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Yes.
He wanted her to be happy. He wanted to be why she was happy, at least in part.
“Would you be willing to do anything for her?”
“That is love?” Nathan asked a bit hesitantly.
“They are the symptoms of love.” Rex smiled. “Where there are symptoms, there is usually a cause.”
He was in love with his wife.
How very odd.
* * *
Lily
“We cannot be in love.” Lily shook her head. “I barely know him.”
“You have known him for weeks,” Mary pointed out. “You might not know everything about him, but if I asked you to describe him, I bet you would be able to. I am sure you would defend him if someone maligned him.”
“That is the proper thing to do for anyone who is maligned.” Lily scowled, transferring her gaze to her mother. “Surely, you do not believe this nonsense.” She would have thought her mother far too sensible.
“I believe what is obvious to others is not always known to ourselves.” Lily’s mother smiled serenely. “You two certainly act as if you are in love. What we can see and what you see… well, perhaps you are too close to the situation to see it clearly.”
Lily took a sip of tea to hide her unsettled reaction, mustering her arguments in her mind. Truth be told, she was having trouble finding many that did not have some flaw.
They had not known each other long, but from all she knew about love, sometimes it happened that way. Mary and Rex had fallen quite quickly. In fact, she was sure it had happened before their marriage, though neither of them had realized it.
For all that Josie had sworn she was in love with Elijah’s brother for years, the fact of the matter was, as soon as Joseph was no longer skewing her perception, she had fallen hard and fast for Elijah. The two of them made sense in a way Joseph and Josie never would have.
She would have argued that she and Nathan did not have anything in common, but the more she came to know him, the more she realized they had many similarities between them. They both valued their friendships, though they were not quick to make friends. They both enjoyed time for intellectual pursuits and puzzling out the solution to a problem. They both loved reading.
If she had to describe him, as Mary said, she would say he was intelligent, honorable, thoughtful, and preferred to think before acting but would act decisively in the heat of the moment if needed. She also knew she did not want to share him, and thinking of him one day engaging in activities with other women in The Society made her sick to her stomach. Not that he had said he would not be faithful, but that was hardly a subject they would discuss.
Men did not talk about their mistresses with their wives.
Thinking of Nathan having a mistress made her want to claw the woman’s eyes out, then stomp on his… male appendage. Hard.
Was that what love was?
“How do I know if I am in love?” she asked aloud before realizing she was going to, but if she could not ask these women, then who could she?
Her parents were deeply in love and had been all her life. Mary and Josie had both fallen in love recently. All of them knew her well. The only person missing who knew her as well was Evie, and Lily did not know if Evie had ever been in love.
She did not know if Evie would ever allow herself to be so vulnerable.
Truthfully, she did not like the feeling.
“You will feel it, here, in your heart,” her mother said, touching the center of her chest. “It will warm when he is near or when you make him happy. It will ache when you are apart or he is upset. You will want to be the one to make him smile, the one to comfort him when he is sad, but in ways so much more than as a friend. You know what friendship feels like. Love is that, amplified. That is not to say there will not be ups and downs, hills and valleys throughout your life together, but the important thing is you will face those trials together and come through them as one.”
“That was beautiful,” Mary said solemnly, nodding her agreement. “And very true. Rex and I do not always agree, but when we do fight, I feel closer to him after we work through it.”
Josie snorted.
“To say Elijah and I do not always agree is an understatement. We get through it, though, even if I drive him batty making my point.” She smiled serenely, mischief dancing in her blue eyes. “Of course, I would not have to make my point so pointedly if he did not try to run our marriage like a dictatorship.”
That made them laugh. They all knew Elijah well enough to know it was true. Thank goodness he had married someone who was his match. In a similar way, Mary had needed someone who truly saw her and was wise to her tricks.
