to have fun, to not take himself so seriously. “I meant that you continue to avoid my presence as much as you are able to.”
“I do not—”
“You do,” she said, though the truth was, she couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t asked for a bride, nor any company at this place where he hid himself away.
“I am sorry, Edmund, for the fact you had to marry me,” she said earnestly, in the hopes that he understood her contrition to be true. “I hated being that woman, being paraded about at ball after ball in the hopes that some gentleman might be taken enough with my dowry to wed me, despite what he knew of my family.”
“Because of your sister who ran away with the footman.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I say good for her,” Edmund said, surprising Hannah. “And to all the men who overlooked you because of what she did—well, it’s their own loss.”
Surprise raced through Hannah at his words. “But you didn’t want to wed me either.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I didn’t want to wed anyone.”
“Right,” Hannah said, and then they were both silent for a moment, staring at the flickering flames, whose crackling provided the only sound to fill the room for a moment. “Why did you agree to marry me?” she finally asked.
She knew she shouldn’t have. But the question had been weighing on her mind. For the answer meant more than Edmund could ever know, for it would change everything that was to come between them.
“My father threatened to take away Hollingswood if I didn’t.”
It seemed like Hannah’s heart crumbled into pieces, with any hopes she had that he had actually felt something – anything – for her slipping away.
“Did you—did you know it was me in the library?”
“Of course I did.”
“I see,” she said, turning away so that he wouldn’t see how hurt she was by his words. A part of her had hoped that, perhaps, despite his misgivings toward marriage, there had been something about her that had drawn him into it and convinced him that it might not be so bad.
Apparently, it had only been wishful thinking.
Edmund knew he had said the wrong thing.
But what was he supposed to tell her? He could hardly admit to how much he had desired her, how the thought of marriage to her had not been as objectionable as marriage to any other. For that would be opening himself up to her, leaving him exposed to the rejection that was sure to follow.
“Why…” he didn’t want to ask, and yet he needed to know, “why did you marry me?”
She laughed humorlessly as she stood, wrapping her arms around herself as though she was still chilled, the blanket that he had given her lying discarded on the floor.
“I’ve always done what I was supposed to,” she said, looking down, her voice bitter. “Hannah, the good one. Hannah, who always did what was right. My sister, Juliet, she was the rebellious one. It was not a surprise when she ran off with the footman. It was only the latest and greatest scandal. My parents were embarrassed, of course, and despaired for my own marriage. I was never consulted on what I would like. It didn’t matter. Then my father worked out an arrangement with yours, and it was apparently all taken care of, until your brother’s indiscretion.”
She appeared wistful, as she looked up at his bookshelves, at his great-uncle’s portrait, out the window – everywhere but at him.
“I wish I could be more like her – my sister. She was rebellious, yes, but she was always so happy. She did what she wanted and didn’t care about the consequences. Whereas I… I was always so worried about doing the right thing, about being the good girl, about not being contrary. It was almost as though I lived to make up for my sister.”
She sighed and looked up at the timbers above her, as though imploring the heavens for an answer.
But unfortunately, the only one here to speak to her was him.
“And now you’re here. With me.”
“I am,” she said, turning to him now, tilting her head as her voice turned contemplative.
“Do you ever wonder… if this is how it is meant to be? If everything happens for a reason?”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “That cannot be the case. Not after what I’ve seen.”
She nodded slowly.
“Why do you hide yourself here from the world?” she asked.
“Is it not obvious?” he asked dryly, wondering why she would even need to question it.