Chapter 18 #2
“He was,” Seraphina said. “Not deliberately, but yes.”
Aurelia turned her cup in her hands. The condensation was making them wet. She stopped to wipe them on her lap, feeling that Seraphina would never be caught doing something so improper. Maybe that was why Frederick had preferred her.
“I didn't love him,” Aurelia said. “It wasn't that kind of loss, when he disappeared with you. It was the humiliation of it, and the waste of it, with everyone watching.” She paused. “That is what I am still angry about.”
“You should be,” Seraphina said simply. “I would be angry if I were you… Especially if I was forced to marry Sandacre under the same conditions. He is confusing at the best of times. And he will be more loyal to this house than he will ever be to a woman. But I am not telling you anything you don’t already know, since you are the one who ended up marrying him. ”
She had said it casually, like they were just two women gossiping about things that were common knowledge. But Aurelia had never felt like that. It was an unfair assessment.
“That’s not true,” she argued weakly.
“Oh.” Seraphina had the decency to look abashed. “Yes, well, you would know him better than I would, I suppose.”
Maybe not, Aurelia thought, if Seraphina had known him her entire life. She felt something catch in her chest and coughed lightly. Seraphina's eyes moved to her face. Her smile didn't change.
The garden was almost unbearably warm for early May. Aurelia had taken off her coat the moment she had gone out through the back doors, without much of a plan. The house had too many people in it, and she needed space to think – especially from Seraphina.
She took the path that cut through the lawn. The gardens descended in levels, and between the first and the third there was a stone garden she liked. To her surprise, Nike materialised from somewhere and fell into step beside her, which helped to dull the ache in her chest.
She had not gone far when she heard footsteps behind her on the gravel and turned. It was Frederick. Coat on, hands in his pockets, looking like he had half a mind to turn back around before he asked, “May I join you?”
Aurelia nodded and waited for him. Nike ranged ahead and doubled back by the time he reached her. It was so strange, seeing him like this, after a month of feeling like everything they had shared had been a lie.
“You look well,” he said first. “It was hard to tell last night, once we arrived. I could barely keep my eyes open from lack of sleep and… I feared looking at you, quite honestly.” He scrunched his face and looked at the horizon. “I spoke to my brother this morning.”
“I heard there was talk.”
“My wife found you?” He smiled ruefully. “Did she tell you what we discussed? No?” He sighed. “The long and short of it… I asked for his forgiveness, and asked whether he was happy. He didn’t answer much, which is its own answer, I suppose, knowing him.”
Aurelia could barely think about Evander without considering Seraphina, so she simply smiled and nodded.
Frederick ran a hand over his face. She had never seen him do that before, and it struck her how much he had been pretending when he had been with her, all those weeks, just pretending.
“I have been trying to find the right way to speak to you since we arrived last night, and I keep putting it off because I cannot work out how to begin. So I am just going to begin and hope that the rest is fine. Is that all right?” he asked.
She called Nike to her side again. “We will soon find you, won’t we?”
“I am sorry, but you know that,” he said.
“But specifically… to you. You were exceedingly kind to me for the two months we were betrothed. You were patient and gracious and you were willing to make the best of something that was never going to be what either of us really wanted. You deserved to be treated with honesty, and I treated you with the exact opposite. All this…” He gestured vaguely around them.
“I let it go on far longer than it should have done.”
Aurelia listened. She had been preparing for this conversation, or some similarity of it, since she had seen him standing in the entrance hall last night, and now that it was happening she found it was simpler than she had expected.
“You could have just told me,” she said. “Before the wedding. Even a week before. Even the day before. Why did it have to be the morning itself?”
“Because I was a coward. I knew that if I came to you and told you the truth you would have been hurt, and frankly I didn’t want to see that.
Seraphina thinks I am incapable of facing a direct consequence, and she is probably not wrong.
And my brother… God knows I could never have told my brother back then. ”
They walked a little further. The roses were just beginning to bud in their beds, and Aurelia leaned down to inspect one.
“I do think the country suits you,” Frederick said.
“That’s a nice thing to say.”
“You seem more yourself here, if that makes any sense. In London you were always very… contained.”
“And you didn’t like it?”
He laughed softly. “I’m not very good at containment, obviously. But my brother… He is very good at it. Though I noticed quickly last night… The way he moved in front of you when we walked in. I don't think he even knew he was doing it.”
Aurelia felt her face go hot.
“He has never done that,” Frederick continued.
“That sort of instinctive thing that a man does with a woman.
Not with anyone. He is not an instinctive person, my brother.
I'm telling you because I think you might be doubting things, given the situation, and I want you to know what I saw and what I think.”
“I can’t say whether you are right or wrong,” she admitted, rising again into a stand and dusting off her skirts. “I don’t think it matters in the long run. What’s done is done.” She tried to smile. “Thanks to you.”
“You would have been miserable with me.”
“Oh, certainly. But I see no point pretending that you abandoned me out of concern for my happiness, do you?”
“No…” Frederick sighed, and something about it made her smile. “But it’s worth saying anyway so I can ease my conscience, and perhaps instill in you the confidence that I have that this was the better outcome. Although… You and my brother… I would never have thought it possible.”
“It didn’t even cross your mind this would happen as you were racing up to Gretna Greene?”
“Do you know, not even once. But it makes sense, in hindsight. Now that things are halfway normal again… I fear I will only be happy if I know you are happy.”
“What’s strange is that I think you mean it,” she said.
He nodded. He reached out then and took her hand briefly, both of his around hers. It wasn’t romantic or presumptuous, just the gesture of someone apologising from the only honest place they had. “I am sorry, Aurelia.”
She was about to respond when she heard hooves coming from the woods far below. Two horses came around the bend in the lawn: Matchem first, then another horse, walking at the easy pace of the end of a ride. She saw Evander, looking ahead when they rounded the corner… and then he wasn't.
His eyes went directly to her Frederick, and then to their hands. He checked Matchem without appearing to decide to.
The expression lasted perhaps two seconds. Then it was gone. But she had seen it. She had seen it clearly. Frederick released her hand and stepped back, apparently oblivious.
“Brother,” he cried pleasantly as they resumed their approach. “Good ride?”
“Fine,” Evander said. His voice was level. He looked at Aurelia for a moment, and she looked back at him. There was nothing she could say about that look with Frederick standing there and Patrick behind him.
“We should get in,” Patrick said, already turning his horse. “The wind is picking up.”
Evander turned Matchem toward the stable yard without another word, stopping only once to cast a glance back at his brother and his wife.