“You deserve nothing less,” Hawkins said smugly.
“You think she will treat you any better?” Talbot countered, and Hawkins’s face fell.
“I hope she will,” he said after a while.
“Try not to agitate her too much, all right?”
“Don’t tell me how to interact with my own sister,” Hawkins said, and Talbot shrugged.
“Whatever you say.”
“Hello, sister,” Nicholas said cheerfully. “How are you feeling?”
When he received no reply, he glanced at Talbot, who gave him a pointed look, as if to say,See?
“I’ve been most anxious to see you again, because I wanted to apologise to you in person, Elizabeth,” he said in a more serious tone then.
“For what exactly?” Lizzie asked without looking up from her knitting.
It looked like she was making some sort of little garment, something for a baby, perhaps? Colin’s heart contracted painfully.
Had she started it for their child? Had she suspected she was increasing?
Had she been?
“For saying those awful things to you the night the two of you… Got engaged. Talbot has come clean and explained the circumstances to me…”
“That’s not what you should be apologising for.”
Colin had never heard his wife use that tone with anyone, least of all her beloved brother. Her mother’s words about Lizzie’s capacity for holding on to her anger swam to the forefront of his mind, and he felt a chill run down his spine.
“Pardon?”
“That. Is. Not. What. You. Should. Be. Apologizing. For.” Elizabeth repeated slowly and rather unkindly. “You should be apologising for having known me for three years and for never having taken the time to discover who I am or to question your belief that I am of low breeding.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Nicholas sighed, and Talbot wanted to roll his eyes. “When I first met you, I was going through some things in my marriage,” Hawkins faltered, and Elizabeth interrupted him.
“Let me guess,” Lizzie tapped her chin with her index finger as she narrowed her eyes and pretended to think, “does it have something to do with the mistress whose house you set me up in? What an appropriate abode for my mother and me,” she said with disdain.
Nicholas looked at Talbot reproachfully, but the other man was too glad not to be the target of his wife’s venom to care about his friend’s anger.
“Well, yes, but…”
“What about theyearsthat followed? You and your wife seemed all right to me then.”
Nicholas hung his head, clearly trying to think of something to say. What he came up with was, “I tried to do right by you.”
“By throwing money at me? Money that our scoundrel fatherowedme? I was so stupid,” she spat as she threw the knitting on the floor by the bed, “I so desperately wanted your love and approval and to be accepted by my father’s family, -”
“Youwereaccepted, Elizabeth,” Nicholas protested vehemently.
“Oh, was I? I must have imagined how cold and dismissive Charlotte always was of me, or how everyone always left me out, and don’t even get me started on our insufferable Aunt Isolde, who you saddled me with to safeguardyourprecious reputation. Well, I never did anything to hurt it! I only agreed to the marriage mart, hoping to makeyouless embarrassed of having a bastard sister!”
Both men winced at her choice of words but were wise enough to remain quiet.
“My brother so wholeheartedly accepted me that he couldn’t even set aside two seconds to listen to me before insulting me.”She slammed her palm down on the pillow next to her as she kept raising her voice.
“I didn’t realise…” Nicholas stammered.
