“Max informed me that you were married. Do you not think of yourself as fortunate? Do you tellyourwife that she is very beautiful?” Caroline said.
It made her uncomfortable to be complimented by the husband of another woman, especially one who had such hunger in his eyes when he looked at her as if she were a roasted goose on the table. More than that, it made her sad.
Is this what my life will be? Will Max be dancing with other men’s wives while I dance with other women’s husbands? Will we be so apart that we do not even attend gatherings together anymore?
She had thought she was alone during the first week of her honeymoon, but she could think of nothing lonelier than being married to someone who became a stranger.
“My wife is nothing compared to you,” James said with a wink, clearly mistaking what it was that Caroline had wanted to hear.
“That is unkind of you,” she scolded, her temper flaring.
Perhaps, she had been spoiled by being in the company of the Spinsters’ Club and their husbands; couples who adored one another with all their hearts and were not afraid to declare it and show it at any given opportunity. As such, she had forgotten that there was another side to the marriages of society—a darker, more miserable, more painful side, where wives and husbands barely tolerated one another.
“Pardon?” James’ nostrils flared, affront evident on his face.
Caroline paid his displeasure no mind. “How did you come to marry your wife?”
James eyed her distrustfully as if she was setting out some manner of trap for him. But as she waited for his reply, keeping her expression patient and sincere, he seemed to relax.
“I met her in her debut Season,” he replied. “She was—is—the sister of a friend of mine, who I have known since Cambridge. The moment she stepped out on her brother’s arm, I knew she was the woman that I would marry. Like an angel, she was. But looks can be deceiving.”
“In what respect?” Caroline pressed, dancing in a horseshoe around James before twirling back into position in front of him.
James shrugged as he echoed the movement. “The first year of our marriage was a magical thing. I could not have been happier. Then, she became sullen and argumentative. We fought more than we showed fondness and, eventually, it became simpler for us to live apart. We see one another every couple of months, and that is more than enough. She would agree.”
“People do not suddenly change,” Caroline pointed out, as he raised his hand above his head and she pressed her palm to it—hesitantly, not sliding her fingers into his as she would have done with Max. “Can you recall anything that might have made her sullen and argumentative?”
James snorted. “Of course not. People change all the time.” He pointed his chin in Max’s direction. “Your husband, for example. He had such dreams of adventuring across the world, seeing everything there is to see. He spoke about it often, making us all jealous with his plans, but then he abandoned them all to play Father to his brother and sister.”
He wanted to travel the world. He never told me that…
Caroline tried to picture her husband stepping away from his study and his tireless work to set sail for foreign shores, emerging from the somewhat hermit-like shell he had fashioned for himself to secure his family’s legacy. But try as she might, she could not do it. In her imagination, the ship’s cabin transformed back into the paneled walls of his study, white sandy beaches became the white gravel pathways of his manor, and bustling marketplaces became him lying in the sun room with Powder Puff on his chest.
“His parents died, Mr. Forster.” Her voice dripped with frost, a defensive streak appearing inside her, bubbling with anger.
“Oh, I am aware of that. Very tragic, of course, but nothing was stopping him from continuing with his plans. Even less stopping him in truth, for his mother and father were not keen on the notion,” James replied nonchalantly. “The earldom would have been waiting for him when he returned. There was a steward in place, and I believe there was an aunt or a cousin who had already offered to look after his siblings. But he just dropped all of his wild dreams like hot potatoes and became thisboring, upstanding gentleman that you see today. When he was younger, he was far more like Dickie.”
“But would that not be areasonfor his change?” she said thickly, glancing at her husband.
He was standing off to the side in the shadow of a velvet drape, sipping gingerly from a glass of port. He was not even looking at the dance floor, unbothered by the fact that his wife was dancing with someone else. Yet, there was something sad about his demeanor, as if the weight of the world was resting upon his broad shoulders.
“You gave no reason for the change in your wife,” she added, turning back to James. “And I suspect there must be one if your marriage suddenly went from magical to miserable.”
James furrowed his brow. “You are suggesting that I am to blame?”
“I was not suggesting that at all unless you can think of something that you might be responsible for,” she retorted. “Did you pay less attention to her? Did you say something unkind? Did you treat other women the way you should have been treating her? Did she hear you say that she did not compare to another woman?”
The creases in his forehead smoothed out as his eyebrows rose upward, a flicker of something like realization dawning across his face. “Would that be enough to change a woman’s heart?”
“Which part?”
“All of it,” James replied, his throat bobbing.
Caroline nodded. “It would certainly harden a woman’s heart. I am no expert, but when a woman is hurt, she will create distance. She will wait for the man in question to try and close that distance, to show her that she is cherished. If he does not close the distance, it will grow wider. So wide, perhaps, that you live almost entirely separate lives.”
That is why I am dancing with you,she neglected to add, for she had wanted Max to ask her not to. She had wanted him to claim her, informing James that no other man but him would be dancing with his wife. When he had not, it had stung, leaving her feeling likeshewas the one trying to narrow the distance between them. And as she glanced at Max again, that distance only seemed to be getting wider.
“I… had not considered that,” James said stiffly, turning a slow circle as the music began to fade to a close.
