“I respect her,” Owen corrected him.
“That, too.”
“I admire her courage.”
“Also true.”
“That is all,” Owen concluded.
“Then why do you look for her whenever you enter a room?”
Owen said nothing.
“Why do you read her letters before letters of every other obligation, including the ones from your steward which actually determine whether your tenants have roofs?”
“That is an exaggeration.”
“A mild one. And why did you nearly break Lord Fenton’s potted palm when you saw her upset at the ball?”
“I did no such thing.”
“You put your hand on it with murderous force. The poor plant may never recover.”
Owen turned toward the window again, because Thomas’s face had become intolerable.
His friend’s voice softened. “And why, when I ask whether we ought to withdraw for safety’s sake, do you speak of justice, but look as though I have suggested you never see her again?”
The question entered him with unpleasant precision.
Never see her again.
He had not permitted the thought to form plainly. It had hovered at the edge of all his recent considerations, present but unnamed. Their false courtship was temporary. It had been designed as a shield, not a bond.
When the investigation ended, so too would the necessity of calls, walks, letters, and all the small permissions society granted to a man believed to be courting. Aurelia would return to her mother. He would remain in England. His mother would resume her campaign. The season would swallow whatever gossip survived. Life would proceed.
He found he disliked the prospect intensely.
“She sees things clearly,” he tried to explain.
Thomas made his admission fuller. “And you like being seen clearly by her.”
Owen looked back. Thomas did not smile this time. That was the worst of it. Had he been teasing, Owen might have dismissed him. But he spoke now with the sober affection of a friend who understood what the admission cost and would not make sport of it.
Owen sat again, slowly.
“I do not know what I feel,” he said.
It was not quite true. He knew more than he wished to know. He knew he looked for her. He knew her letters affected his mood with an influence wholly disproportionate to paper and ink.
He knew that when she smiled reluctantly, as though happiness had surprised her against her better judgement, he felt an absurd wish to stand between her and every person who had taught her to distrust it. He knew that the thought of another man discovering her worth and being free to offer what hehimself had only pretended to offer produced in him a sensation very like jealousy.
He also knew she had never asked for any of this. Their bargain had been clear. To alter it now, even in his own heart, felt like a breach of faith.
Thomas seemed to follow some portion of this without being told. “Then perhaps begin by admitting that you feel something.”
Owen exhaled. “I feel … something.”
“Excellent. Progress enough for one afternoon. Shall I ring for champagne?”
