Page 49 of The Austen Affair

Mr. Balfour squeezes my hand. “My dear, no one can be trusted with their own heart. That is why we give them to others for safekeeping.”

I enter the parlor so quietly that Hugh does not notice me at first. He is hunched over the card table, tinkering with the electrical machine by the orange light of the hearth fire.

“Did you fix it?” I ask, my words so quiet they are barely a breath.

Hugh startles in his chair, whipping around to look at me. I watch as the fear in his face morphs to resentment and then to shame. “No. I didn’t fix it. I can’t fix it.” His lower lip twitches as he mutters, “I can’t fix anything.”

My throat is as dry as sandpaper as I croak out, “I want to apologize.”

Hugh lifts his head, eyes narrowed warily.

“I mean it,” I say. “I know—I know I am to blame. I was thoughtless and I was selfish. You have every reason to want to go home, and even having the smallest part of me hoping to stay, that was a cruelty. I want you to see your family again, Hugh, I really do. I don’t want to stand in your way.

And I am so sorry that the machine is broken.

I promise if it takes the rest of my life, I will find a way to get you back to see your father again. ”

Hugh is holding a screwdriver in his hand, and I can see his fist clenching around it as his jaw tightens. I feel my heart plummeting as I wait for his reply.

“I’m also very sorry,” he says at last. “I have not been the man I wish I was today.” There is a huskiness to his voice as he says it.

Tender but also wild. I realize that his eyes are bloodshot and there is a drained bottle of brandy lying sideways on the card table beside the electrical machine.

“I have been wishing tonight that I could turn back the clock to this afternoon, before it all went wrong, and rectify my own bad behavior.”

The words rush out of me in a breathless implosion. “But I was the one at fault. Everything you said was true.”

Hugh shakes his head roughly. “It does not matter. No, perhaps you were not at your best, but I have also not been at my best at times. In my moments of panic, you have always been kind to me. Whereas when I had the opportunity to return the favor, I attacked. I will not forgive myself for that. It was badly done.”

“Still, I needed to hear it,” I say. “And I would not blame you for being angry with me.”

A muscle ticks again in his jaw. “Oh, trust me, I am that!” But then his face softens again. “But I am also angry with myself. Grandfather Balfour—”

I raise an eyebrow, questioningly.

“That’s what I call him in my head,” Hugh admits, sheepishly. “I cannot call him father. It would be a betrayal.”

I nod. He continues, “He set me straight. I was already feeling the pangs of guilt, and then he told me I was being a right arsehole.” He rolls his shoulders self-consciously.

“If not in those words. It was easier, you know, when I was just furious at you. Now I have to make room inside me to be furious with myself, too. After all, I know better than anyone I have my failings. Who am I to demand anyone else have none?”

I pace farther into the parlor, my bare feet cold on the hardwood. “You’ve been recording Mr. Balfour’s memoirs. Why?”

“Because there was nothing of him in the records,” Hugh says, dark eyes glassy in the light of the fire.

“There was a birth date and death date. And everything else about his life was lost to the dash in the middle. It didn’t seem fair.

” He is clearly fighting back tears. “We didn’t know my father was losing his memory until it was too late to write it all down.

Then he couldn’t talk, and by the time I get back, who knows. I don’t want him to be forgotten.”

I am within a few inches of Hugh now, and I take him by the hand, lacing my fingers with his. “He won’t be, Hugh. I can promise you that. The grief stays. The memories stay. Sometimes, I wish they’d go. So I could stop being haunted by them.”

“No,” Hugh says, face pale with shock. “No, never say that.” He leans down to place a gentle kiss on my forehead.

It is not a romantic gesture in this moment—just a kind one.

The simple kindness of a friend who hates to see me suffering.

My chest expands with the knowledge that on some level, he has forgiven me.

“We’re two sides of the same coin,” he says, his voice soft as a prayer. “I have grief ahead of me, and you have grief behind. If you can ever say such a thing is behind you. But even when we were at odds, I should have given you grace.”

I restrain a tiny sob. I know we are connected still, in some way deeper than I could ever truly name.

Hugh leans his forehead against mine, and we stay there, breathing in each other’s air again. He gives a low, rueful laugh. “And I certainly shouldn’t have told you to run into the arms of William Crawford. That’s madness. Why say the exact opposite of what I want? I want you to choose me.”

I frown. “I do choose you. That was never a question. You understand that, don’t you? The idea of accepting anyone else is laughable when I know that you exist. In all of space and time, there will never be another person who could compete against you.”

My heart is doing wild pitter-patters in my chest. Because although Hugh is the only choice I want to make, the what-ifs remain terrifying.

What if we both choose each other today, and in two years, or ten, or twenty, we suddenly stop choosing each other?

What if one day Hugh walks away like my dad walked out on Mom?

What if his career outpaces mine and I resent him?

What if one of us falls in love with someone else on set?

What if I get brain cancer and die in my midforties and he is left shattered without me?

What if he develops his father’s condition and I am forced to sit by his bedside as I watch him forget me?

There are so many variables that go into living a happy life with the person you love. Love alone is not enough. It can always be ripped away from you. I can see, for perhaps the first time, why Hugh is constantly planning. He is clinging to the life raft of pure reason in a chaotic universe.

Life is short and unpredictable, and yet we choose love anyway. We choose love over and over. Because if nothing is guaranteed, doesn’t that make it even more important, then, to grab love with both hands when it’s right there in front of you?