“Am I being ridiculous?” Percy leaned forward, his expression suddenly earnest. “Because it seems to me that you’re both miserable, and I can’t help but wonder why two people whoare clearly attracted to each other insist on maintaining this elaborate charade of indifference.”
“Percival.” The warning in Ewan’s voice was unmistakable.
And his nephew had good sense to hear it all the same. “I’m only saying that perhaps if you spoke to her?—”
“I will not discuss this further.” Ewan stood abruptly, moving to the window that overlooked the gardens.
As if summoned by their conversation, he caught sight of Samantha walking along the rose path, her burgundy dress a splash of color against the greenery.
Even from this distance, he could see the set of her shoulders, the careful way she held herself that spoke of bone-deep loneliness.
Percy was right. She did look forlorn.
“She’s not like the others, you know,” Percy said quietly. “The women you usually… entertain.”
Ewan’s hands clenched at his sides. “What do you know about the women I entertain?”
“I know they never mattered to you. Not really.” Percy joined him at the window, following his gaze. “But she does, doesn’t she?”
The question hung in the air between them, loaded with implications Ewan wasn’t prepared to examine.
Did Samantha matter to him? When had she stopped being merely a means to an end and become… something else entirely?
“She’s my wife,” he said finally. “Of course she matters.”
But that was not what his nephew had meant, and they both knew it. Ewan turned away from the window, away from the sight of his wife walking alone through gardens that should have been theirs to share.
“It doesn’t matter what I feel, Percy. Some things are better left uncomplicated.”
“Or perhaps,” Percy suggested gently, “some things are worth the complication.”
Long after his nephew had left, Ewan remained at the window, watching the empty garden path and wondering when exactly he’d become such a coward.
CHAPTER 15
“Uncle Ewan, I fear I may expire from the sheer magnitude of my mortification,” Percy declared dramatically, adjusting his cravat for the fifth time in as many minutes as they stood at the edge of the Ashworth ballroom.
“You’ll survive,” Ewan replied dryly, though his attention was hardly focused on his nephew’s theatrical distress.
Instead, his gaze kept drifting to where Samantha stood beside them, radiant in emerald silk that made her auburn hair gleam like burnished copper in the candlelight. The neckline was perfectly respectable, yet somehow it still made his mouth go dry.
“But what if I stumble? What if I forget the steps? What if she laughs at my poetry?” Percy continued, wringing his hands as he stared across the room at Miss Charlotte Waverly, a pretty blonde who was currently surrounded by eager suitors.
“Then you’ll learn to write better poetry,” Samantha said gently, placing a reassuring hand on Percy’s arm. “But truly, you mustn’t work yourself into such a state. Miss Waverly seems perfectly lovely.”
“She is perfection incarnate,” Percy sighed, pressing a hand to his chest. “An angel descended from the heavens to?—”
“That is enough,” Ewan interrupted firmly. “Percy, if you approach her spouting that drivel, she will indeed laugh at you. And not in a charming way.”
Percy’s face fell. “Then what should I say?”
Samantha shot her husband a reproving look before turning back to Percy with an encouraging smile. “Simply ask her to dance. Compliment her gown, perhaps comment on the music. Ask her about herself. Nothing too elaborate.”
“But how will she know the depths of my admiration if I don’t?—”
“She’ll know you’re not completely addled,” Ewan said bluntly. “Which is more than can be said at present.”
“Your Grace,” Samantha chided, though he caught the hint of amusement in her voice that made something warm unfurl in his chest.
