It Takes Two to Tangle

Eleven

“Jem? Why did you choose to marry Emily?”

Henry supposed he should have knocked at the door of his brother’s private study before he blurted out the words. Jem was startled; his hands jerked, and he nearly dropped the quizzing glass he was using to study caricatures in a society paper. “Gadzooks, Hal. Didn’t see you there.”

His surprise was understandable. Henry rarely entered Jem’s study for any reason at all, much less to ask him questions about his choice of a wife.

Henry knew Jem did not mind the intrusion, though. He was always willing to talk, especially if he thought Henry was making a rare request for guidance. He set down the paper he’d been scrutinizing and drummed a hand on his wide mahogany desk, flexing his fingers in the circle of light cast by a bronze and glass Argand lamp.

“Come in. Sit, sit, sit. Does this have anything to do with the ball yesterday? Are you thinking to marry, Hal?”

Henry suppressed a sigh at the old nickname and dropped into a chair opposite his brother. “No, not exactly. I am simply wondering how one knows how to choose a lady. Or how one ought to choose.”

This afternoon, a messenger had at last brought another letter from Caro, a quick note of apology for her silence. But with the Blue Room holding Henry’s thoughts like a firefly in a jar, he had not known how to answer it. It lay hidden under a book on the ink-spattered desk in his bedchamber, still awaiting a reply.

He was torn, more torn than he could ever remember feeling before. He had wrung intimacies from Caro on paper; he had stolen them from Frances in a hushed room the color of rain. He’d remembered the desire of the flesh, not just ambition—and ambition seemed a cold, lonely promise compared to the warmth of a woman.

With Frances, he could be himself and forget the world, but the world would always loom, waiting. Caro was a weapon against those who would deny Henry his homecoming. She was bright as a shield, sharp as a saber. More golden than any medal.

Yet he doubted her regard for him, mercurial as she was.

Yet… the more he succumbed to doubt, the more he needed the social certainty she held.

None of it made sense; none of it added up. Henry hoped for a bolt of clarity from Jem, who loved to offer advice almost as much as Emily did—and who would pry into Henry’s reasons far less.

Jem had picked up his quizzing glass again and was twirling it in the fingers of his right hand, his arms slung lazily over those of his chair. His mild countenance was furrowed into an uncharacteristic expression of concentration as he considered his answer. How do you choose?

Jem knew everything—or thought he knew it, which, when one was a wealthy earl, came to nearly the same thing. “D’you know,” he finally said, “I think what I first noticed about Em was her happiness. That’s why I chose her.”

“You’re joking,” Henry said flatly. “You didn’t happen to take note of the fact that she was the most beautiful woman in London?”

Jem shook his head and gave the quizzing glass one final twirl before setting it aside, as if he’d seen all he needed to. “Of course I noticed she was beautiful. But there are scads of beautiful women, Hal. Every year more of them pike into Town. If you pay close attention, though—and I’m not saying you should, because they usually come with overeager mothers—most of them are tiring.”

“You mean tiresome.”

“Not exactly. Tiring. They want things, you see. They want to make the best marriage, or they want to have the most stylish gowns or the wealthiest admirers. All the fuss is exciting for a while, but it tires a man out, always having to compete.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” Henry said slowly. He felt that fatigue himself, every time he was caught in a crowd now. Especially within Caro’s inevitable throng of admirers. As if he had to scrabble for her regard by shouldering others aside.

What was the alternative, though? “Jem, surely you’re not suggesting it’s better to pursue a woman no one else wants, just for the ease of it. That cannot have been true of Emily.”

“Certainly not.” Jem looked offended. “That’s not what I meant at all. I’m saying that it’s better to pursue a woman you enjoy pursuing. I’d never have chased after her for her looks alone, or her influence. There was something else about her that I admired.” He raked a hand through his dark hair. “She was easy to be with.”

Henry coughed, and Jem shot him a quelling look. In the shadow cast away from his lamp’s flame, he was the image of their long-departed father. “Emily was beautiful, as you said. Still is, as much as ever. But she’s happy too. She’s not the tiring sort.”

“I beg to differ. You must not have heard her badgering me about the guest list for last night’s ball.”

“Hal. What I mean is, she doesn’t need to collect things for the sake of collecting them. She never has. She only wears gowns that make her feel beautiful, and she only spends time with people whose company she likes. She wants to please herself, not others. It doesn’t matter to her if the things she likes are the ones other people think are the best.”

“But other people do think so.”

“Well, that’s the effect of happiness for you. She’s satisfied with her choices, so other people think they must be good choices. Then they imitate her.” He lowered his voice, confidential. “She likes that too. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she’s fond of her own way. Rather enjoys being a leader in the ton.”

“That has dawned on me once or twice,” Henry replied drily.

Jem nodded. “That’s the best I can figure. There’s no other reason for so many females to start wearing yellow gowns, for one thing. Em loves the color, but it turns most other women into sick canaries.”

Henry smiled at the description, but Jem needed no reply. He was warming to his subject now. “Just think of who makes you happy, Hal. That’s probably the woman you ought to spend your life with. If you don’t know that much, then you aren’t ready to marry.”

He leaned forward across the desk, his voice confidential. “Em would clout me for saying that. I know she wants to see you settled. If she ever gives you any trouble, though, you may just remind her that she waited almost an entire season before deciding on me.”

Henry’s thoughts were stumbling, falling behind Jem’s words. “She did not always care for you, then.”

He had been away at school when his brother married. He had always assumed Jem’s courtship had gone smoothly because everything always went smoothly for Jem. His suit could never have involved the pain of veiled taunts or letters painfully printed out with an awkward hand. It would not have driven him to the guilty comfort of another woman’s embrace.

“Not at first, she didn’t want me,” Jem said with a grin. He tipped his chair back on two legs, balancing himself by resting his hands on his desk. “I trod on her toes the first time we danced. I couldn’t think of the steps while I was looking at her; she was that amazing. But that wasn’t much fun for her, getting trampled, and she didn’t want to dance with me again. I wore her down over time, though. I knew she was the one for me.”

“You knew Emily was the right choice because she was happy.”

“Yes.” Jem let the front legs of his chair thump onto the floor again. “And I think that’s why I felt happy around her too. I think everyone does. Don’t you?”

Oh, certainly. That is, when she’s not scheming to marry me off or turn me into a spectacle in front of the entire ton.

But Henry understood what his brother meant. Emily was happy. And because she loved Henry, she wanted him to find happiness too. She and Jem both wanted that, even if they did not know how to help him attain it.

How simple Jem made the whole situation sound when he reduced it to his essentials. Think of who makes you happy. But the who might not be the same as what. No woman on earth could bring back the use of Henry’s arm or erase the pain of Quatre Bras.

What was left of happiness, then? He didn’t know, but whether as an artist or a soldier, a lover or husband, he’d always planned to grasp for happiness with two hands.

He couldn’t do that now. So he had to come up with a new plan.

“Did any of that help you?” Jem asked. His expression was eager.

“I’m not certain,” Henry said.

But the seed of an idea was taking root. A strategy at last.

He just had one more letter to write.