“What is it?” she said. “What do you have to tell me?”
Mabel gave her a look loaded with meaning and put additional distance between herself and the couple. Lily didn’t care that she sounded overwrought—shewasoverwrought. She’d tossed and turned for hours wondering what the issue might be. She’d imagined several terrible scenarios and practiced her side in a dozen different arguments.
Bradford nodded, then swallowed deeply. He stared out over the water for several moments and finally said, “It’s about my late wife. How she died.”
If Lily hadn’t known Bradford so well, she might have been fearful of what he would confess. But he was a good man. She’d seen firsthand how gently he treated the women in his life, down to the lowliest scullery maid.
“I thought she died in childbirth,” Lily said.
He nodded slowly. “That’s what we tell people. There are very few who know the truth of the matter—only me and a few of my servants, who’ve been sworn to secrecy.”
Lily tensed. Though she couldn’t say precisely what was coming, she knew it was going to be something dreadful, if he’d hidden it from her for the entire length of their relationship.
“When I married my wife, I was very young. Perhaps not in years, but in experience. She was very beautiful, and I now can see I was blinded by that beauty.” His mouth twisted with a wry, self-deprecating smile. “I suppose this is as much my confession of the foolishness of my youth as anything.”
Lily waited.
“I didn’t know it until after we were married, but she was also…delicate.”
“Physically delicate?” Her brow furrowed.
Did Bradford blame himself for his wife’s death in childbirth? It was a tragedy, to be sure, but unfortunately, such things weren’t altogether rare. Every woman looked at childbirth as the labyrinth they had to navigate alone in order to attain the lauded title of Mother.
“I suppose she was a bit of that, too, but it isn’t her frame I’m speaking of. Her mind was delicate.”
“How so?” Lily frowned, thinking of her own dislike for enclosed spaces.
“At the start, I noticed she was fastidiously clean, for one,” he said. “If dirt smudged her person, she couldn’t settle until she changed or washed her hands. If her spoon had a water spot, the entire table needed to be reset. Things of that nature.”
Lily frowned. That was odd, but then, every person had a cherished quirk that any other might call strange.
He continued, “You must understand—I truly believed that I loved her. It’s difficult for me to admit how blind and foolish my emotions—my desires—made me.”
“It wasn’t your fault that she was that way, surely.”
It was difficult for her to navigate this conversation. It felt much like being led blindfolded—the other person can see where they’re headed, but the blindfolded person is trying to orient themselves in the dark.
Bradford shook his head. “It’s kind of you to say so, Lily, but I’m trying to explain—not only the truth that I need to tell you, but also how my past has influenced some of my unfair behavior toward you.”
“Very well. I am ready to hear whatever you have to tell me.” Lily nodded and resolved to stay silent going forward. It was clear her interjections weren’t helpful; Bradford seemed to be struggling enough without her interruption.
He smiled at her, but it was a sad kind of smile—one that spoke of past loss and his fear that he might lose her affection, too. Lily was determined that it not be so—not unless he confessed something she found morally objectionable.
People came to marriage with a past, didn’t they? Every single person who’d stood before the matrimonial altar had a number of mistakes trailing after them. Why, there might as well be a string of twine and rocks trailing down the aisle, right along with the lace veil.
“As I’ve said, she was very pretty.” He cleared his throat and yanked at his cravat. “Her family noted my interest when I askedher to dance at a ball. I brought her a glass of punch and spoke with her afterward. I was perhaps too young to be thinking of matrimony—I’d just come into my inheritance and my title. I think, for her family, I was perfect. A gift from heaven.”
Here he exhaled forcefully and shook his head again. “They certainly weren’t going to find another naive young lord whose estate was in the far-flung countryside, that’s for certain.”
Bradford met Lily’s eyes. “Not that they forced the attachment, mind you. However, every place I went after that, Francine was in attendance. It only occurred to me after she was gone that they must have paid someone in my household to tip them off whenever I left the house.”
Lily frowned. That sounded like forcing an attachment to her ears, but she kept her promise and remained silent.
“To me it seemed that it was Providence. Or at the very least, a happy chance. In my mind, Francine and I grew close naturally.” He looked across the pond, lost to memories for several moments. “Of course, now I know better. Our relationship hadn’t come about naturally, and we were never close. We would only speak but a few sentences to each other before she was whisked away by her mother.”
He huffed a humorless laugh. “It’s funny, while I was in the throes of it, I thought her parents were properly protective. Francine had only been presented the month prior, after all. Now, I think they were clever to limit our conversational exposure.”
Lily shook her head, her own hands twisted together with the sheer effort it took her to remain silent. A sense of impending doom tightened her shoulders until they edged closer to her ears.
