Page 24

“Ah, yes, I am so very fond of all those epic, romantic poems and stories about ‘less distance.’ If I close my eyes now and think of them, my heart cannot help but race,” Beatrice said drily, her eyes searching Teresa’s face with an expression of the saddest concern.

“I ought to box Vincent’s ears for making you do this.

I swear, I shall never forgive him for handing your future to the duke. ”

Teresa sighed softly. “ I did this, Bea. I chose this.” Drawing in a fuller breath, she met her friend’s gaze with a renewed strength.

“You know I adore you with everything I possess, Bea, but you are an unyielding optimist. I relish that about you, make no mistake, but it makes you biased. You believe the best about me, and believe I deserve the rarest kind of love, because you are my dearest friend.”

“And that is a crime?” Beatrice asked, frowning.

“Not in the slightest, but you have never considered, not for a moment, that this is my very best outcome,” Teresa replied gently.

“You have faith that, had I not married Cyrus, there would have been an alternative like my beloved Captain. You have faith that love would have found me, because you have such a fierce will, but I am not the optimist you are. It is not necessarily what I would have chosen, no, but I am coming to accept that there were no better choices for me.”

Everyone had a feeling, in the back of their mind, that the road not taken must have been the better road, refusing to consider that it might well have been worse. Teresa, however, was beginning to see that.

“Mama and Vincent would have discussed it at length, had I not accepted Cyrus, and you can be certain that another match would have been found for me in haste,” Teresa continued sadly.

“Judging by the matches my mother hoped to make before the incident, I shall let you imagine how that might have turned out.”

The color dimmed in Isolde’s cheeks. “But Edmund and I would have sheltered you.”

“I know,” Teresa replied, “but there would have been nothing you could do against Mama and Vincent. You would not have had the opportunity to shelter me; I would have been married to some old goat before I ever saw the seaside. And now, I do not need sheltering. I have the means to be… content.”

Beatrice made a snorting sound of disapproval. “‘Content’ is a filthy word in my vocabulary. Indeed, in my dictionary, it means: not happy, pretending to make the best of it, bursting with unfulfilled potential.”

“Bea, I do not need an epic, romantic love when I have your love and the love of my darling sisters. That is the greatest love story of my life,” Teresa insisted in earnest, taking hold of Beatrice’s hands.

“I admire your faith and your confidence and your optimism with my whole heart but, please, trust me when I say that I could not have attained better, and… I do not mind that.”

She surprised herself, discovering that the last words she spoke echoed true in her mind.

There was no heroic arrival of Captain Frostheart in her imagination, coming to steal her away from the fate she had been dealt.

Instead, there was just a slow, steady thrum of…

calm, with an undercurrent of refreshed determination to actually make the best of her situation.

If tonight brought me and Cyrus closer, who is to say we cannot become closer still?

With reluctance straining and creasing her face, Beatrice managed to contort her features into something like a smile, or resignation at the very least.

“You say that now, but if he ever does anything to truly upset you or hurt you or make you feel as if you are not the special, glorious, ethereal angel that you are, then I shall fetch you from that man and that castle,” Beatrice warned, her expression softening a little more as she squeezed Teresa’s hands.

“Any time, day or night, you light the beacons for me, and I will ride to you and rescue you. I will be your Captain.”

Teresa chuckled, pulling her friend into a hug. “Not my Captain,” she whispered, “but you shall always be my greatest champion. As I am yours.”

“Yes, well, may your husband never face me in a duel,” Beatrice mumbled back, grabbing Isolde and pulling her into the hug with them.

Laughing, and perhaps crying a little, Isolde put her arms around the two younger women. “May love bloom for you, Tessie.” She paused. “And may heaven help whoever falls in love with you, Bea.”

As Teresa reveled in the comfort of her sister and friend, her mind drifted to the gardens of Darnley Castle, and the gardener’s diligent work to make the flowers thrive. If she wanted any sort of affection to blossom between herself and Cyrus, she needed to nurture and water the seeds.

Starting tomorrow, once her sisters and her best friend had departed, she vowed to learn everything there was to know about ‘gardening.’ Indeed, if Mr. Brewster could get a lemon tree to flourish in the temperamental climes of England, she could surely get some kind of connection to grow from the frosty tundra that was her husband.

As she thought back on all of the quietly kind things he had done, she allowed herself to believe that a thaw was not so impossible after all, not if she had the patience and the resolve to help it melt.

No expectations… but just a little bit of hope.