Chapter 15 #3
Augusta’s steps faltered slightly, and Ronan steadied her with the hand at her back before anyone nearby could notice.
“It was dark, and I was some distance away,” she said, though her voice had lost some of its earlier lightness.
“I could barely see him beyond his height, the coat, and the cane, so surely he could not have seen much more of me.”
“Perhaps not, but you told me that he turned when you moved, which means he knew someone was there, and we cannot know how much he saw or whether he later learned who you were. I do not want to frighten you, Augusta, but until the constables understand why that woman died, I would prefer not to assume that the man beside her has forgotten there was a witness. And you made a very public accusation. So if the murderer knows he was seen, it would be easy to put the clues together and figure out it was you who saw him.”
She was quiet for several measures, her fingers tightening faintly around his as she considered the possibility.
“I had not thought about it that way. I kept wondering whether I had seen enough to identify him, and then everything became confused once I saw your cane, but I never really considered what I might have looked like from his position.”
“That is why I do not want you leaving Ravenhill alone for the time being,” Ronan said, and when she immediately looked at him, he continued before she could mistake the request for an order.
“I am not telling you that you cannot visit your sisters or go shopping, but I want someone with you, whether it is a maid, a footman, one of your friends, or me. I would rather feel foolish about unnecessary caution later than discover that we should have been more careful now.”
Augusta studied him, and Ronan prepared himself for the argument he expected, because she disliked being told what she could and could not do almost as much as he disliked explaining himself. Instead, she surprised him by nodding slowly.
“All right. I will not go anywhere alone until we know more, and before you look so astonished, I am perfectly capable of recognizing when your concern is reasonable. I do not particularly enjoy the idea of arranging my movements around a murderer I cannot even identify, but I enjoy the possibility of encountering him again considerably less.”
Ronan felt some of the tension leave him. “I expected you to argue.”
“But I simply decided against it. Occasionally marriage requires one to make tremendous sacrifices, and tonight I have sacrificed the pleasure of disagreeing with you.”
His mouth almost curved. “You make it sound heroic.”
“But am I wrong?” she teased. “You know fully well that both of us have a penchant for arguing, and therefore me letting it go is surely a remarkable act.”
He shook his head.
It was funny. Their arguments now did not grow too heated; instead they would sometimes just blossom into playfulness. It was something that only knowing each other better had allowed them to achieve.
And it was nice, he thought to himself.
Comfortable, even.
The music carried them into another turn, and for a short while the conversation gave way to movement, although Augusta’s earlier distraction had returned.
She was looking at him now rather than beyond his shoulder, but there was something uncertain in her expression, as though another question had been waiting beneath the discussion of the murder and had not yet found its way out.
Ronan noticed it because he noticed almost everything about her now. “What is it? You are thinking about something else.”
“I don’t know what to do when you give me this much attention,” she smiled at him. “Do you really wish to know what I am thinking?”
Ronan was not one to blush, but the way that she had said the words, he might as well have.
“If you’re willing to tell me,” he replied in a nonchalant tone.
“There is one thing that I have been wondering…”
Go on then.
When she spoke again, the question was quieter than he expected. “Do you like my dress?”
Ronan froze, and Augusta felt it immediately.
The answer should have been the easiest thing she had asked him all evening, because he had been thinking about the damned dress from the moment she appeared on the staircase.
He liked the color, the way it fitted her, the way the green made her eyes seem brighter, and more than any of that, he thought she was beautiful enough in it that he had spent the evening resenting every man whose attention remained on her for longer than a second.
All he needed to do was say so. Instead, the words crowded uselessly behind his teeth.
Augusta looked up at him, waiting.
Ronan felt an unfamiliar kind of panic. “Yes,” he managed at last.
Her expression changed.
It was small enough that another person might have missed it, but Ronan had spent too much time studying her face lately not to recognize disappointment.
“Yes?” she repeated, and although she tried to smile, the effort was obvious. “Well, I suppose that answers the question.”
