“That you have spent a very long time protecting yourself from disappointment by refusing to expect anything good.” He leaned forward slightly, holding her gaze.
“That you have built walls around your capacity for joy with the same precision you apply to lesson plans and household schedules. That somewhere along the way, you decided that it was safer to be measured than to be moved.”
“That is quite an assessment from a man who has spent fifteen years hiding behind scandal and charm.”
“It requires a kindred spirit to recognise its own likeness.”
The silence that followed was different from their usual silences. There was something charged in it, something that crackled beneath the surface like lightning gathering in clouds.
“You presume a great deal,” she said finally.
“I presume nothing. I merely observe.” He allowed himself a small smile.
“It’s what I do.”
Her expression changed for a brief moment, he thought he might have pushed too far, might have crossed some invisible line that would send her retreating back behind her walls. But instead, something in her posture softened.
“You are impossible,” she said. “You know that.”
“I have been told. Frequently. By many people. You would be in excellent company.”
“I have no desire to be in company with the many people who find you impossible.”
“And yet here you are, every evening, in my study, having conversations that extend well past any professional necessity.”
The words hung between them, naming something they had both been carefully not naming. These evening sessions had long since stopped being about the children’s progress. They had become something else, something that neither of them had acknowledged but both of them understood.
“The conversations are educational,” Mel said, but her voice lacked its usual conviction.
“They are. I have learned a great deal about philosophy, about economic theory and the proper classification of British insects.” He paused. “…about you.”
“What have you learned about me?”
“That you take your tea with one sugar, never two, because you consider excess sweetness an indulgence. That you read philosophy because it helps you make sense of a world that has often been unkind. That you came to Hartfell expecting nothing and found something you hadn’t expected.” He held her gaze steadily.
“That you care about those children more than you ever intended to. And that you are terrified of caring about anything that might be taken away.”
She set down her teacup with careful precision. Her hands, he noticed, were not quite steady.
“You have no right to see those things.”
“I have no right to many things. And yet here we are.”
She rose from her chair, and for a moment he thought she was going to leave, was going to retreat to her room and rebuild the walls he had been slowly dismantling over weeks of careful conversation. But instead, she moved to the window, looking out at the darkness beyond.
“When I was sixteen,” she said, her voice quiet, “My father promised he would come home from a meeting with his creditors and take me to see a play. It was to be my birthday gift. I had been looking forward to it for months.”
Rhys said nothing, he simply waited.
“He didn’t come home. Not that night, not ever. He had taken what money we had left and fled to avoid debtor’s prison. My mother and I discovered the truth three days later, when the men came to take our furniture.” She did not turn from the window.
“I learned, that day, not to expect things. Not to want things that might not come. It was safer to prepare for disappointment than to be surprised by it.”
“Mel…”
“You asked what your observations tell you about me. They tell you that I am a woman who has been failed by people she trusted. That I have built walls, as you say, because the alternative is to be devastated again and again by hope that comes to nothing.” She turned from the window to face him.
“You are asking me to lower those walls. You are asking me to hope for something when I have learned, repeatedly, that hope is dangerous.”
