“I’m so sorry,” Lydia replied, and she meant it. “That does sound awful. It’s hard to imagine Edward refusing to intervene if I was in a similar situation.”
She thought about the way he’d spoken up for her when she had been chastised by her parents at dinner. He was on her side, even if he wasn’t in love with her and refused to consider the possibility that he ever could be. That much had been made abundantly clear.
“I’m sure Edward would help your family if they needed it,” Margaret agreed. “He is a good man, even if he’s not a warm-hearted one. But I have to warn you not to count on anything. It’s like I told you, all the men in this family are the same. They all have priorities that don’t involve their wives. So, even though I do think Edward would always help you, I don’t want to see you depend on that idea and have to be disappointed when it doesn’t work out.”
“I don’t think it’s something that will come up,” Lydia said.
But she was thinking, now, about the other ways Edward had let her down. The way he had paid her so little attention at their wedding. The fact that he had married her without bothering to explain to her what their marriage was going to look like. The way he’d kissed her without thinking about the fact that it might actually mean something to her to be kissed, and then he had acted as if she was the one who’d done something shocking when she had told him she loved him.
Perhaps Margaret was right to point out that the men in this family didn’t care about their wives—that being let down this way was part of being married to them.
If that was true, then Nancy had gotten very lucky, indeed, that her husband was the only one who actually cared.
I can’t believe I thought he might love me. What made me think such a thing? A kiss?
Edward had told Lydia from the very start that there was no love in this marriage, that it was only based on convenience and his own need to show that he was able to make a respectable match so that the men he did business with wouldn’t look down on him. He had never wanted anything else. And everything else they’d ever had was a manifestation of her own wishes—nothing he had ever wanted. Nothing he had ever tried to make happen on his own.
It made Lydia sad to think about it. But at the same time, it was nice, somehow, knowing that someone else had been where she was. Knowing that Margaret had felt this way too, and that she had gotten through it.
“Trust me,” Margaret said briskly, buttering her bread. “There will be plenty of things for you to be happy about in this life, Lydia. There will be plenty of reasons for you to feel joy. Don’t let Edward have control of your happiness, because he’ll only disappoint you, the way his father disappointed me. Discover what’s going to make you happy and seek it out for yourself. That’s the best thing you can do.”
Lydia nodded. “Thank you,” she replied. “I appreciate your advice, Margaret, as always.”
“Perhaps you and I can spend a bit more time together while Edward is away,” Margaret suggested. “I’ve missed your company.”
“I’d like that,” Lydia agreed, smiling.
It no longer seemed so bad that Edward had gone to Bath without her and left her on her own. It would provide Lydia with an opportunity she might not have had otherwise—a chance to reconnect with Margaret. And she found she was glad to have that chance.
But at the same time, she was overwhelmed by a crushing sadness stemming from the fact that Edward would never be able to love her. She had never felt the truth of that more than she did at that moment, hearing from Margaret how his father had been just the same.
She had to admit now that there was a part of her that had clung to the hope that he might change—but he wouldn’t. He was his father’s son, after all, and he had been raised with the values his father had instilled in him. That was the reason he prized business above all else and could never see the importance of love.
He simply wasn’t capable of it.
And meanwhile, she’d allowed herself to fall in love with him.
It had been bad enough knowing that she would never have love in her life. But now, Lydia was going to have to spend her life loving someone who would never return her love, and it felt like the worst fate imaginable.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
“Lydia?”
Lydia looked up from the book she had been reading and smiled at the sight of Margaret standing in the library doorway. “Good afternoon,” she said. “I’m afraid I can’t stay away from these books.”
“Nor should you if you have an interest in them! But I wondered if you might like to step away for a little while you have tea with me in the garden. It’s such a lovely day outside.”
It was two days since Edward had departed for Bath, and Lydia and Margaret had settled into an easy routine. Meals together, tea in the afternoon, and plenty of warm conversation.
Lydia set down her book and rose to her feet at once. “Tea in the garden sounds lovely,” she agreed. “Thank you for coming to find me.”
“Well, you weren’t difficult to find,” Margaret said with a smile. “I knew you would be in the library. That’s where you always are.”
“I’ll say one thing for Edward,” Lydia admitted. “He’s been very generous with his books. I think I may even have taken that generosity for granted from time to time. It’s not just any gentleman who would allow a lady full access to anything she wanted in his library, even if she was his wife.”
“He is generous,” Margaret said. “I’d never try to claim that he has no virtues, and that’s one of them. He’s very generous with his things. It’s only his time and his affection that he hoards jealously. He never had any for me either.”
“You’ve been very forthcoming with me as of late,” Lydia observed.
