“You have been looking for an alternative to Ronnie for a very long time. Months, even.”
“Years,” she said.
“Then that is the opposite of impulsive.”
She nodded, but she did not appear convinced. “My mother…” Her words were cut off. Stopped, and this time he could not get her to start again. Not by squeezing her hands. Not even by touching their knees together.
“I do not remember much of what happened,” he said. “I believe my mother told me, but it was so long ago.”
She looked away. “Mama drowned herself. She was pregnant at the time.”
“Good Lord,” he breathed. “How old were you?”
“Six. It was very confusing.”
“And you—” He cut off his words. This was absolutely not something to discuss with a servant sitting right beside them. Not the question of why her mother would do such a thing or how her father handled the loss. “You were so young.” And now her whole family obviously lived in terror of her repeating her mother’s madness. “But you are nothing like your mother.” Indeed, he suspected that she had been raised since that very day to be the very opposite of her mercurial parent. He just wished he could remember the details of the event.
“Not generally, no,” she said. “But—”
“Not at all.” He flashed her his most charming smile. “Remember, I am well acquainted with impulsiveness. And given the example of my mother and two younger sisters, I can also firmly state that you are not prone to fits, moods, or even the normal female range of excitation.”
She blinked at him. “Are you saying that I am not a normal female?”
He snorted. “Of course you’re not normal! Good Lord, do you think I would engage myself to a normal female? They are the most impossible, unmanageable, and difficult creatures on Earth. You, my dear, are nothing of the sort, and I revere you for it.”
It was the absolute truth, but he feared she didn’t take it as the compliment he intended. She stared at him in open-mouthed horror and slowly drew her hands back. He sighed. He knew from experience with his most irrational sister that some women would take an insult no matter what one said. But he had never counted Mellie as one of those types.
“Surely you see I mean it as a compliment,” he said.
“Surely you see that calling a woman an unnatural creature is nothing but an insult, no matter how it is intended.”
He dropped back onto the squabs, seeing that she was determined in her mood. “You are just worried about what is ahead and grieving what you have left behind.” He shrugged, though inside, his belly tightened with frustration. “Tell me what I can do to ease your mind.”
She opened her mouth to speak—once, twice—and then she dropped her head against the squabs and stared at the ceiling. “I think I should prefer to…”
“Grieve?”
She shrugged. “Think in silence.”
“As you wish.”
So the three of them sat with their own thoughts. It should have been a peaceful trip, but he quickly realized that silence was not his natural habitat. He was so rarely quiet that this silence felt deuced awkward. There was always chatter in his life: with his friends, with the society he often was forced to endure, and even in his own mind. To sit without speaking now was to allow his mind to run rampant with noise. He realized then that his attempts to soothe her had been—at least in part—a way to distract himself from his own fears.
After all, he was now engaged to a woman far beneath his station. They were about to enter the social fray where he had vowed to protect her when they both knew there were distinct limits to what he could do. And yet he had promised. He would do his utmost to see the process through, but it was a daunting task. And if he were honest with himself—which in the silence he was forced to be—he feared he wouldn’t be able to do any of what he intended: protect her, gain his own independence, even so simple a thing as to find her a husband. Herculean tasks.
And in this silent misery, they made their way to London.
* * *
Mellie was nearly dead inside by the time they made it to Lady Eleanor’s Grosvenor Square residence. It was a curious thing how her thoughts and body stilled to the point of total hibernation. In truth she hadn’t even realized how little life remained in her until her fiancé had woken her. In the last twenty-four hours, he’d brought her to brilliant life with kisses and caresses, but then it had all died as they rode in silence toward London.
She didn’t blame him, of course. It wasn’t his fault that she was an unnatural woman, her mother had been mad, and her father lived only for science. But she blamed him for showing her what feelings were, how life could be expressed in laughter and in lust, such as she’d never thought existed before.
And now, as all that awareness died, she learned about pain. Not physical pain, but an ache as that brimming understanding slowly quieted. She was once again sitting without moving, watching silently as life passed her by. It was all she could do to muster the strength to stand and face the home of the esteemed Lady Eleanor.
Meanwhile, Trevor stepped out of the carriage, groaning slightly at his stiff muscles. His jaw had swollen to an ugly and no doubt painful degree. And she was sure he had a myriad of other bruises about his person. And yet he had endured the long carriage ride in silence without a word of complaint. She couldn’t imagine her father doing such a thing. Or Ronnie, for that matter. She hid a small smile. Her uncle was in for a miserable ride back to his home with Ronnie in the carriage.
Meanwhile, Trevor was extending his hand, and she felt awkward as she alighted. Her own body was stiff from the travel, and she winced as her knee popped when she straightened it. She was sure that Lady Eleanor’s knees never made noise.