Chapter 14 #3
Temperance stared. “Your enormous, terrifying husband put his hand around your waist, discovered you were blushing because he was touching you, and told you to look at him. Augusta, you cannot possibly expect me to behave as though you just described him handing you a cup of tea.”
“He is not terrifying.”
Charity rescued her again. “What happened when you looked at him?”
The memory alone made Augusta’s heartbeat change, “It was different. I have seen Ronan look at me countless times. He stares when he is thinking. He stares when he is annoyed. Sometimes I think he stares simply because he does not know what else to do. But this was not like that.”
Charity waited.
Augusta swallowed. “He looked at my mouth.”
“And you thought he was going to kiss you,” Charity said.
Augusta nodded.
“And did you want him to?”
Augusta looked at her sister and realized that lying would be pointless.
“Yes.”
Temperance’s expression softened almost instantly. Alethea came nearer, and Charity’s thumb moved gently across Augusta’s gloved hand.
Augusta laughed nervously. “There. I have said it. Are you all satisfied?”
“Not remotely,” Temperance replied, though affection had replaced the mischief in her voice. “But I am trying very hard to behave.”
Charity smiled. “What happened?”
“He did not kiss me. He remembered the mark on my face, wiped it away, and stepped back. Then I went upstairs.”
Temperance stared. “That man requires assistance.”
Alethea laughed.
“What?” Temperance demanded. “He was already there.”
“Perhaps he was trying to be careful.”
“That is precisely the problem with men when they decide to be careful. They always choose the least convenient moment.”
Charity shook her head. “Do not listen to her. I think it says something good about him that he stopped.”
Augusta knew that. That was part of the problem.
If Ronan had simply kissed her, perhaps she could have blamed everything on surprise. Instead, he had stopped himself, and she had spent half the night thinking about the restraint it must have taken.
“He promised me time,” Augusta said. “On our wedding night. He told me we did not need to rush anything and that he wanted us to become friends first. I think perhaps he remembered that.”
Alethea nodded. “That would make sense.”
Temperance leaned back. “It is very noble. I still wish he had kissed you.”
“So do I,” Augusta said before she could stop herself.
The room went silent again.
Augusta closed her eyes.
Temperance whispered, “Oh, this is much worse than I thought.”
“Do not make it sound like a disease.”
“I mean, you are in trouble.”
She opened her eyes. “What sort of trouble?”
That was when Augusta became suspicious.
“What?”
Charity’s smile was unbearably gentle. “How long have you been in love with him?”
Love?
Augusta looked from one woman to the next. “I am not. Now that is just you assuming things that are not there.”
“Very well,” Charity said.
Temperance finally spoke. “Augusta, you have spent the entire morning staring into space because your husband almost kissed you.”
“I am attracted to him,” she admitted. “That is not the same thing as love, and we have a close relationship now. I am fond of him, sure.”
“But you have not only spoken about wanting him to kiss you. That is why Charity asked.”
Augusta looked away.
Temperance’s voice was softer than usual when she added, “And you have been talking about him differently for weeks.”
“I haven’t noticed.”
“You have; you defend him before anyone has criticized him.”
Augusta looked toward Charity, hoping for support, but her sister’s expression was thoughtful.
“Do you remember what you told me before your debut?” Charity asked.
“You said you wanted a marriage in which you were happy to see the same man every morning. Not merely someone handsome or wealthy or respectable. You said you wanted someone whose company did not become tiresome when there was nothing exciting happening.”
Augusta remembered. She had been seventeen and terribly certain that love could be planned if one had sufficient standards.
“I was younger, and had different ideas,” she said. “I’m sure that I have a more practical view of marriage now.”
“You were,” Charity agreed. “But I think you understood something important.”
Augusta looked down at her gloves.
Charity continued quietly, “Are you happy when Ronan comes into a room?”
The answer came too easily: “Yes.”
“Do you look forward to speaking to him?”
“Yes, we disagree on a lot of things but it is something that I like doing.”
