“Why?”
“Because I love you, Jane. You must believe me. I’ve grown to love you so much.”
How defeated he sounded, which pleased her. Let him feel as defeated as her for once.
“I doubt you understand how much I loved you from the beginning,” she said, turning back to him. She’d spent all her tears the night before, so she was able to sound calm and heartless, the way she wished to. “I loved you from the moment you said you wished to marry me because I’d been abandoned by another man. How kind and honorable you seemed to me.”
Seemed. Past tense.
He left her bed without touching her, perhaps realizing she would have drawn away if he’d attempted it. She spent the next few days avoiding him, for she felt dazed, restless, full of uneasy emotion. She needed space to breathe and recollect herself. Everything she thought she knew about her marriage was wrong and she wasn’t sure she could ever trust her husband again, which made her afraid.
When she did come across Edward, he seemed a stranger in some sense. Oh, he looked the same. His voice sounded the same, his stature and features were all the same, but also different. Was his smile sincere? Did he love her—as he repeatedly claimed since their argument—or did he not?
Thank goodness she had her pets to lift her spirits. She spent time each day in the kitchens, holding them in turn, stroking their smooth and furry heads, confiding her problems to the only ears that could be trusted not to spread gossip later.
On bright days she took them from the busy kitchens and let them spend time out of doors. Bouncer had his own little corral, just as he’d had at Somerton, and it brought the bunny much joy to hop about and explore new smells and surroundings. She kept sharp watch for hawks who might be attracted to his twitching brown fur.
She took Mr. Cuddles outside in a portable container so he could bask in the sun’s rays to his heart’s content. Edward had had the container specially made with bars set wide enough to allow sun and air for the reptile, but not the opportunity to escape. The container had a strong lock and secure handle so it would not be dropped or accidentally opened. In fact, he’d put a great deal of thought into it before he set his craftsman to the job. The pen for Bouncer, too, had come from Edward’s thoughtfulness. It had been completed already when they arrived in town.
He could be so kind in some things. Was this grounds to forgive him for a marriage tainted by lying and revenge? She wasn’t sure yet. Perhaps his kindness had been born of guilt for his dishonesty, which made it tainted kindness.
On dreary afternoons she went downstairs to the library to keep her mind from spinning in circles. She avoided poetry and romance in favor of grisly murder mysteries and wordy scientific tomes. She was glad her husband had accumulated so many books about animals: habitats, husbandry, observational accounts from many areas of the world. Was that typical for an aristocratic gentleman’s town library, or was this too a kindness he’d performed on her behalf?
In the course of reading books about reptilian species, she came to suspect Mr. Cuddles must be miserable in his existence as her pet. Like her, he was out of his element in a place he never belonged, a place he was forced to stay. She’d done the best she could since she rescued him, giving him a warm habitat and dead rats, and affection.
Perhaps Edward was doing the best he could as well, giving her a safe home and books, and affection enough for a man who hadn’t meant to marry her.
Her mind always turned to such thoughts. One quiet, rainy day, she found herself staring at her book’s pages, not even seeing the print.
“Jane?”
She raised her head at Edward’s voice. He stood in the door of the library, his library, as if he were afraid to approach her in it.
“Hello,” she said. “How are you?”
“I’m well. I’ve just come from Parliament and nothing much is going on, so…” He paused, noting the books piled around her. “Shall I expect you at dinner?”
“No, I would rather not tonight.”
She turned back to her book, but he didn’t leave. She could feel his eyes on her.
“Rosalind has left another calling card,” he said. “She wishes she could come visit, and Elizabeth too.”
Jane did miss her friends. She supposed they worried about her, but if they came to call they’d try to smooth everything over between her and her husband, and Jane would go along with their efforts to placate them, and it would just be more dissemblance.
“Maybe next week,” she hedged. “In the meantime, I’ll write to them.”