Chapter 14
Sebastian and I repaired something too.
Not friendship.
Trust has categories.
We met twice a year now to manage border issues between families.
Openly.
No secret letters.
No hidden brides.
He hated the jokes.
I enjoyed them.
At one meeting he said:
“Rosamund would be unbearable about this.”
“Yes.”
“She’d say we wasted fifteen years proving secrecy creates problems.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did she keep Dominic secret?”
Good question.
Because mercy sometimes needs privacy.
But privacy can become burden when carried too long.
Rosamund protected a young man.
Good.
Then she never created a path for truth later.
Less good.
The dead do not become perfect because they cannot revise themselves.
That realization freed something in me.
I could love Rosamund without using her as answer to every present problem.
Isabetta had been wrong to fabricate betrayal.
I had also made Rosamund impossible to live beside because I remembered her mostly through excellence.
I started speaking about her mistakes too.
She hated apologizing.
Lost jewelry constantly.
Once ignored me for two days over a dinner seating argument neither of us could remember later.
Human.
Nathaniel appreciated that.
So did staff who had grown tired of hearing “Mrs. Hawthorne would have…”
Rosamund had become a standard no actual woman could survive.
I helped build that.
I dismantled it carefully.
May you like
Not because Isabetta demanded.
Because love should not fossilize someone into weapon.
