“It’s not the same for you. For you, that phrase is mere shorthand.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Your saying you’ve anticipated your marriage vows means you’ve engaged in certain behaviors. You never intended to marry anyone with whom you were . . . doing your anticipating.” He could feel the afterthought rise in her mind. “Did you?” she exclaimed.
He chuckled. “No indeed.”
“See? It’s different for you.”
“It’s different for me because I am a man? An aristocrat? Wealthy?”
He had been asking which, meaning she should choose one of the three options, but she issued a universal “Yes.”
He wanted to add a fourth option, which was that it was different for him because nobody cared. Sir Albert might be oppressing Clementine with his insistence that she marry, but wouldn’t it be nice to exist on some middle ground between that and no one caring whatsoever about how one comported oneself?
But they weren’t talking about him. His shock was coalescing into something sharper. “Perhaps I should have killed Mr. Bull when I had the chance.”
* * *
One of the reasons it was so easy to talk to Archie, Clementine realized, as she considered how to respond to his murderous observation, was that he never rushed to fill silences, or pushed her to do so. He let her think. He seemed open to the possibility that sometimes she might not answer. He communicated, somehow, without actually saying anything, that things between them would go on unperturbed if she chose not to answer.
Which, paradoxically, made herwantto answer. His willingness to be ignored made herwantto tell him everything. His comfort with there being silence between them made herwantto fillit.
Add to that the fact that they were perched on the roof together in the near dark, and Clementine was inclined to let all her secrets spill. It would be such arelief.
She extinguished the lantern. She didn’t want to see him while she spoke, or for him to see her. “Arch, I anticipated my wedding vowswillingly.” That had been difficult to say. But he needed to know that if she was to explain everything. “That’s the beginning of the answer to your question about my so-called realizations, the prerequisite knowledge you need to understand the rest.”
“All right,” he said mildly, and Clementine reflected that Archie was perhaps the only person in her world who would react with mildness to such a confession.Thiswas why she had known, somehow, that he was safe to tell.
Though she had to amend that thought: Olive had reacted with similar sanguinity.
“I don’t regret it,” she added, telling the truth but also perhaps trying to provoke him a little. She wanted to test the boundaries of his tolerance, to find out how safe she was here. He was her dear old friend, but that didn’t necessarily mean his equanimity was limitless.
There was a beat before he said the same thing: “All right.”
She smiled into the dark and laid back down next to him, returning her gaze to the sky. It was easier to talk lying side by side like this. “I don’t regret it, because if I hadn’t done it, I would not have discovered Theo’s true nature.”
“And what was his true nature?”
“Theodore Bull turned out to be a conniving, and, well, violent man.” She paused, trying to think how, and how much, to tell, to see how closely she could match up the edges of the truth with how much Archie could stand to hear. But no. Had she not just decided that Archie was safe? And now that she was tasting the beginning of the relief that came with telling someone the whole, unvarnished truth—more than she had told Olive—she found she did not want to stop short. “You heard the beginning of the story, earlier, about his charm, about how I’d hoped to be of use to his work, his cause.”
“Mmm.”
“I had truly reconciled myself to the idea of marriage to him. Well, no, ‘reconciled’ is not the right word. I was looking forward to it. Well, not precisely that, either.” She huffed a sigh. She was having trouble finding the right words. “You know when there’s something you have to do, so you set your mind to it, and once you’ve done that, you just want to get the thing over with? And perhaps there is even a kind of relief in the doing?”
He gave another murmur of agreement.
“Theo wanted to have the banns called immediately. I agreed, and Father was, of course, thrilled. The first of the three Sundays, we all went to church together. Well, I suppose I should say that Theo went to church with us, as he had not previously been a pious man.”
“I don’t imagine he was.”
“Yes, curious how he found religion just when he was hunting for a bride, isn’t it?”
Archie’s next “Mmm,” was decidedly less placid.
“I found myself at home alone with him after church. My father had lightened up on chaperonage requirements even before Theo came around.” She chuckled. “I sometimes thought hewantedsomething scandalous to happen. Very likely he was of the opinion that was the only way to get me married off.”
“Or perhaps it was that he trusted you.”