“Do you think about him when he is not there?”
Augusta gave her sister a pointed look. “Apparently constantly.”
That made them laugh. Even Augusta smiled.
Charity squeezed her hand again. “Then perhaps you already know.”
Augusta’s smile faded. The thought had been circling her for days, perhaps longer. She had simply refused to give it a name.
Now, surrounded by three women who had each traveled their own difficult path toward happiness, it suddenly felt impossible to avoid.
Could it really be possible? Had the impossible happened? Augusta never thought that she would be one to fall in love easily, and not surely not like this. It was a marriage of convenience, through and through, and there was no other possibility.
Surely, there is no place for love in a marriage of convenience. Familiarity, yes, and even a kind of fondness. But surely love was reserved for people who had more romantic notions about life.
She and the duke were not such people.
But nothing else explained the feeling that she had inside of her, and there was just no more denying it. Maybe it would be better if she stopped running from it altogether.
“I think I am falling in love with him.”
Augusta stared at her own hands after saying them. She had expected panic, perhaps embarrassment. Instead she felt something strange and quiet.
“I do not know when it happened,” she continued after a moment.
“That is the absurd part. I can remember when I stopped thinking he might actually be a murderer, which was a useful milestone. I can remember when I began trusting him. I can remember the first time I saw him laugh and thought he looked entirely different when he did. But I cannot point to a single moment and say that was when it changed.”
“You usually cannot,” Alethea said. “That’s the best part, truly.”
Augusta looked at her.
Alethea smiled. “With Oliver, I kept waiting for certainty to arrive like some grand revelation. It did not. One day I simply realized that I had been arranging my entire emotional life around him for weeks.”
Temperance nodded. “Harper and I were worse. We spent so much time misunderstanding each other that when I finally understood how I felt, I was furious about it.”
Charity laughed. “That sounds like you.”
“It was extremely inconvenient.”
Augusta smiled despite herself. “And you were not afraid?”
“Of course I was,” Temperance said. “Love is a terrible arrangement if one values control. Suddenly another person can ruin your entire day by looking unhappy at breakfast.”
“That is not encouraging.”
“It is not supposed to be. I am telling you that fear does not mean you are mistaken.”
Alethea’s expression softened. “And it becomes less frightening once you stop treating love as a question you have to answer perfectly.”
Augusta leaned back in her chair. “You all make this sound very simple now that you are happily married.”
The three women exchanged glances.
“Duncan and I still argue,” Charity continued. “He still does things that infuriate me. Yesterday he told our son that vegetables make boys slower because he did not want to eat his own peas, and then seemed genuinely surprised when the child refused dinner.”
Augusta laughed.
Temperance nodded. “Harper and I had an argument last week about Joseph climbing onto the stable roof. I wanted him punished. Harper said he had done exactly the same thing at that age and survived. I pointed out that surviving one’s own stupidity is not a compelling argument for encouraging it in one’s children. ”
Alethea smiled. “Oliver still insists upon buying things for the children without consulting me. Large things. Last month it was an enormous wooden horse that barely fits through the nursery door. He looked so pleased with himself that I could not even remain properly angry.”
Augusta listened to them and felt something inside her loosen.
Their happiness was not the absence of difficulty. That, perhaps, was what she had never understood when she was younger.
She had spent years imagining the perfect marriage as a destination one reached after selecting the correct man. Charity, Temperance, and Alethea had found something far less perfect and infinitely better.
A life.
“And you think I should tell him?” Augusta asked. The idea alone was enough to frighten her fully.
Temperance answered immediately. “Yes.”
Alethea laughed. “Perhaps not this afternoon.”
“Why not?”
“Because Augusta has only just admitted it to herself.”
Charity nodded. “There is no need to rush into a declaration simply because we have bullied you into understanding your own feelings.”
“But what if he does not feel the same way?”
It was the fear beneath all the others. Ronan had married her for Sarah. But love was something else.