“Do not,” Nora advised, sipping her tea delicately “Enjoy it while it lasts, my dear. There will come a day, some years hence, when he is far too occupied with the affairs of the estate and the demands of several children to chase after your shadow so closely, and you will find yourself rather missing it.”
“May I ask you something rather forward?” Penelope questioned suddenly. “You needn't answer if it is unwelcome.”
“You may ask.” Phoebe nodded.
“Was it very difficult, in the beginning? I only wonder, because Jane has told us a little of how the marriage began, and I confess I have often thought how frightening it must be, to marry a man on such terms and hope, against all sense, that something more might grow from it.”
Phoebe considered the question honestly, turning her teacup slowly in her hands.
“It was difficult,” she admitted. “There were times I believed I had made a grave error – not in marrying him, precisely, but in allowing myself to hope for anything beyond what we had agreed to. I told myself repeatedly that hope of that sort was foolish, and dangerous, and likely to end in nothing but heartbreak.”
“And yet here you are,” Nora pointed out gently.
“And yet here I am.” Phoebe smiled, though it came with a faint ache of memory. “I do not think I would counsel anyone to enter such an arrangement lightly, nor to expect that every such arrangement ends as mine has. But I have learned that hope, however foolish it feels at the time, is rarely wasted entirely. Even when it does not deliver precisely what one wished for, it tends to teach a person something worth keeping.”
“That is either very wise or very romantic,” Penelope said. “I cannot decide which.”
“Perhaps it is both,” Jane offered. “The best truths generally are.”
The afternoon passed more easily than Phoebe could have anticipated after that – the ladies were quick to draw her further into conversation, quicker still to make clear that her company was genuinely wanted rather than merely tolerated. They traded stories of their own marriages and the particular absurdities of husbands who loved fiercely but expressed it in the strangest ways. By the time the tea had gone cold in its pot, Phoebe found herself with a standing invitation to join their circle whenever she pleased, and a warmth in her chest that had little to do with the position of the sun in the sky outside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“You have not once complained of the cold this morning,” Thomas had observed, as they returned home on their horses. “Nor of the early hour, nor of my company, which I confess is the most alarming symptom of all. Are you unwell, Edward?”
“I am in remarkably good health, thank you,” Edward scoffed.
“That is precisely what concerns me.” Thomas had guided his horse alongside Edward's, unwilling to let the matter drop. “The last time I saw you in a mood such as this, you were drinking yourself insensible in my guest room and refusing to speak to your own wife. Now you cannot seem to stop speaking of her. I find the transformation rather dizzying.”
“Things change, Thomas.”
“Evidently.” Thomas had studied him a moment longer, his teasing giving way to something quieter. “You were so certain,that morning, that loving her would only ruin her in the end. It was rather hard to forget, given how thoroughly it derailed my own peaceful household for the better part of a week.”
“I remember it as well.” Edward's gaze had drifted toward the horizon, towards the Ravencroft estate, and the woman he knew was waiting somewhere within it. “I was wrong, I think. Or not entirely wrong – the grief might come regardless, whatever I do. But I understand now that keeping her at a distance will not spare either of us from that grief. It only guaranteed that we would lose each other twice over, for no good reason at all. Once when I die, and once again, needlessly, in all the years before it, spent apart out of my own cowardice.”
“And are you no longer afraid, then?” Thomas asked, more gently than his usual manner allowed.
“I am still afraid,” Edward admitted. “I suspect I always shall be, to some degree. But I have decided the fear is not worth what it costs me, if I allow it to govern everything else I might otherwise have. I would rather dwell on what I have – Phoebe, our child, whatever years I am given – than mourn a future I cannot control before it has even arrived.”
Thomas said nothing for a long moment, then something unusually solemn settling over his features.
“That,” he said finally, “Is very possibly the wisest thing I have ever heard you say, during the entirety of our friendship.
“Do not grow accustomed to it. I do not believe I will consistently share my thoughts like this,” Edward grumbled, tightening his grip on the reins of his horse.
“I would not dream of it.” Thomas nodded with a smile that was warmer than his teasing usually allowed.
Little else was said for the remainder of the ride, both men seemingly content to simply wallow in the silence, appreciative of the recent changes in their lives.
They soon arrived at Thomas’ estate and the man himself relayed the gist of their conversation in a light hearted manner to Phoebe, while Edward was occupied greeting the other ladies, with the particular satisfaction of a man who had watched his closest friend claw his way back from something dark and was determined to share his pride with everyone who mattered.
“He very nearly did not come home from my house that last time,” Thomas told her privately. “I have never seen a man so thoroughly convinced that his own happiness was a danger to someone else.”
“And now?”
“Now,” Thomas said, with visible satisfaction, “I asked him again this morning whether he still feared dying. Do you know what he told me?”
Phoebe shook her head, throat tight.