“It was not planned,” Catherine said at last. “We were in the library late—reviewing documents, speaking of the gathering, the investigation, the risks. And then something between us shifted. The careful distance we had kept seemed suddenly impossible to maintain. He kissed me, and I let him. I wanted it.”
Rosalind nodded, feeling both dreamy and understanding.
“And now?” she asked softly.
Catherine sighed.
“I do not know,” she said, her gaze moving toward the door as if expecting Marcus to appear. “He said beautiful things—he spoke of partnership, of what we have built together. I believed him.”
Rosalind nodded with a warm smile.
“And you still do,” she said. “There can be no fault in that.”
Catherine hesitated.
“Yes,” she said. “But this morning, everything feels fragile. As if I have ventured too much by letting emotion interfere. What if it ruins everything? What if I have mistaken what he truly wants from me?”
Rosalind shook her head.
“No one watching you together could mistake what he wants,” she said.
Catherine’s brow furrowed.
“We have worked so hard to establish trust—to form a partnership that functions,” she said. “If I let myself love him and he finds that inconvenient or undesired, I will have undone the only stability we have managed to create.”
Rosalind put her hands gently on Catherine’s shoulders.
“Cousin,” Rosalind said. “You did not build a foundation merely of function and convenience. You built it on respect, on shared purpose and effort. Love is no threat to that—it is its natural conclusion.”
Catherine bit her lip. It was clear that she wanted to believe what Rosalind was saying. She gave her cousin’s shoulders a light squeeze, as if she was trying to impress her words directly into Catherine, who eventually exhaled sharply.
“But what if it changes everything?” she asked.
Rosalind nodded sagely.
“It already has,” she said. “You are afraid to lose what you have. That is understandable. But do not let fear prevent you from claiming what has already begun to blossom.”
Catherine looked down, her fingers twisting the edge of the folded linen.
“I do not know how to be a wife in the way he might now expect,” she said. “I only know how to be useful.”
Rosalind reached out, covering her cousin’s hand with her own.
“You are more than useful,” she said. “You are cherished. And the man who sees you that way kissed you not in desire alone but with reverence, and he is not likely to forget it overnight. Speak to him. Do not let silence undo what truth has just begun to build.”
Catherine said nothing for a long moment.
“Thank you,” she said at last.
Rosalind smiled again. Catherine’s words had said little, but her eyes said much. Rosalind was getting through to her. And even though there was still some doubt in Catherine’s eyes, Rosalind was confident that she had helped Catherine see what was clearly right before her in her marriage.
“That is what cousins are for,” Rosalind said.
***
Alexander found Marcus standing alone near the edge of the terrace, gaze fixed on the east lawn where scholars and guests had begun drifting toward the library. A breeze stirred the hem of his coat, but he did not seem to notice. His hands were clasped behind his back, his posture straight, yet somehow uncertain.
Alexander approached quietly, stopping a pace behind.
