Chapter 19 #3
“That is not the point,” Nathaniel muttered.
“The point is that Euphemia is good for the children. She is doing remarkably well, and everything at the estate is finally at peace. I have put aside my doubts regarding keeping my distance from her, and we are now able to maintain a normal, proper friendship. I simply do not want that ruined.”
He stepped closer. “I have a distinct bad feeling that if you keep opening your mouth, you will ruin the balance we have found. There is absolutely no use in you trying to appeal to Euphemia or charm her. None at all. So do not use your charms on my wife. Go somewhere else and do it.”
“All right!” Thaddeus scoffed. “My goodness. You sound like a man in love.”
“I am not in love,” he shot back instantly. His fingers tightened imperceptibly around the stem of his untouched glass. “Do not be ridiculous, Thaddeus. I merely care for Euphemia’s well-being. She has endured enough upheaval, and she deserves to feel secure and comfortable in her own home.”
“I am not disputing that,” Thaddeus countered smoothly, taking a step closer.
“She absolutely deserves comfort. However, two distinct truths can coexist, Nathaniel. You can genuinely want her to feel at ease, and you can also be harboring feelings for her that you are terrified to name. Only a jealous man reacts this fiercely to his closest friend of over two decades simply speaking to his wife. You are guarding something. Let us make logical sense of it, since you love logic so dearly.”
Nathaniel shifted his weight, his eyes narrowing. “There is no hidden sentiment to unravel. I am simply exercising caution.”
“Are you?” Thaddeus tilted his head, his gaze sweeping down to Nathaniel’s hand before rising back to meet his eyes.
“I saw you when you arrived tonight. From the very moment you entered this room, your hand did not leave her waist. Not once. You navigated the entire crowd anchored to her. I watched you.”
Nathaniel went entirely still. He sat with the idea, the realization blooming uncomfortably in his chest. He had never been a man given to public displays of affection...
with Eleanor, any proximity had been a matter of rigid, performative protocol.
Yet tonight, he hadn’t even thought about the propriety of it.
It had been an instinctual, almost desperate need to keep Euphemia close.
In fact, if he were being entirely honest with himself, he had already found his mind drifting to future engagements, silently planning other ways they could appear in public together, how he might escort her, how he might stand beside her.
“Perhaps,” Nathaniel conceded quietly, his jaw tight as he forced a detached composure. “I will admit to the very early stages of a mild, romantic interest. But now that I am aware of it, I can contain it. I can curb it before it ever becomes anything of consequence.”
Thaddeus looked at him, his expression softening into a look of profound pity.
“Do you truly believe this is the early stage? Or are you only just realizing it now because it is already too late? In my experience, men in your position only acknowledge the fire when the entire house is already ash.” Thaddeus paused, his eyes probing.
“Tell me, Nathaniel, why did you truly abandon your strategy to keep your distance from her merely a week ago? What changed?”
Nathaniel didn’t answer. He couldn’t. To admit the truth aloud would shatter the last of his defenses.
The reality was that the distance had tormented him.
Every day he spent forcing a polite estrangement from Euphemia had been chaotic to his senses, a slow, agonizing distraction that left him utterly unable to focus on his affairs.
He had abandoned the ploy and offered her his friendship simply because he could no longer bear the agony of being apart from her.
He was putting the pieces together now, realizing that Thaddeus’s deductions were dangerously accurate, though his pride refused to grant his friend the satisfaction of an admission.
“There is no use discussing this further,” Nathaniel said curtly.
“Just consider one last thing,” Thaddeus added, before Nathaniel could turn away. “You need to decide what you are going to do, and fast. You wife, is a lady with a heart too, remember? A heart that can also... love? You might end up confusing her too. Trust me, I would know.”
Nathaniel looked at him. “What are you saying?”
“I am saying that you cannot have it both ways,” Thaddeus said. “You cannot be the man you have been tonight and also stop her from developing feelings for you when you do things like this. Those two things cannot coexist. One of them has to go.”
Nathaniel did not answer. He set his glass down and excused himself with a word, and walked back toward the party, and did not look at Thaddeus again.
His mind was a turbulent storm of calculation.
Euphemia, developing feelings for him? No.
That could not happen. He could not allow it.
He had told himself that he would find a way to be her friend, to provide her with the security and respect she required, without either of them crossing that perilous threshold.
If his actions had led her to form an attachment, that was infinitely worse.
That was not the arrangement. This was never the plan. He could not afford to derail his life now. He could not love her. The emotional entanglement would be far too messy, far too vulnerable to permit.
As he maneuvered past a group of laughing guests, a grim determination took hold of him.
Perhaps he had been right in the very beginning.
The initial instinct to maintain a strict distance between them had been the correct one.
He should never have softened. He should never have relented and offered her a friendship that blurred the boundaries of their contract.
If they returned to the safety of a formal, distant respect, everyone would be secure.
Everyone would be content within their own defined spheres.
Reaching a quieter corridor near the ballroom entrance, Nathaniel paused, straightening his waistcoat.
He needed to take back control. He would re-establish the distance between them.
Starting tonight, the warmth would end. He would ensure he never acted on these treacherous impulses again, and he would never allow himself to be reduced to a jealous display ever again.