That confirmation sucked all the heat from Nathan’s reaction, and he gripped the back of the settee with both hands as he willed himself not to go to his knees.
“She told you at last?” Pippa asked softly.
“No,” Nathan said. “She wrote me a note. The handwriting seemed familiar to both Ophelia and me. We compared the two messages and came to this conclusion.”
“Come sit,” Pippa ordered, pointing to the settee.
As he did so, she marched over to the sideboard. Nathan was going to tell her he didn’t want tea, but to his surprise she poured a whisky instead and brought it back to him.
He drank it in one gulp, welcoming the burn in his chest that briefly erased all the other feelings there. He stared at the empty glass perched in his trembling hands.
“She did this even though it risked herself. It…it destroyed her.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I destroyed her.”
“No,” Pippa snapped. “That is not correct. Erasmus destroyed her. She never wanted that to happen to another person. So when she realized your sister was in danger…yes, she did do this. And she never expected or wanted any credit for it.”
“When I think that I all but accused her of being in league with the man the first time we met.” He bent his head in shame.
Rhys sat down next to him. “But you two resolved that, didn’t you? You knew very quickly that she could not have ever done such a thing.”
“And she is too observant a person not to know that you were in pain when you said that. It was unfair, yes,” Pippa said. “But not unforgiveable.”
“I must talk to her,” Nathan murmured. “I need to understand this. I should just go get her at the Gregorys’ home and we’ll hash it out.”
“Gilmore,” Pippa said, reaching over the back of the settee to catch his hand briefly. “I know you are a man of action, but this situation is more tenuous than that. You know it if you stop to think.”
He stared up at her, desperate for an answer he couldn’t find in his own addled, twisting mind. “Why?”
“Because she isn’t trusting,” Pippa said gently. “Love…scares her.”
He flinched. “Love. So you know?”
Rhys drew back. “That you love her? I think we’ve all guessed. But I’m a little shocked you know, you’ve denied it for so long.”
“I am the last one to realize it, it seems,” Nathan said, and scrubbed a hand over his face. “So what do I do, Pippa? You and Celeste are closest to her. How do I manage to break past that armor?”
She sighed. “I’m not sure even the two of us have fully done it.”
He wrinkled his brow. “But you’re best friends.”
“Her friendship is most important in my life, aside from Rhys’s,” Pippa mused softly. “And I adore her with every fiber of my being. Abigail is wonderfully loving and giving. She accepts others for exactly who they are, with no question. She would strip away her life for the chance to save someone else…just as she did for your sister.”
“But,” he encouraged gently, for he felt the word coming.
“But all that doesn’t change the fact that she has walls. If you dig too deeply, she changes the subject or teases or backs away. And she’ll do that with you, too.”
“She does that with me, regularly,” he huffed out. “She bends just the slightest fraction toward me and then snaps back as far as she can go. She is skittish as a colt.”
“And how would you break a colt?” Rhys asked.
He drew back sharply. “I have no intention of breaking my wife.”
Pippa pursed her lips. “Obviously not, but Rhys makes a good point. Not a colt then, not breaking her. But if you saw an animal that was injured, one that lashed out or ran away when it was afraid, would you stomp after it, demanding it understand that you were a friend?”
“No,” he said softly. “I would go slowly. I would be gentle. I would earn their trust.”
Rhys glanced up at Pippa with a smile. “Woo her,” he said. “Win her heart and her confidence. You may have to face the past, yes. But in the end, it’s all about the future that you could build together, no matter the cost.”
Pippa’s expression softened, and for a moment it was like Nathan wasn’t even there. And while normally he would turn away from this display of intimacy, today he looked at it. Pippa and Rhys’s love had been hard won, he knew. But seeing it flow between them, he could see that it was worth it.
And so was Abigail. He just had to teach her that he was also worth the risk. That he would never let her fall.
He cleared his throat. “Your husband is a smart man.”
Pippa smiled at him. “The very smartest.”
“Then hopefully between the two of you, you can help me chart a plan to do exactly as you say. When I go to find her, I want to start down this road right away.”
Pippa nodded and came around to sit across from them again. “Then let us think on this.”
“Do you think it will work?” He heard the crack in his voice. Felt the pain that accompanied the question.
Rhys nodded. “I hope so. No two people in the world deserve happiness more than you both.”
Chapter 20
Abigail had thought to come to Celeste’s house and clear her mind, but the moment her friend had entered the parlor to greet her, she burst into tears. Now she sat on the settee, Celeste’s arms around her.
“Oh, dearest,” Celeste murmured as she rocked her gently, like she was a child. “Come now, tell me. Tell me what it is and let me help you.”
“You can’t,” Abigail whispered, and sniffled as she tried to right herself. She did not ever show this kind of vulnerability and she needed to stop it now. She sat up and wiped her tears with the handkerchief that Celeste produced.
“Is this about Gilmore?” Celeste asked gently.
Abigail considered denying it for a moment, but she needed counsel and guidance in that moment. That eclipsed all self-protective instincts.
“Yes,” she whispered. “We had an argument and he left. I’ve ruined everything, Celeste.”
Celeste wrinkled her brow. “What did you argue about?”
“He doesn’t like that I don’t want to join him and Ophelia at Rhys and Pippa’s at the end of the summer. He thinks I don’t want to pretend to care for him at a ball he wants to hold. He doesn’t like that I hold him at arm’s length, even though it is what we agreed to do.” She felt the tears welling back up and blinked to keep them at bay. “And now he left and I know everything is ruined.”
“He left? How long has he been gone?” Celeste pressed.
“I don’t know. He departed my study and then I c-came here.”
Celeste stared at her. “Oh. So he left…he left the room, not the house? And this was today?”
Abigail nodded. “Y-Yes.”
There was a moment’s hesitation and then Celeste reached out to take her hands. “I don’t disagree that these are serious issues, but…the argument doesn’t sound like it was so horrible. You are navigating a new marriage, one you were thrown into suddenly. There were bound to be waves in the water. You can’t believe that it would really cause such…” She trailed off and her eyes went wide. “Oh.”