“But he does,” Catie said. “He just can’t admit it.”
“Why?”
Catie shrugged. “I don’t know, Maddie, but I have a feeling that you do.”
His mother. The thought came to her unbidden. His mother might have been the only other woman he’d ever loved, and he lost her so violently and so young. Jack was afraid to hazard his heart again. Just as he was afraid to risk her own safety.
Maddie sighed. How could she overcome something like that? What could she do to make Jack risk his heart again?
She looked at her cousins. “It’s hopeless.”
Catie raised her eyebrows. “What happened to all your optimism? You’re always saying we should think positively.”
“I know, but this time it really is hopeless. He’ll never jeopardize his heart again.”
“He already has,” Josie told her. “You only have to make him realize it.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Maddie stood back, surveying the ballroom one last time. It was draped in red and blue silk, colors she’d chosen to pay homage to the British military uniform. In one corner was a long table filled with the items for auction. Beside it there was a raised dais, where the auction would take place, with a group of chairs facing it.
In little less than an hour the guests would arrive, and she would hand each a program. Footmen would circulate through the room, carrying silver trays laden with tea cakes, sandwiches, crumpets, and assorted delicacies. More footmen would circulate with coffee, tea, and punch.
“It looks perfect,” Catie said, coming to stand beside her.
“It is perfect,” Maddie said. “For the first time, I’ve done everything exactly the way I wanted. I had time to oversee every detail, no flitting from this society to that and another. All my attention was focused here.”
“I thought you’d hate that.”
“I did too, but I realized that all these years I’ve been trying to do too much. In the end, I accomplished very little. It’s so much better to do one thing really well than a hundred things poorly.”
“Don’t let Blackthorne hear you say that.” Maddie bit her lip.
“He’s still not speaking to you?”
“Oh, he speaks to me, but not about anything of consequence. We talk of the weather, Parliament, rising taxes. We don’t talk about love. I’m afraid to mention the word in conversation. Yesterday I started to say, ‘I love apricots,’ and ended up saying, ‘I lo-like apricots so very much.’ I hate this.”
Catie put a hand on her arm. “Give it time.”
Maddie nodded, her throat too tight to speak. She wanted to give Jack time, knew he needed time, but she needed to hear him tell her that he loved her. She knew he cared, knew he would do anything to protect her, keep her safe. But she wanted the words of love.
Catie squeezed her arm. “Don’t look now, but I think our veterans have arrived.”
Maddie didn’t need to look. She could hear Captain Roberts’s peg leg click on the marble floor in the vestibule and Colonel Shivers and Lieutenant Beebe quarreling about whose joints ached the most.
“They’re early,” Maddie hissed at Catie. “How am I supposed to keep them away from the tea cakes?”
“You’d better think of something.”
JACK STOOD IN THE CORNER of the bustling ballroom and watched Maddie glide from one group to another. Sometimes when he watched her from a distance he couldn’t believe she actually belonged to him. She was so beautiful with her chestnut curls and sapphire eyes, her teasing smile and creamy skin.
He had the urge to touch her, to kiss her each time he saw her. Today she wore a light blue muslin gown that made her waist look tiny and showed a great deal of her rounded shoulders. The color brought out her already amazing eyes. He couldn’t help but imagine that gown crumpled on the floor of their bedroom, and Maddie naked in bed beside him.
Smiling, she left one assemblage and flitted to the next. As soon as she joined the trio of ladies, the women burst into laughter. She had that effect on people. He admired the effortless way she charmed and set them at ease. People genuinely liked her, and she seemed to feel the same.
He, on the other hand, had always felt awkward at social events. He didn’t dance, didn’t flirt, didn’t chitchat. Though he’d done a lot of chitchat lately. The comfortable conversation between Maddie and him had suddenly dried up, and he’d been forced to talk of banalities.
He knew it was his fault. Every time he saw his wife, he worried she’d repeat her declaration. He worried she’d press him to make one. Just one more way love ruined everything.
