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“It is the same! I am a hundred times more committed to my art than I ever was to him,” Diane insisted, stopping herself short of including out loud in the tea shop how physically satisfied her artwork had made her, compared to any hope Martin had.
“Tell me then. You can imagine stealing something from a shop a hundred different times, different ways. It may make you a number of other things, but has it actually made you a thief?”
Diane opened her mouth to further argue her point. When nothing came out, she closed her mouth and frowned. Should the same logic apply to adultery?
Liam couldn’t possibly know the sort of avenues he was opening up. Was it then not unfaithful to lust after the man across the tea table from her? If she had the power to imagine whatever she liked about him... that might be too much.
“Are you well, Miss Carter?” he asked, eyes falling to the fork clutched in her hand, her knuckles white around it.
She let go, the fork clattering little metallic notes as it hit the floor. She stammered, “I-it’s quite a revelation.”
She put her hands against her neck, feeling how hot it had become.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s just—” She dared a glance at him. What a revelation to have in the middle of the day! Why couldn’t it have come about in the evening, when she wouldn’t have to wait hours and hours to explore the limits of it curled up in bed?
Liam’s look of concern cooled and saddened something within her. That look again. That was the look everyone always gave her when they expected her to topple over and swoon.
Diane sighed and straightened up. “I’ve felt... well not as badly as I thought I should have felt, but still uncomfortable about it for a very long time. How terrible a match Martin and I were, what an awful wife I was going to make, unfaithful from the start. It would never be my sort of luck to be in love with the man I made my vows to, but I had hoped I would at least enjoy some part of him. It seems a great pity to find a few squiggles on paper more attractive than your husband.”
Her eyes darted up to his, daring contact after her confession. She was bearing a bit of her soul she’d always thought would be a heavy secret tucked away in her chest.
Liam’s expression had gone soft, his fire-bright eyes warm and creased, his brows drawn together. Not pitying now, but there was something sad in the way he regarded her.
She reached across the table, putting a lace-gloved hand over his wrist. She fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve a moment, pretending to straighten it.
“I suppose I too owe you an apology. You are not as stoic as I had judged you to be,” she offered with a tentative smile.
Liam watched the way she fidgeted with his cuff link. He cracked a brief grin. “I promise, I have a whole range of emotions. Granted, most of them are nerves and worries. They don’t make for good conversation.”
Suddenly, she felt her expression must have mirrored his. Something tugged at her heart, the thought of living a life unexpressed. She hadn’t realized that perhaps his quiet nature could have been a mask.
“I should like to hear them anyway."
“Very well then, Miss Carter.”
She picked up the fork he had used to steal a second bite from her slice of cake with, digging into her own bite and finally tasting the sugar, the cream, the lemon and lavender twisting together. It was divine.
In a lot of ways, today had been everything she had wanted, and exactly as wonderful as she had thought it would be. She had Liam by her side, no one to fuss over her, a slice of cake to share, and the rest of the day open to her whims. The baby goat was even growing on her.
“You mustn’t call me Miss Carter. After all, we’re,” she tilted her head to the window and the carriage outside it. “Just married.”
Liam raised an eyebrow.
“And how are you enjoying your honeymoon, Mrs. Graves?”
The red that burst across her cheeks must have been visible from the road. It felt like it should have been.
Normally she would have tried to push back from the feeling, bury it deep in her stomach. Diane let it out in a wide, silly grin. She sat up straight, speared a bite of her hard-won sponge cake, and made scandalously enjoyed noises as she chewed the decadent bite.
“It’s been a delight,” she declared. “We should have gotten married ages ago.”
All expression seemed to drain away from Liam’s face, then the color as he stared at her.
His eyes dropped to her hand over his wrist.
Then it looked like he made an attempt to reach for her hand, to take it within his own, but he abandoned the motion halfway, to instead curl a fist at his side as he turned his gaze away.
