Julian’s attention returned to the glass in front of him, though he did not touch it again.
"What do you want, Miss Rosamund?"
She did not answer immediately. Instead, she leaned back slightly, smiling as though she were thoroughly enjoying the exchange.
"I wished to see how you were," she said. "It has been some time since we last spoke properly."
"That was by choice."
"Yes," she said. "Your choice, not mine."
"I have little interest in revisiting old arrangements."
"Nor do I," Rosamund replied. "That is not why I am here, if you can believe it."
"Then you should come to your point."
She watched him for a moment longer, then nodded slightly, as though acknowledging that he would not indulge anything further. It was true, too. Julian did not want to hear any of it, but if she was to insist upon speaking with him, he at least wanted her to say what she needed to.
"Very well," she said. "You are married."
"That is not new information."
"No," she agreed. "But what has followed is."
"I do not know what you believe has followed," he said.
Rosamund held his gaze without hesitation.
"I think you do. I understand you better than anyone else here. I know how you think, how you act when something does not fit within the plans you have made for yourself."
"This is not your concern."
"It is," she said. "Because I can see where this will lead, and in the end I will end up being the one to fix it."
A brief silence followed.
"What you have done," she continued, "and what you are now beginning to do, is a mistake. Your wife is not suited to what you offer. She does not approach things with caution or restraint. She feels deeply, whether she intends to or not, and you are prone to hurting people like that."
Julian did not know quite how to refute such a claim, but he knew he had to. He did not intend to hurt Eleanor, and he never had. He only wanted to help her, but .
"You presume a great deal about my wife. I will not take that lightly, I hope you know."
"I am only observing," she replied. "And I am rarely wrong when I do so. She will come to love you, if she does not already. That is the kind of person she is. Everyone knows as much, and I dare say that you were also quite aware of it."
Julian’s hand stilled against the table.
"And you," Rosamund added, her voice lowering slightly, "will not be able to return it in the way she requires. You will hurt her, and I only wished to tell you that it need not be that way."
Julian did not answer at once. He was more than aware that he did not want to keep his wife at arm’s length, but he needed to. Then again, that was not what the young lady before him had meant. He highly doubted that she had intended for him not to push Eleanor away anymore, after all, for that would be of no benefit to her at all.
Rosamund watched him closely.
"You know that I am right," she said.
Rosamund did not shift her gaze from him as she continued, her tone steady, measured, as though she were guiding him toward a conclusion he had simply failed to reach on his own.
"You have always preferred clarity," she said. "You have never engaged in anything that cannot be managed, and unless I am sorely mistaken, that has not changed."