‘You stopped going out so much.’
‘I’ve not been invited—not that it mattered.’
‘I meant in the garden. You used to spend hours and hours outside.’
She laughed. ‘Part of it was a quiet rebellion. Mother had told me that my skin would blemish in the sun and no one would want to marry me.’
His grumble barely reached her ears. ‘I thought you were spending time with me—because you were interested in becoming a duchess.’
‘You did make my rebellion more enjoyable.’
‘And you made the studies more tolerable.’
‘Did you envy others their freedom?’
He shook his head. ‘I was fortunate. With privilege there is responsibility. My mother said it over and over.’
Another silence surrounded them, but didn’t separate. This time, he spoke. ‘I was curious, though. To not have a purpose would have been strange and I didn’t want that. Everyone’s future is mapped for them to some degree, so I didn’t rail against my good fortune of having the best of life. But the common life—the rest of life is so foreign to me. How can I represent the country well without understanding all of it?’
‘So that is why you noticed me. My commonness?’
‘Lily. Don’t put words in my mouth.’
‘I want to know what you really think.’
‘Then don’t jump to conclusions about what I say.’
She let the skirt she still clasped fall from her fingers. ‘You have been so trained to be a duke and lived it so long—that I wonder if what you say is what you really feel or what you have been trained to feel?’
‘Does it matter?’ Each word could stand alone.
‘It might some day. If you are deciding on your marriage now because it is what you are supposed to do.’
This time she heard his inward breath, slow and measured. ‘On my sickbed, I could hear the voices around me, but I didn’t want to speak or even open my eyes. My brother Andrew asked, “Do you think he will die tonight?”
‘I heard my brother Steven answer. He said no, I wouldn’t die that night.’ He continued to face her, but didn’t see her. ‘I didn’t care one way or the other.’
The honeysuckle touched her nose again and this time the sweetness churned her stomach. He’d been so pale and the pupils of his eyes so strange.
‘My family gathered around me, but at a distance. My mother would move close, but only for a second. My burns weren’t contagious; they all had to know that. They all kept their respectful distance. Respectful. Distance.’
‘But they were with you. You could not have wanted them to smother you with closeness.’
‘I didn’t. But my life felt wasted. All the work I’d done didn’t matter.’
‘So now you worry about having an heir?’ She called him back from his memories.
‘No.’ The quiet word slashed the air. ‘I only want to do the best I can with the time I have left. I was trained to be a duke, so I did precisely as I should. Motions. All the right ones. I still believe in them. But I want more from life.’
‘You want a touch of commonness? A wife who has lived on the edge of society, one foot in and one foot out.’
‘Is that wrong?’
‘It could be if you look around in a few years and discover that you are a duke through and through, and these moments are a reaction because you almost died. Then you might wish for a wife who is completely in society and has the same strength in her bloodlines as you do.’
‘I might wish for a wife who’d be willing to hold my hand when I lay dying and who would miss me.’
‘I don’t think marriage necessarily provides those things.’
‘It should.’
‘Yes. But, if anything, marriage seems to move people apart, instead of closer together.’
‘My parents had a good marriage—mostly.’
She shook her head, disagreeing. ‘You can hire someone to hold your hand and you can live a life so that others miss you. Marriage is tiresome. I understand your need to have heirs. And you should find someone who can stand with you in public and create the world you wish to have around you.’
She stepped back. ‘But don’t invest your heart in someone. It’s too risky and the return on the investment is dismal, from what I’ve seen.’
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