Abigail is not the blackguard Erasmus Montgomery was.”
Ophelia shrugged and turned her attention out the window. “I suppose we’ll see. She is spoken of very highly by Pippa and Leighton, and that does recommend her. But I will not fully trust her until I see some further proof that your happiness means something to her. You deserve that.”
She was quiet the rest of the ride home. He probably should have filled the silence, tried harder to convince her that she was being too dour about the situation.
Only he wasn’t certain that was true. Rhys and Pippa had also brought up the topic of happiness. And that had been the subject of the talk at the salon weeks and weeks earlier. It was something he had rarely considered in his life. Happiness was a luxury, and one he wasn’t certain he could afford.
But now he found himself wanting it. Though he didn’t know what the definition would be, or if he could find it with a woman who seemed determined to keep him at arm’s length.
Exactly as they had agreed to do.
Abigail paced her new study, distracted and discombobulated. It wasn’t that she didn’t have anything to do. The boxes of books from her former home had all arrived that morning. She needed to catalogue and shelve them. And there was the matter of overseeing the herb garden. Though Nathan had agreed to allow her most of the greenhouse in his country estate, he had also had a corner of his garden in London cleared. There were directives to be given about building boxes for certain herbs and creating extra shade for others.
She was doing none of it. Instead she wandered from one side of the room to the other feeling…well, icky was the only way she could describe it.
She rolled her eyes at the childish word, but it was most apt. She didn’t feel right and she had been trying to avoid the reason for that. But it was impossible.
It had been three days since Ophelia had returned to Nathan’s home. Abigail’s home. She was trying very hard to recall that it was her home, too. Sometimes it felt like it. Nights where she and Nathan sat quietly in the library, each reading. Occasionally he looked up and she saw the bright spark of interest.
Hours in his bed felt very much like home, too.
The man was magical. That was all there was to it, and her body sang to his music in a way it had never done before.
It didn’t change the fact that her days were spent alone. By design. She found things to keep her busy and separate from Nathan. And once they’d made love, she always went back to her room.
It was the only sanctuary she had to the feelings that sometimes accompanied his touch. Feelings she didn’t want. Feelings he didn’t reciprocate, no matter how disappointed he looked when she left him.
And so today she thought of all those things. All those confusing, tangled things, and icky it was.
There was a light knock on her door, and she turned, expecting to see a footman with more boxes. Instead it was Nathan himself, holding a small trunk.
“This is the last of it, I’m told,” he said as he came into the room.
She blinked. “And so you carried it yourself?”
“I was coming to see you either way.” He glanced toward the pile of crates and trunks. “Should I stack it with the others?”
She nodded and watched him do so. He was not wearing a jacket so his shoulder muscles flexed in a very distracting fashion against the linen of his shirt.
“You said you were coming to see me,” she said. “Did you need something?”
He didn’t respond, but looked around the room slowly. “It’s coming together. All that hard work is paying off.”
She looked with him. The room did look more like her now. Flowers were on the mantel, as well as a miniature of her late sister. Her desk was neatly stacked with a few papers and letters. The curtains had been changed and were perpetually open, as was the window when the weather was fair.
“Once I unpack the books, I think it will feel more like it is mine,” she said.
He inched toward her, and she stiffened. If he touched her, especially here in this room where they had shared such a powerful encounter before their marriage, she wasn’t sure she could take it. She already sometimes found herself staring at the desk, thinking of the way Nathan’s neck had flexed as she sucked him. If he did more than that, the room would always be theirs, not hers.
And she needed a space in this house that didn’t make her think of him all the time.
She ducked behind the desk and sat down. He frowned but didn’t pursue further. “Did you need something?” she repeated.