Chapter 25 #2
"You still love him." Mary said it from the window seat, more statement than question, watching Amelia pace the length of her bedroom with the restless energy of a woman who had not properly slept in a week.
"It is written across your whole face every time his name is mentioned, Amelia.
I watched you while he spoke on the steps.
You did not once look away from him. Why did you not simply forgive him and be done with it? "
"Because loving him does not make the hurt disappear, Mary.
" She stopped pacing, pressing her fingers briefly to her temples.
"I have turned it over every night this week, and I keep arriving at the same conclusion.
I do love him. I do not doubt that. But love was never the thing in question.
He knew precisely how those words would land, and he said them anyway, because in that moment his fear mattered more to him than my standing directly in front of him did.
An apology addresses the fear. It does not address whether he has actually learned anything from causing the harm. "
"Then what will you do."
"I do not yet know." That is not entirely true.
She had known, somewhere beneath the raw ache of the past week, exactly what she intended to do, and had simply been too tired, too hollowed out by grief, to put it into words until tonight.
"I will give him a chance. Not because he deserves it outright.
Because I believe, watching him on those steps, that some part of him actually understands what he broke, and because I am not yet ready to let go of a man I have watched change so much, however badly he failed when it mattered most."
"A chance to what, precisely?"
She sat at last, at the small writing desk, drawing a fresh sheet of paper toward her with a decisiveness that had been building beneath the hurt and began to write, the words arriving with more clarity than anything she had managed all week.
Requirements for the Duke of Ravensmere to Become a Husband Worth Keeping.
"Amelia." Mary had crossed to look over her shoulder, laughter breaking through her concern despite herself. "You are writing him a list."
"I am doing what I have done in every argument we have ever had.
Setting out my terms clearly, so that neither of us mistakes what the other actually requires.
" Amelia's pen did not pause. "He will spend one afternoon assisting me with something of my choosing, and he will not take over the moment he believes he knows how it ought to be done.
So that he understands what it feels like to have every decision questioned by someone who believes they know better. "
"That is rather specific."
"It is very specific, If he wants to prove himself through actions, I intend to be very clear about which actions I require.
" She continued writing. "He will attend one social event of my choosing without complaint, however tedious he finds it, because I have attended every event society demanded of me without complaint since the day I married him, and I would like him to understand what that costs. "
"You are enjoying this."
"I am finding it rather easier than crying, which is the only alternative I have managed this past week.
" Something that was not quite a laugh escaped her, thin and worn but genuine.
"He will dance with me, at least once, without steering the conversation toward politics or philosophy, because I would like to know whether the man beneath the scholar can simply enjoy my company without needing to win an argument first."
"And?"
"And he will compliment me without once mentioning my intellect, because I have begun to wonder whether he loves the whole of me or merely the parts of me that argue with him well.
" Amelia's pen slowed here, something quieter and more vulnerable rising beneath the humor of the list. "He will admit when he is wrong, plainly, without dressing the admission up in some clever qualification that lets him keep half his pride intact. "
"That is a rather tall order for a man as proud as Sebastian."
"It is precisely the order he requires, then." Amelia set down her pen at last, looking at the final line she had yet to write, and felt her throat tighten unexpectedly. I do not know if I am protecting myself or punishing him, writing this last one. Perhaps both.
"And the final requirement?"
"He is not to touch me." Her voice came out quieter than the rest, some old ache surfacing plainly now.
"Not until I decide, myself, that he has earned it back.
I do not intend to hand him the easiest comfort available simply because my body still wants him even now, when the rest of me is not yet ready to trust him with it. "
"Amelia." Mary's voice had gone somewhere between delighted and faintly scandalized, reading the sixth requirement twice. "You cannot possibly mean to enforce that one."
"I mean to enforce every single one of them.
" She set down the pen, surveying the list with a grim satisfaction she had not felt since before the ball.
"He built an entire argument, once, about proving oneself through evidence rather than assertion.
I intend to hold him to precisely that standard, and I do not intend to make it easy for him. "
"And if he refuses."
"Then I will know exactly what his apology was worth.
" Amelia folded the paper carefully, something steadier settling into her chest than she had felt in a week.
"But I do not believe he will refuse, Mary.
I believe, whatever else is broken between us just now, that man does not know how to walk away from a properly constructed argument, particularly not one supported entirely by evidence he provided himself. "
Mary said nothing for a long moment, only settled a hand gently on her sister's shoulder, and Amelia sat with the finished list in front of her, feeling, for the first time since the ball, the shape of a path that might, if he proved himself capable of walking it, eventually lead to forgiveness.