Chapter 11 #2
Aurelia saw them, too. When she turned back, there was a new finality in her expression, and Owen disliked it instantly because he understood it before she spoke a word. She was retreating.
If she continued to be seen with him, walking with him, talking with him, investigating anything at all in his company, there would be whispers.
Those whispers would not stop at her name.
They would travel to Clara, to Thomas, and to any hope her cousin might still have of a happy season unmarred by old scandal.
And Aurelia would not permit that. Owen realized, with an unwelcome heaviness, that she would sacrifice the investigation before she allowed harm to come to Clara.
It was an honorable instinct. It was also deeply inconvenient.
More than inconvenient, if he was honest, because only moments earlier, as they spoke of Carter and the possibility of uncovering the truth together, Owen had felt something settle into place.
He had wanted that sense of shared purpose to continue.
Now, he watched it slipping away almost before it had properly begun.
Langley gave another curt nod. “We shall not keep you any longer. Good day.”
Charlotte dipped into a graceful curtsy, the picture of civility. “Miss Finch. Lord Westbridge.”
Then, she moved on with her father beside her, both of them continuing down the path as though they had done nothing more than interrupt a pleasant conversation. Only when they were several paces away did the air begin to feel breathable again.
For a few moments, no one spoke. Aurelia kept her eyes fixed ahead. Owen could almost see the thoughts moving behind her composed expression. Standing near, Thomas turned to Clara, and gradually, they resumed their walk. So did Owen and Aurelia, but at an even slower pace.
“I think we must be careful,” he heard Aurelia whisper.
He looked at her. “Yes.”
“That is not to say …” She stopped, then began again. “It is only that Clara …”
“You need not explain,” he assured her.
She turned to him then, and there was surprise in her face, followed almost at once by gratitude. But gratitude was not what he wanted.
He wanted … what? For her not to step away? For the world to be less vicious than he knew it to be? For Charlotte Langley to mind her own venomous business? All impossible.
Aurelia gathered herself visibly. “I cannot have my cousin made to suffer for my sake.”
“No,” he agreed. “You cannot.”
She searched his expression, perhaps for resentment, perhaps for judgement, but he let her find neither.
What he felt instead was a growing, hard-edged irritation at the sheer unfairness of it all, that a woman had to guard every step, every glance, every harmless exchange, because people like Charlotte stood ready to sharpen them into weapons.
Ahead, Clara called back to ask whether they were coming.
Aurelia’s face softened at once. “Yes,” she called. Then, she turned to Owen. “I fear I may have been foolish.”
“No,” he told her more sharply than he intended.
She looked at him again, but didn’t say anything.
“You have not been foolish,” he added, moderating his tone. “Only placed in an impossible position.”
She still didn’t comment on that, but when they resumed walking, she kept a little more distance between them than before. It was not much, a foot, perhaps two. But it was enough that no one observing could object, and also, enough that Owen felt every inch of it.
Once, as they turned along the path, his hand lifted as if he meant to offer her his arm again.
Aurelia saw the movement, and for the smallest instant, she wanted nothing more than to take it.
But Charlotte’s warning still seemed to linger in the air between them.
Owen let his hand fall, and the restraint of it hurt worse than any impropriety could have done.
They rejoined Thomas and Clara, and the rest of the walk passed under a new restraint. Thomas, sensing the shift, kept his conversation bright and easy for Clara’s sake, while Owen answered when required and found his thoughts moving elsewhere entirely.
Careful, Aurelia had said.
She was right, of course. They had to be careful. Yet the more he considered it, the more he realized that something was terribly wrong. Carefulness would not save them. Distance would not save her.
If she withdrew from him now, gossip would still follow if Charlotte wished it to. If they attempted to meet only in secrecy, that would be worse. If they ceased speaking altogether, the truth would remain buried and Langley would continue untroubled.
No. Mere caution was not enough.
By the time he handed Aurelia and Clara into her aunt’s carriage at the end of the walk, Owen had come to a conclusion so sudden and so outrageous that he nearly laughed at himself for it.
If society required an explanation for his presence beside Aurelia Finch, then society should be given one, a very public one, one so respectable, so obvious, so impossible to challenge that it would protect her instead of endangering her.
As Aurelia lifted her eyes to his for one brief moment before looking away, Owen knew the thought was madness.
He also knew he meant to propose it.