Chapter Fifteen #2
Marcus’s smile returned, smaller than usual, but genuine.
“I considered it. But then I remembered that you are terrible at boxing and it would not have been a fair fight.” He paused at the door.
“Talk to her, Edmund. Tell her what you told me. The worst that happens is she does not feel the same way. But at least you will know. And that has to be better than spending the rest of your life wondering.”
He left.
Edmund stood alone in the morning room, Marcus’s words echoing through his mind.
Talk to her. Tell her.
It sounded so simple when Marcus said it. Just words. Just honesty. Just the truth of his heart, laid bare for Helena to accept or reject as she chose.
But nothing with Helena was simple. Nothing ever had been. From the moment he had seen her across a crowded assembly room, raising one eyebrow at an insult and making him laugh for the first time in months, she had been complicated. Layered. A puzzle he was not certain he would ever fully solve.
And that was part of why he held her in his esteem. Because she was not easy. Because she challenged him and surprised him and refused to be what he expected. Because cherishing her required effort and, attention and care, and he found he wanted to give her all of it.
But telling her meant risking rejection. And Edmund had spent his entire life avoiding rejection, not through conquest or charm, but through restraint. Through never wanting anything badly enough to be devastated by its loss.
Until Helena.
He wanted her. He wanted her with an intensity that frightened him, that consumed him, that made him do ridiculous things like counting laughs and sending wildflowers and rearranging his entire life around the chance to share breakfast with her.
And he was terrified of hearing that she did not want him back.
How do you know what she wedded you for? Have you asked?
He had not asked. He had assumed. Had told himself a story about her motivations that protected him from hoping for more. Had decided, without evidence, that he knew what she felt.
But he did not know. Not really. Not for certain.
What if he was wrong?
What if she was waiting for him to speak, just as he was waiting for her?
What if all this careful distance, all this respectful restraint, was keeping them both trapped in a matrimony that could be so much more if either of them found the courage to say what they felt?
Edmund crossed to the window. Below, in the garden, Helena was walking alone now, Marcus had returned to the house. She moved between the dormant rose bushes, her hand trailing along the bare canes, her face thoughtful.
She was beautiful. She was brilliant. She was the most remarkable woman he had ever known.
And he cherished her, desperately and completely. In a way that had nothing to do with their arrangement and everything to do with who she was.
Tell her.
He wanted to cross the garden and take her hand and say everything he had been holding back for months. He wanted to watch her face as he confessed, wanted to know, finally, definitively, whether there was any chance that she felt the same.
But wanting was not the same as doing.
And doing meant risking everything.
Edmund stood at the window for a long time, watching his wife move through the winter garden, and tried to find the courage Marcus believed he had.
He was not certain it existed.
***
That evening, Helena joined him in the library.
She had been absent for a few days, retreating to her chambers, citing fatigue, maintaining the distance that had become habitual between them. But tonight she appeared in the doorway, wrapped in a shawl against the evening chill, her blonde hair falling loosely around her shoulders.
“May I?” she asked quietly.
“Of course.” Edmund set aside the book he had been failing to read. “This is your library as much as mine.”
She crossed to her usual seat, the window seat she had claimed during those early weeks, when they had first begun to know each other. She tucked her feet beneath her in the way that had become familiar, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.
“I saw you this morning,” Helena said finally. “Watching from the window. While Marcus and I were in the garden.”
Edmund went very still.
“I wondered if something was wrong.” She was not looking at him, her gaze was fixed on the dark window, on her own reflection in the glass. “You looked troubled.”
He ought to have retreated, to offer some polite falsehood that would restore their distance. Instead, he heard himself say: “I was jealous.”
Helena’s head turned sharply. “Jealous?”
“Of Marcus. Of the way you laugh with him.” Edmund forced himself to meet her eyes. “Of how easy it is between you, when nothing between us has ever been easy.”
She stared at him. Her lips parted slightly, as though she wanted to speak but could not find the words.
“I know it is irrational,” he continued, the confession spilling out now that it had started.
“Marcus is my closest friend. He would never do anything inappropriate, and neither would you. But watching you with him, seeing you relaxed and unguarded and happy.” He stopped, and swallowed.
“I want that. I want to be the person who makes you laugh without having to earn it. I want to be the one you trust without having to prove myself worthy of it. And I have spent months being patient and careful and respectful, and none of it has brought me any closer to being that person.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Helena was still staring at him. Her expression was unreadable, that perfect composure she had perfected over years of managing crises. He could not tell what she was thinking, could not tell if he had horrified her or moved her or simply confused her beyond measure.
“Edmund,” she said finally, her voice very soft.
“I should not have said that.” He stood abruptly, moving toward the door. “Forgive me. I have made you uncomfortable. I will.”
“Edmund.”
He stopped.
“I did not know.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “That you felt that way.”
“Now you know.” His back was to her, his hand on the doorframe. “And I am sorry for burdening you with it. That was never my intention.”
“It is not a burden.”
He turned.
She was standing now, having risen from the window seat without him noticing. Her shawl had slipped from one shoulder. Her hair caught the firelight like a crown.
Her eyes were bright with tears.
“It is not a burden,” she said again, her voice unsteady. “Edmund.”
But before she could finish, before she could say whatever words were trembling on her lips, the door burst open.
A footman stood in the entrance, his face pale with urgency.
“Your Grace, forgive the interruption, but there is a letter from the solicitor. Marked urgent.” The footman swallowed hard. “Mr Vane has filed a formal challenge. The matter is to be heard before the Master in Chancery within the fortnight.”
The words fell like stones into still water.
Edmund looked at Helena. Helena looked at Edmund.
Whatever confession had been about to pass between them retreated behind the walls of crisis and necessity.
“We will discuss this in my study,” Edmund said, his voice steady despite the chaos of his heart. “Bring the letter.”
The footman bowed and withdrew.
Edmund turned back to Helena. She was pale now, her tears gone, her composure settling back into place like armour.
“We should.” she started.
“Yes.” He nodded once. “We should.”
They left the library together, the moment lost, the confession unfinished.
But something had changed.
Something had shifted between them, even if they did not yet know what it meant.
And neither of them would forget it.