Ronan immediately attempted to repair it. “The color suits you.”
The moment the words left him, he wanted them back.
Augusta’s smile became even more polite. “Thank you.”
He could have sworn at himself.
The color suits you.
Gregory had looked at her once and told her she looked extraordinary, while Ronan had spent an entire evening staring at his own wife as though he had never seen a beautiful woman before and had somehow reduced all that admiration to an assessment a shopkeeper might make about fabric.
“You misunderstand me,” he said.
Augusta’s gaze returned to his. “Do I? What did you mean, then?”
Ronan knew exactly what he should say, and he wanted to say it so badly that the wanting itself became an obstacle.
You are beautiful.
He had thought the words repeatedly since she came downstairs, yet speaking them aloud seemed somehow more intimate than placing his hand at her waist, because once he said them she would know what he had been thinking, and he had spent most of his life avoiding precisely that kind of exposure.
He opened his mouth, but nothing useful came.
Augusta watched him for another moment, and something shuttered behind her eyes.
“You need not struggle so terribly for an answer,” she said, her voice gentle enough that the words hurt more than anger would have. “I asked a foolish question, and you answered honestly. Let us leave it there.”
There was a disappointment in her voice, and he hated that he had been the one to place it there. Only because it was difficult for him to admit out loud that his wife looked beautiful.
“I wouldn’t call your question foolish,” he told her. “It clearly matters to you.”
Her gaze moved toward the edge of the ballroom. “I think these things shouldn’t matter to me, anyway. I should try to be more mindful next time, and not ask questions whose answers I might not like.”
Ronan felt frustration rise, most of it directed at himself.
“Augusta, I am trying to explain,” he said to her.
“And I am trying to spare you the effort,” she replied, still speaking softly because they were surrounded by dancers and acquaintances who needed no reason to become interested in their marriage.
“You do not have to say something merely because you think I want to hear it, and I would rather you did not force yourself into a compliment you do not mean simply because I was foolish enough to ask for one.”
“I did not say I did not mean it,” he corrected her swiftly.
“You barely said anything at all.”
That silenced him. Augusta looked away, and Ronan finally understood that the question had never really been about the gown.
The realization came too late. In earnest, she had wanted to know how he saw her.
Perhaps she had been thinking about the night before, about the moment when he had stared at her mouth and nearly kissed her, and perhaps she had asked tonight because she was trying to understand whether that moment had meant something to him.
The final measures of the dance began, and Ronan felt the approaching end with an urgency he had not expected, because once the music stopped she would be free to step away and he had the sudden certainty that she intended to do exactly that.
“Augusta,” he said, lowering his voice, “wait until the dance is finished and let me try again, because you are drawing conclusions from an answer I gave badly, and although I admit I have managed this conversation with remarkable incompetence, that does not mean your conclusion is correct.”
She looked at him, and for an instant he thought she might soften.
Instead, she gave him a small smile. “There is nothing to try again. You have spent the entire evening being kind to me, you came to a ball you clearly did not wish to attend, and you have just asked me to be careful because you are worried about my safety. I know you care about me, Ronan, and I am grateful for that. I should not have asked for something more.”
The words struck him harder than they ought to have.
Something more.
He wanted to ask what she meant. Before he could find the courage or the language, the music ended.
Applause moved through the ballroom while couples bowed and separated, and Augusta withdrew her hand from his with a smile that was perfectly acceptable for anyone who happened to be watching.
Ronan hated that smile, because he had begun to know the difference between the ones she gave society and the ones she gave him, and this one belonged entirely to society.
“Thank you for the dance,” she said.
Ronan tightened his grip on his cane. “Augusta.”
“I am going to get some air. It is rather warm.”
“I will come with you.”
“There is no need,” she replied, glancing toward where Charity and Maria stood only a short distance away.
Ronan knew she was using practicality to end the discussion. But stopping her in the middle of the ballroom would only humiliate her.
So he stepped aside as Augusta turned and moved through the crowd.