It was a lie, but it would give her comfort to think that her brother’s grave had been marked, if only with a small pile of stones.
He picked up his empty glass, fiddling it around in his fingers. There were a few drops left in the slightly rounded bottom, and he watched as they rolled this way and that, always following the same dampened path. How hard would he have to tilt the glass to force a new rivulet? And could he do the same with his life? Could he just tilt things hard enough to change the outcome? What if he threw it all upside down? What then?
But even with all this going on inside, his expression did not change. He could feel the stasis on his face, a steady evenness, devoid of emotion. It was what he had to do. One crack, and God only knew what was going to come pouring out.
“You should take the ring,” he said.
She gave a little nod and picked it up, blinking back tears as she looked down at it. Edward knew what she’d see. The Harcourts had no coat of arms that he knew of, so the flat plane of Thomas’s ring bore only the letter H, elegantly scripted with one flourishing swirl at the base.
But then Cecilia turned it over and looked inside. Edward straightened a bit, curious now. He had not known to look for an inscription. Maybe it wasn’t Thomas’s ring. Maybe Colonel Stubbs had lied. Maybe—
An agonized sob burst from Cecilia’s lips, the sound so sudden and harsh that she almost looked surprised that it had come from her. Her hand formed a fist around the ring, and she seemed to crumple right there in front of him, laying her head on her forearm as she cried.
God help him, he reached out and took her hand.
Whatever she had done, for whatever reason, he could not confront her about it now.
“I knew . . .” she said, gasping for breath. “I knew he was probably dead. But my head and my heart . . . They weren’t in the same place.” She looked up, her eyes luminous in her tear-streaked face. “Do you know what I mean?”
He didn’t trust himself to do anything but nod. He wasn’t sure his head and his heart would ever be in the same place again.
Edward picked up the ring, wondering about the inscription. He turned so that the inside caught a bit of the light.
Thomas Horatio
“All of the men in my family have the same ring,” Cecilia said. “Their given names are engraved on the inside so that they can tell them apart.”
“Horatio,” Edward murmured. “I never knew.”
“My father’s grandfather was called Horace,” she said. She seemed to be calming down. Ordinary conversation could do that for a person. “But my mother hated the name. And now—” She let out a choked laugh, followed by an inelegant swipe of her face with the back of her hand. Edward would have offered her a handkerchief if he’d had one. But he’d rushed out that morning, eager to surprise her with treats. He hadn’t thought he’d be gone above twenty minutes.
“My cousin is named Horace,” she said, almost—but not quite—rolling her eyes. “The one who wanted to marry me.”
Edward looked down at his fingers and realized he’d been rolling the ring around between them. He set it down.
“I hate him,” she said, with enough intensity to compel him to look up. Her eyes were burning. He wouldn’t have thought the pale hue could contain such heat, but then he remembered that when fire burned hot, the color of it turned cold.
“I hate him so much,” she went on. “If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have—” She drew in a loud, sudden sniffle. From the looks of her, she hadn’t felt it coming on.
“You wouldn’t have what?” Edward asked softly.
She didn’t answer right away. Finally, she swallowed and said, “I probably wouldn’t have come here.”
“And you wouldn’t have married me.”
He looked up, caught her gaze directly. If she was going to come clean, now would be the time. According to her story, she had not taken part in her half of the proxy marriage until she was on the ship.
“If you had not sailed to New York,” Edward continued, “when would you have married me?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“So maybe it was for the best.” He wondered if she could hear what he heard in his own voice. It was a little too low, a little too smooth.
He was baiting her. He could not help it.
She gave him an odd look.
“If Cousin Horace had not harassed you,” Edward continued, “we would not be wed. Although I suppose . . .” He let his words trail off deliberately, waiting until she had to prod him to continue.
“You suppose . . .”
“I suppose I would think we were married,” he said. “After all, I went through with the proxy ceremony months ago. Think of it, all this time, I could have been a single man and not realized it.”
He looked up, briefly. Say something.
She didn’t.
Edward picked up his glass and tossed back the last dregs, not that there was really much of anything there.
“What happens now?” she whispered.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“Did he have any things? Beyond the ring?”
Edward thought back to that last day before he and Thomas had left for Connecticut. They had not known how long they would be gone, so the colonel had made arrangements to store their things. “Colonel Stubbs should have his effects,” he said. “I will have them brought to you.”
“Thank you.”
“He had a miniature of you,” Edward blurted out.
“I beg your pardon?”
“A miniature. He always had it. I mean, no, he didn’t carry it with him at all times or anything like that, but when we moved he always made sure it was with him.”
Her lips trembled with the hint of a smile. “I have one of him as well. Didn’t I show it to you?”
Edward shook his head.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I should have done.” She slumped a bit, looking utterly lost and forlorn. “They were painted at the same time. I think I was sixteen.”
“Yes, you look younger in it.”
For a moment she looked confused, then she blinked several times and said, “You’ve seen it. Of course. Thomas said that he’d showed it to you.”
Edward nodded.
“Once or twice,” he lied. There was no need for her to know how many hours he’d spent staring at her image, wondering if she could possibly be as kind and funny as she was in her letters.
“I never thought it was a very good likeness,” she said. “The artist made my hair too bright. And I never smile like that.”
No, she didn’t. But to say so would be to admit he knew the painting far better than “once or twice” would imply.
Cecilia reached out and took the ring. She held it in both hands, pinched between her thumbs and forefingers.
She stared at it. For such a long time, she stared at it. “Do you want to go back to the inn?” she finally asked.
But she didn’t look up.
And because Edward did not trust himself to be alone with her, he said, “I need to be by myself right now.”
“Of course.” She said it too quickly, and she lurched to her feet. The ring disappeared into her fist. “I do too.”