Chapter Fifteen
“She was amused with your jest.”
Marcus looked up from the newspaper he was pretending to read, Edmund had learned years ago to distinguish between Marcus’s genuine reading and his strategic paper-shuffling. “I beg your pardon?”
“Helena. Just now, in the garden.” Edmund kept his voice carefully neutral. “She laughed at something you said.”
“I am frequently amusing. It is one of my many gifts.” Marcus set the paper aside, his expression shifting from casual to alert. “Why do I sense this observation is not a compliment?”
Edmund said nothing. He had retreated to the morning room after witnessing the scene through the window, Helena and Marcus in the garden, their heads bent together in conversation, Marcus gesturing expansively while Helena’s face transformed with genuine, unguarded laughter.
The kind of laughter that made her look young and free and utterly beautiful.
The kind of laughter Edmund had to work for. Every time. Without exception.
He had stood at the window and watched his wife laugh with his best friend, and something had detonated inside him. Not anger, exactly. Something worse. Something that felt like failure.
“Edmund.” Marcus’s voice had lost its playful edge. “What is this about?”
“Nothing.” Edmund moved to the sideboard, pouring himself brandy he did not want because his hands needed something to do. “I was merely making an observation.”
“You were merely seething. There is a difference.” Marcus rose from his chair, crossing the room with the easy grace that had always come naturally to him. The grace Edmund had never possessed and had long since stopped envying, until now. “Talk to me.”
“There is nothing to discuss.”
“There is clearly something to discuss, or you would not be standing in the corner drinking brandy at eleven in the morning while glaring at the garden as though it has personally offended you.” Marcus stopped beside him, his expression unusually serious. “Is this about Helena?”
Edmund’s hand tightened on his glass.
“It is about Helena,” Marcus said, reading the answer in his silence. “What has she done?”
“Nothing.” The word came out sharper than Edmund intended. “She has done nothing wrong. She was simply laughing. With you. In the garden.”
Marcus was quiet for a long moment. Edmund could feel his friend’s gaze on him, assessing, calculating.
“Edmund.” Marcus’s voice was careful now. Gentle. “You cannot possibly be jealous.”
“I am not jealous.”
“You are absolutely jealous. You are standing in your own morning room, drinking your own brandy, looking like you want to murder me because I made your wife laugh in your own garden.” Marcus paused.
“I did not think you were capable of jealousy. In twenty-three years, I have never seen you jealous of anything.”
“I am not.” Edmund stopped. Set down his glass with more force than necessary. “She laughs with you.”
“Yes. Because I am charming. It is part of my appeal.”
“She laughs easily with you.” Edmund turned to face his friend, and whatever was in his expression made Marcus’s smile fade.
“Without hesitation. Without having to warm up to it. You say something amusing and she laughs, and it is simple, and it is natural, and she does not have to think about whether she trusts you enough to let her guard down.”
Marcus opened his mouth, then closed it.
“I have to work for it,” Edmund continued, his voice low and rough.
“Every smile. Every laugh. Every moment of genuine warmth. I earn them one by one, through careful attention and quiet gestures and weeks of proving that I am safe. And even then, she pulls back. Even then, she retreats behind her walls and her composure and her perfect, impenetrable self-control.” He let out a breath.
“And then you walk into my garden and make her laugh in a few seconds.”
The silence stretched between them.
Marcus sat down heavily in the nearest chair. His usual easy confidence had vanished, replaced by something that looked almost like discomfort.
“She is your wife,” he said finally. “I was just being friendly.”
“I know.”
“I would never, Edmund, you know I would never.”
“I know.” Edmund pressed his fingers to his temples.
“I know you would never. I know she would never. I know there is nothing inappropriate in your friendship, and I know I am being irrational, and I know that jealousy is beneath me.” He dropped his hands and met Marcus’s eyes.
“And none of that alters the truth, that beholding her share such warmth in your company tried my composure to its absolute limit.”
Marcus stared at him.
“Or possibly through you,” Edmund added. “Though I know that would be unfair.”
