Six weeks later
Gaston was going to America. Belle had known this was coming since before her wedding, and she had thought she was ready for it. It was in every way the right choice for him to make. He'd find an heiress to boost up the failing estate and a wife who wouldn't know of his cousin's shame. Dollar Princesses, as they were known, were all the rage in certain circles, although Belle had been encouraged to find them politely distasteful. Her position in society had been secure (or so she'd thought), but her friends and their mothers hated them with a passion that bordered on obsession. Every American heiress to come to London was another bachelor off the marriage market, and titles were becoming a bit thin on the ground.
Of course, none of that particularly mattered to Belle anymore. She was ruined and then married; titles were quite beyond her concern at the moment. But even as she sat across from Rhys in the carriage on the way to her father's home, she knew that she'd dislike whoever Gaston chose to marry no matter what. