air cutting through the warmth of her riding habit. The strength of the horse beneath her, and the strange elation, sense of life, that came from being out and about when much of the world—or, rather, much of their world—still slumbered, recovering from the previous evening’s excesses.
So, too, could Violet recall the precise shade of pink the wind colored her husband’s cheeks, making him look boyish and far younger than he usually did. Of course, she thought with an odd sort of pang, James had been little more than a boy when they had married. Twenty-three. Older than her own tender age of eighteen, to be sure, but only a couple of years removed from Oxford. So young to be married.
And yet, they had been happy.
For the most part.
And now they were . . .
Well, the truth was that Violet wasn’t quite sure what they were. She would not have said they were happy, not by a mile, and yet calling it mere unhappiness seemed an oversimplification. As if the word couldn’t quite encompass the multifaceted complexity of their existence these days. She felt, at times, in a state of suspense, waiting for their marriage to resolve itself one way or another—for them to go back to their old ways or to move on entirely, take up lovers, resign themselves to a future of politesse but never passion.
Violet was so occupied by her thoughts that she had been spreading butter on the same piece of toast for the past few minutes; the bread in question was growing soggy. She shook her head, then took a bite.
There was no time for lovesick musings; she cringed at the fact that she had even thought the word lovesick. Because she was certainly not that. She had read enough to know that the drippy, lovesick girls in novels were without exception frightfully dull, regardless of the fact that they were frequently the heroines of their stories. Violet refused to count herself among their ranks—particularly since doing so would bring her dangerously close to an uncomfortable admission about her feelings for her not-so-beloved husband.
After she had picked away at her breakfast for a suitable amount of time, Violet retreated to the library, as she so frequently did when she found herself at loose ends. The library was her favorite room in the house. She had not seen it until the afternoon of her wedding; when she and James had arrived at the house after their wedding breakfast, she’d teased him that he might have saved the effort of courting her by just showing her this room.
“It wasn’t a terrible amount of effort, courting you,” James had said, with the satisfaction of a newly married man who had experienced an exceptionally short engagement without the inconvenience of a trip to Scotland. “You were quite willing.”
“I didn’t have much choice, did I?” Violet said, arching her brows at him. “Given that Mother was standing there observing the entire thing?” She hesitated a fraction of a second, then added, “You didn’t have much choice, either.”
Brief as that hesitation was, James must have heard it, for the smug grin faded from his face almost instantly, replaced by a look of intense focus. He dropped her hand, which he had been holding in his own, and instead stepped closer to her, seizing her shoulders in a grip firm enough to prevent escape, but not forceful enough to hurt. “Violet.”
Something in his tone had her eyes flicking up to meet his immediately. He dropped one of her shoulders to cup her cheek in his hand, and she turned her face into his palm, relishing the contact.
“I would’ve made the same choice, even if your mother hadn’t caught us.” His voice was quiet, intent, and she heard the truth in every word he spoke. “Admittedly, it might have taken a bit longer”—his mouth quirked up slightly, and she answered him with a weak smile of her own—“but I have no doubt that we would still have found ourselves here, in this library, and probably having a far more interesting conversation.”
He finished speaking, but he did not drop his hands, nor did he break his gaze. He was so very handsome, she thought, as she thought nearly every time she looked at him—tall, broad-shouldered, his dark hair slightly mussed by her own fingers on the carriage ride over, his vivid green eyes staring unblinkingly into her own. And she loved him. And he had told her exactly what she needed to hear.
“I’m glad