“I don’t know if need, but I did have a few topics to discuss,” he said slowly. “Firstly, Rhys and Pippa have extended a very kind invitation for my sister to join them at their country estate at the end of the summer. We’re invited to join them, as Celeste and Owen will also be there, at least for a short time.”
She blinked. Go to a country estate? Together? Where they would be surrounded by loving couples who would certainly be planning tricks to make them closer? It sounded both a dream and a nightmare.
“I will likely have a great deal to do here, Nathan,” she said. “Organizing this library will take weeks, even months, if I’m to do it right. But you should go. Ophelia will love it, and you’ll enjoy spending time with our friends.”
He stared at her a long moment. Too long. And she realized there was frustration in his eyes. But he didn’t express it as he continued, “Very well. The second item to discuss is that I’d like to host a ball for Ophelia. And to celebrate our marriage.”
She stiffened. “I…didn’t we celebrate it enough at the reception after the wedding?”
He arched a brow. “People will assume a ball so soon after will at least partly be for that purpose. Will it be so difficult for you to pretend you are attached to me to continue our ruse?”
Her lips parted. “I…”
“We should only have to do that a few more times this Season, if it helps,” he continued, and the sharpness of his tone was like a knife to her heart. “After all, if we seem to have drifted apart next year, I suppose everyone will assume it is just the nature of love. It ends.”
“Is that what we’re doing—drifting apart?” she asked, wishing panic didn’t grip her chest when she said it. “Last night we seemed to be very much together.”
“And yet you back away from me today,” he said with a shrug. “So it remains to be seen.”
“Nathan, this is what we agreed to,” she said softly.
“Yes,” he said. “And I can see it’s vitally important to you that you stick to the letter of that agreement. Even whatever friendship we seemed to be forming before the marriage seems to be too far for you.”
She flinched, because it was a fair assessment. She had withdrawn from their playful games, because when they flirted it made her want more. More than sex, more than a marriage of convenience. She sometimes wanted bright flashes of something else. Of everything.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
He stared at her. “That is all you have to say?”
She refused to look at him, instead looking at the inkwell in front of her. She fiddled with it absently. “I don’t know what else to say.”
He huffed out a breath and went to the door. There he ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t want this to be miserable, Abigail. Not for you, not for me.”
With that, he left her study. She gazed after him, heart burning. There was some small part of her that hoped he would come back, as she had done that night they quarreled in this very house. The night that had changed everything between them and led to this marriage.
But he didn’t.
She flinched. Erasmus had often stormed out during arguments. Sometimes he hadn’t come back for days. Those little fights had begun the ultimate fracture of their union. And her eyes stung at the thought that she was traveling the same road. With a very different man, of course.
But the destination, loneliness, was very much the same.
She yanked a piece of vellum closer and uncorked the ink so she could write a note. And then she was going to have to figure some things out, but not here.
Chapter 19
Nathan stormed across the width of the garden, hands fisted at his sides. Emotions bubbled up in him, the kind he had long ago trained to push down deep inside. But Abigail unleashed them all, the good and the bad. She was uniquely frustrating that way.
But if he had some air, he would calm down and he could be more rational. That was what he needed to do, after all. Be rational.
Except before he could calm himself, one of the gardeners came scurrying across the garden toward him, tugging muddy gloves from his hands as he went.
“I’m sorry to disturb, Your Grace,” he puffed. “But Her Grace mentioned she would come to see the plot you asked us to set aside for her?”
Nathan glanced past the man and saw that, indeed, a section of flowers and bushes had been ripped out in the corner of his garden. The dark, rich earth was ready for Abigail’s direction. Ready for her to plant something there and make it better. Make it more hers than it had been before, just as she had done to her study, to the duchess chamber, to every place she touched. The garden would be yet one more corner of his life she would alter.
But she hesitated to do so, it seemed. Just like she did with him.
“Your Grace?” the man said, tilting his head.
“I don’t know what Her Grace’s plans are,” Nathan said, his tone a little harsher than he had intended. He drew in a deep breath and softened it. “I will inquire if I see her. For now, cover the ground so it doesn’t turn to mud and…assume she will join you later.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” the man said with an incline of his head before he rushed back to continue his work.
“Haven’t heard you bark like that in a long time, Your Grace.”
Nathan turned back toward the house and found Ophelia coming across the garden toward him. He sighed. It seemed there would be no respite from questions today. No chance to catch his breath.
“I was sharp with him, I know.”
“You sounded a little like—”
“Don’t say Father,” he choked out. “Please.”
She pursed her lips as she reached out to take his hand. She squeezed gently. “You’re not him.”
He sighed. Sometimes he wasn’t entirely certain of that. “I will apologize later.”
Ophelia explored his face. “You are frustrated.”
He wanted to deny it. After all, Ophelia already had complicated emotions when it came to Abigail—he didn’t want to make them worse. And his marital problems, whatever they were, were certainly none of her business anyway. But since he could not seem to hide his exasperation from her, he grunted, “Yes.”
“About her,” Ophelia said gently.
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“Are you in love with her?”
He froze at the question and stared down into his sister’s face, but he didn’t see her anymore. He only saw the truth, one he had been trying to avoid for weeks, but no…it was longer than that. The truth he had been trying to avoid for months. Close to a year.
“Yes,” he said softly, almost compelled to do so. “I am in love with her.”
When he said it out loud, it almost buckled him. And it shamed him because it felt so true, despite all the times he’d denied it.
“Nathan,” Ophelia breathed, her expression lined with surprise and soft kindness.
“I don’t know if it matters, though.”
“Of course it matters!” Ophelia cried out, then tempered her tone when the servants glanced at them from across the garden. “Come, talk to me about it.”