Moonwitch

“Would you try and talk to her?” he asked in frustration. “You’ll probably have better luck than I in making her see I’ve only her own interests at heart.”

“Yes, of course.” She turned to go.

“Selena?”

“Yes?” She paused, meeting his gaze. The sudden gentleness in his eyes made her breath catch.

“Thank you for today,” he murmured. “For giving me Clay…and you.”

She felt a glow of pleasure start somewhere in the vicinity of her heart and spread downward through her body. “Yes…of course.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, when I return from town.”

“Yes, of—” Realizing she was about to repeat herself for the third time, Selena merely nodded and returned a soft smile. But as she left Kyle and made her way upstairs, she found herself hoping that Kyle’s words might actually be signaling a turning point in their marriage.

The hope bolstered her spirits as she attempted to soothe Lydia’s broken heart.

“Kyle is a horrid beast!” Lydia proclaimed as soon as Selena entered her room. “Other girls marry at my age.”

Selena repressed a smile as she closed the door behind her. “He only wants you to be well provided for,” she replied.

Lydia gave her a look that labeled her a traitor. “You don’t understand, either! I love Tanner.”

“I think I do, Lydia. I was in love at your age.” Selena paused as a surprising realization struck her; she hadn’t thought of Edward or her first betrothal in weeks.

“But marriage is a serious undertaking,” she continued gently, coming to sit on the bed beside the weeping girl. “You should be very certain of your feelings before making a commitment to spend the rest of your life with a man.” Hypocrite, her conscience scolded as she recalled her hasty marriage to Kyle.

“What happened?” Lydia demanded with a sniff. “When you were in love, I mean?”

“My betrothed was killed in a storm at sea.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“I was, too. For a long while I grieved for him…and I didn’t think anyone could take his place in my heart. When my father pressed me to marry someone else, it didn’t seem to matter that I wasn’t in love. My father was a wonderful man, and I wanted very much to please him. But it would have been a dreadful mistake. I was fortunate to have discovered that before it was too late.”

“Do you love Kyle?”

Selena hesitated only a moment. “Yes,” she said before realizing another truth. What she had felt for Edward had been a girl’s love—adoring and starry-eyed and throbbing with idealistic devotion. What she felt for Kyle was far deeper—the love of a woman for a man.

But her consoling words seemed to have the opposite effect from what she had intended. Lydia’s lower lip began to tremble. “I want someone to love,” she whispered, her tears falling again. “I don’t have anyone. Not since Mama and Papa died.”

“Oh, Lydia…” Selena’s throat tightened as she felt the girl’s misery. It went far beyond the disappointment of losing a beau; anguish and desolation lay naked in her dark eyes.

With a murmur of sorrow, Selena gathered her close. Lydia gave in to the grief then. She buried her face in Selena’s shoulder and wept brokenly. “It isn’t fair,” she sobbed in a muffled voice. “Why did they have to die?”

Silently Selena pressed her cheek against Lydia’s shining chestnut curls, rocking her slowly, knowing mere words would never be enough to ease the pain.

Selena kept a close eye on the troubled young beauty during the next few days. Lydia seemed withdrawn and subdued rather than defiant, acting more like her younger sister, the shy, serious Zoe. Felicity, on the other hand, was the same precocious whirlwind as ever. Of the three, she appeared to have had the least difficulty adjusting to their parents’ death. Yet Selena noticed that even Felicity would occasionally suddenly touch her sisters on the arm, as if to reassure herself that they were still there.

Having lost her own parents, Selena could sympathize entirely. She had no trouble remembering her own pain and loneliness, which she tried to explain to Kyle the morning after her discussion with Lydia.

His expression was troubled as he listened to Selena’s account of the conversation. “Is Lydia really in love with the Parkington boy?” he asked finally.

“She’s convinced of it, but I’m not certain. I think the biggest problem is her grief over your parents’ death. What she needs most—what all the girls need—is understanding and love.”

“We can give them that.”

We. The word warmed her; it rang of duty and companionship, of shared responsibility between husband and wife. Yet Selena had to look away, certain that her feelings for Kyle would be written in her eyes for him to see.