"You don't understand..."
"Then explain it to me! Help me understand why you're so determined to see the worst in me and my family. Help me understand why a broken vase matters more than my relationship with my brothers."
"It's not about the vase!"
"Then what is it about?"
"It's about respect! It's about understanding that some things matter beyond their monetary value. It's about preserving something bigger than individual wants or feelings."
"It's about control," Ophelia countered. "It's about maintaining your perfect world where everyone knows their place and no one disturbs the sacred order of things."
"And what's wrong with order? What's wrong with expecting people to behave with basic courtesy and respect in my home?"
"Our home!" she shouted, finally losing her carefully maintained composure entirely. "It's supposed to be our home, but you've made it clear it will never feel like that. It's your domain where I'm permitted to exist as long as I don't disturb anything or bring my common family around to contaminate it with their merchant ways."
"I never said..."
"You say it every day! Every look, every correction, every reminder that I'm not conducting myself like a proper duchess—it all says the same thing: I'm not good enough for you or this house or the respectable Montclaire name."
"I'm trying to help you!"
"You're trying to change me into someone who doesn't exist! This perfect, silent, dignified duchess who has no past, no family, no opinions that might conflict with yours. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, Alexander, but that woman doesn't exist. There's only me; common, flawed, Coleridge me. And if that's not enough for you, then this marriage is doomed."
The silence that followed seemed to echo through the entire house. They stood facing each other, both breathing hard as if they'd been in physical combat rather than verbal warfare.
"Perhaps it is," Alexander said quietly, and something in Ophelia's chest cracked at the defeat in his voice.
"You believe that?"
"I believe that we're too different. Our worlds, our values, our understanding of what matters...none of it aligns."
"Because you won't let it. You won't even try to see things from my perspective."
"And you won't try to understand mine."
"I've done nothing but try to understand you since I arrived here! I've changed how I dress, how I speak, how I interact with everyone around me, all to try to be the duchess you need me to be. What have you changed, Alexander? What accommodation have you made for me?"
He was quiet, and again, his silence was answer enough.
"That's what I thought," she said, suddenly exhausted. "I'm going to my chambers. Please have dinner sent up on a tray. I can't endure sitting across that enormous table from you tonight pretending everything is fine."
"Ophelia..."
"What else is there to say? You've made your position clear. My family isn't welcome, I'm barely tolerated, and we're both trapped in a marriage neither of us wants. Unless you have something to add to that depressing summary, I'd like to be alone."
She left without waiting for an answer, climbing the stairs to her rooms with legs that felt like lead. Mary was there, taking one look at her face and wisely saying nothing as she helped her out of her morning dress and into something more comfortable.
"Would Your Grace like anything?" Mary asked quietly.
"Just solitude, please."
Mary curtsied and left, and Ophelia curled up in the window seat looking out at the gardens that were as perfect and cold as everything else in this house. Somewhere in the village, her brothers were probably at the inn, raging about her husband and planning how to rescue her from this beautiful prison. And somewhere in this vast house, Alexander was probably in his study, convincing himself that banishing her brothers was the right thing to do for the sake of order and propriety.
She thought about writing to them despite Alexander's prohibition, but what would she say? That they were right abouteverything? That she was disappearing into the role of duchess and losing herself in the process? That her husband saw her as a contamination to be managed rather than a wife to be cherished?
A soft knock at the door interrupted her brooding.
"I asked not to be disturbed," she called.
