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“And that’s why you left?”
She hesitated. “Not entirely. It was everything. Being banned from the club, the broken engagement, the feeling of being suffocated with no one to turn to.”
“May I ask why you ended the engagement?”
A thing he knew that had the potential to cost her a lot, especially her reputation.
Her lips curved in a smile that did not reach her eyes. “I do not think he cares about the things I feel or want. He was very centered on his self. He did not care to hear what I wanted from the union. In his mind, I was already his, and he need make no concessions.”
A decidedly fierce and stubborn look entered her expression.
“I won’t become a tawdry possession. Not ever.”
She turned her defiant gaze to him, but he didn’t shirk away. In the eyes of the law, a woman was the possession of her husband, every bit as much as were the children of that union. But there was a world of difference from a man who treated his wife that way and one who valued her opinion and happiness. He’d seen it with his parents, before his father had passed.
So he found himself asking, “What did you want from the union?”
Her mouth twisted in a self-deprecating manner. “Time, I suppose.” She clipped off her words.
Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath before she answered. “I asked him for a year of travel as our honeymoon. A few years in London after that, so I wouldn’t have to say goodbye to my friends so soon. I asked for time before we filled the nursery, and he wouldn’t give it to me. I’d already lost my friends at that point. I left that night.”
“He is a fool if he wouldn’t give you even that. You aren’t asking for the moon.” Thaddeus struggled with the burn of disbelief in his chest. Her former fiancé was indeed a fool. To have a woman like Perdie at his side, Thaddeus would lay the world at her feet. Yet she barely asked for a slice of it.
But if he hadn’t, she and Thaddeus would never have met.
She held his gaze with a depth of emotion that rendered him speechless. “I didn’t feel like it was a lot to ask. Though I felt a sodding fool when he said no. All I wanted—all I want is to take something for me. I do not want to feel trapped or unhappy with my lot. Then I am expected to feel guilty to own such a desire, as if I should know my place in the world and not dare to step from it. But I dared and I will not regret it.”
And what many fools would not understand that if they showed a woman that she did not matter, that her dreams were dust for them to kick away with their arrogant and polished shoes, such selfish actions would kill whatever love had been brewing for them.
This fool had perhaps been her first tendre, and he had bruised her heart, but he had not broken it. And Thaddeus was damn glad of it. He still had a sister pining away for a particular gentleman though months had passed.
Perdie was not pining away. She appeared wildly defiant and hauntingly beautiful.
He changed the subject, not liking the unhappiness that shadowed her lovely eyes. “The birds are out tonight. I haven’t had time to make a proper study of them in Hertfordshire. Though I doubt they differ much from those in Cambridge.”
“Is that where you’re headed? Cambridge?”
He started to shake his head and tell her the truth—that he’d spent a great deal of time at Cambridge University—but he bit his tongue. “I’ll tell you nothing of my secrets unless you’re willing to share your own.”
She huffed again but it sounded like a sweet chuckle. He was charming her. Thaddeus bit back a smile, even though she probably couldn’t see it.
“You study birds, then?”
He shrugged. “A hobby. It’s calming, to sit and observe nature as it goes on around you.”
A bird gave an open throated song, and he found himself shutting his eyes to enjoy it.
“A nightingale.”
“No,” he corrected. “Only a robin.”
“And you are such an expert to be able to tell them apart in the dark?”
He laughed. She was leaning closer to him again, near enough to feel the heat of her body. He wanted to clasp his hand around her hip and draw her closer still. Impropriety be damned.
Hearing her almost name him husband, even in jest, had changed something in him, slotted something into place. If he had to marry, why not a beautiful, captivating, brazen woman not afraid to stand toe to toe with him? His married life would be anything but dull.
Who are you and where are you headed?
