Her heart stopped beating. She couldn’t breathe. “Yes?”
“May I?” came his deep voice.
“O-of course,” she said, breathless.
The door opened. He was in his small clothes with a banyan over it all, carrying a small lamp. He looked her over, jerked his gaze up to her eyes, and stammered, “I got a bit lost, I think. I thought that you were in the room across the hall, but you weren’t, and then I didn’t know what to do, and I was about to have to seek someone out for help, wearing this, but then I remembered that it was this room and—” He let out a noise, sort of pained.
She paused too long and then said, very brightly, “It’s all right.”
He set down the lamp. He came further into the room, but not too close to her. He looked at the floor.
She bounced on her bare feet.
The silence stretched on.
“You, um, I hope you are feeling well?” he said, and his voice was very scratchy.
“Oh, quite,” she said. And then, idiotically, “We were blessed with good weather for the wedding today, which was fortunate.”
“Oh, yes,” he told the floor. “It could have just as easily been rainy.”
“Could have,” she agreed. A long pause. “But it wasn’t.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
Another dreadful gaping chasm of silence opened up between them, and she busied herself with running her fingers over the collar line of her shift, trying not to bounce nervously on her feet.
Then, they spoke at the same time.
“It occurs to me—” she said.
And he said, “I am making a hash of—”
Then they both stopped and looked at each other.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“No,” he said, gesturing. “Please. You speak first.”
She took a deep breath. “I was only going to say that it occurs to me that we perhaps don’t have to do anything if you do not wish it. I know we are supposed to, but I don’t really think anyone confirms it, do they? And if there is something about me that is not pleasing to you in any way, or if you do not find me appealing as a woman or in a, erm, a carnal way—”What a word, Elizabeth? Carnal?“Then I shan’t mind that, in the end. I can understand that perhaps I am not, well, I don’t suppose I’m exceedingly plain, but I am no rare beauty—”
“Stop, stop.” He lifted both of his hands.
She cringed, lowering her head, her body flooding with embarrassment.
He came closer to her, very close. “You misinterpret my behavior. I’m not reticent, not at all.”
She didn’t say anything at all.
“You are, indeed, a rare beauty, Lizzy,” he breathed.
Her gaze jerked up to his.
“You think I did this, abandoned everything expected of me, set fire to all the expectations of my family, that my status demands, because I do not find you appealing?”
She swallowed. “Oh.” She was rather stunned. “But I…” She was struck with a foolish inclination to go and look at herself in the mirror again, to try to see it, whatever it was he saw in her.
“Of course you don’t realize,” he said with a small smile. “If you knew what sort of woman you were, the sheer power you command, you’d likely be terrifying to behold. It’s perhaps a blessing—no, it is not. You shall know. I shall show you.” His smile widened. “But I am feeling much the same, truth be told, rather small and unappealing and unsure of myself. So, that is all right. We shall muddle through this together, then.”