“Deeply unfair. And also unwise. I am an excellent boxer.”
“I am aware.”
They stood in silence for a moment. Then Marcus let out a long breath and ran his hand through his hair.
“Your heart is entirely in her possession,” he said. It was not a question.
Edmund did not answer. He did not need to.
“I suspected, of course. The way you look at her when you think no one is watching, which is absurd, because everyone is always watching.” Marcus shook his head. “But this is something else. This is not quiet adoration.”
“It is obsession.” Edmund’s voice was flat. “I am obsessed with my own wife. I catalogue her every expression. I measure my days by the number of times she smiles at me. I count her laughs, Marcus. I keep count of every single one, and it is never enough.”
The confession hung in the air between them.
Edmund had not meant to say it. Had not meant to reveal the depth of his fixation, the intensity of his desire. But once the words were out, he could not take them back. They sat there, exposed and undeniable, evidence of feelings that had long since passed beyond control.
Marcus was silent for a long moment.
“Have you told her?” he asked finally.
“Told her what? That I have become a man who counts his wife’s laughs because each one feels like a gift?
That I spend my nights staring at a connecting door I will never open?
That I am so desperately devoted to her, and that watching her laugh with someone else feels like being flayed alive?
” Edmund laughed, a harsh, humourless sound. “No. I have not told her.”
“Why not?”
“Because she wedded me for a house and a dowry for her sister.” The words came out bitter. “Because we made an arrangement, and I agreed to the terms, and I cannot change those terms simply because I have committed the ultimate folly of giving her my heart.”
“How do you know that’s why she wedded you?”
Edmund stared at him.
“You assume you know her reasons,” Marcus continued. “You assume she sees you as nothing more than a convenient solution to her family’s problems. But have you asked? Have you actually had a conversation with her about what this matrimony means to her?”
“We have talked.”
“You have circled each other for weeks like two people afraid to say anything real. You have maintained distance and respected boundaries and been so courteous that you have managed to spend months wedded to the woman you cherish without ever actually telling her how you feel.” Marcus leaned forward.
“That is not talking, Edmund. That is avoiding.”
Edmund wanted to argue and defend himself against the accusation. But he could not, because Marcus was not wrong.
He had been avoiding. Had been so afraid of making Helena uncomfortable, of adding himself to the list of burdens she already carried, that he had retreated into silence.
He had poured his feelings into unsent letters and quiet gestures, hoping she would somehow understand without him having to say the words.
It had not worked. Of course it had not worked. How could she know what he felt if he never told her?
“I cannot.” he started, then stopped. Tried again.
“If I tell her, and she does not feel the same, then I become one more thing she has to manage. One more problem she has to solve with her characteristic efficiency. I have watched her carry everyone else’s burdens for years. I will not add mine to the weight.”
Marcus was quiet for a moment.
“Or,” he said slowly, “You could consider the possibility that she might want to know. That she might be carrying her own feelings and waiting for you to speak first. That she might be just as afraid as you are, and just as convinced that she cannot risk saying anything.”
Edmund thought of Helena at the ball. The flash of pain before her mask came down. The way she had let him hold her hand on the terrace, just for a moment, before pulling away. The way she looked at him sometimes, when she thought he was not watching, with something that looked almost like longing.
“You think she has feelings for me.”
“I think she is the most guarded woman I have ever met, and I think that level of guardedness usually means someone has something precious to protect.” Marcus stood, moving to clasp Edmund’s shoulder.
“I think you have spent months being kind and patient and respectful, and I think those are admirable qualities, but I also think there comes a time when patience becomes avoidance and respect becomes an excuse not to be vulnerable.”
“And you think that time has come.”
“I think you are standing in your morning room, drinking brandy before noon, because watching your wife laugh made you feel like you were perishing.” Marcus’s grip tightened. “I think that means it is time to stop being patient and start being honest.”
He released Edmund’s shoulder and moved toward the door.
“Marcus.”
His friend paused, looking back.
“Thank you.” Edmund’s voice was rough. “For listening. And for not putting me through a wall in return.”