Page 45 of The Duke’s Wager

“Do you…” It was Lucy who broke the silence, and Edward turned to look at her. Her face was flushed, and she glanced at her hands for a second before looking up at him. “Do you visit them often?”

Edward sighed.

“Not nearly as often as I would like, but I do visit as much as I can. What about you? I’ve never seen you here.”

“I…” Again, Lucy hesitated. It seemed as though she searched her mind for the correct answer. Edward did not understand this. Was the question as loaded for her as it was for him? Perhaps even more?

“I visit as often as I can. It’s…” She leaned forward suddenly. Everything about her in that moment was authentic, earnest. “It’s the only place where I can feel her, you know? When I’m here… my mother is more than a faded memory. When I’m here, she is real.”

Pity bubbled in him at this admission. She had been so young when she had lost her mother, but older than him – old enough to realize what it meant. He understood well how difficult that was.

“Do you remember her at all?”

Once again, Lucy’s eyes shifted from him to the hands on her lap. She was nervous, he realized. Something about the line of this conversation caused her tension, and yet he could not stop. He wanted to know more about her – the real her.

“I remember bits and pieces. I can remember her smile, and the sound of her voice when she told me a story, but… everything is so vague.” She sighed and looked at a point beyond his shoulders. Edward was certain that she was trying her hardest to refrain from crying. “Sometimes I’m not sure what is real and what is not. I convince myself that something is a memory or a dream, but… I’m never truly certain.”

He wanted to comfort her, wanted to make her feel better, and there was only one way he knew how.

“It’s for the better, Lucy. Trust me.”

His voice almost sounded harsh. It was not at all what he had intended. Lucy looked at him with wide eyes, as though he had slapped her, and he softened his voice.

“I… I remember my father. Rather vividly. There’s a lot of clarity in my memory, and sometimes… No, not sometimes. Quite often actually, I wish that I didn’t. I wish his memory could fade to one of vagueness too.”

Lucy just looked at him, and he sighed. “The memories… he was human and fallible. Far too fallible. I don’t exactly have the fondest memories of my father, and that pains me to this day. It colors all that I do – even when I mourn him.”

Lucy was quiet for a while. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. “Memories, even the bad ones, are important. You fault your father for being human, but we all are. That’s what the bad memories show us: that it’s alright to be fallible, it’s normal to be human. It teaches us that every moment of life is important.”

Edward just stared at her silently. It was certainly a unique perspective, and judging by the blush on her face, she knew this too. She spoke quickly, almost falling over her words.

“That’s how I see it, at least. You must think it terribly childish of me, but…”

“No.” He interrupted her quickly and shook his head. It felt like he was seeing her for the very first time. “I envy you, Lucy.”

She laughed. It was the second time Edward Lockhart claimed to envy her – and it seemed that it was not something she easily believed. “Why do you envy me this time?”

“You have a gift for seeing the good in everything.”

Lucy opened her mouth to speak, but Edward quickly shook his head, effectively silencing her. “No, listen… Even with a reputation like yours, you look at bad memories, and where others see their horror, you find meaning in them. Do you know how rare it is, Lucy? To think like you do, to manage to see the good even in the most awful of people, circumstances, memories?”

Once again, Lucy was quiet for a few long moments. Edward looked at her anxiously, afraid that he had said something to offend and upset her. When she finally spoke, tears were audible in her voice.

“Oh, Edward. If only you knew… That is far from the case, I am afraid. I am the last person you should envy. I am a fraud, you see.”

This did not make sense in the slightest, and Edward frowned.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Lucy sighed and wrung her hands together. Whatever it was that was bothering her, Edward could see that it was something poignant – something that shaped her very being.

“Seeing the good in everything… It doesn’t come as naturally as I pretend it does.”

For a minute, Edward was certain that she was going to say more – that this was the moment that she would open up to him, show him who she truly was and how to get behind the mask she so often donned.

He waited silently, hoping that she would say more. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she sighed. “You believe you ought to envy me, but it is the opposite. I can assure you of that.”

From the way she folded her hands neatly in her lap, he could ascertain that he was not going to get anything else out of her – at least not today.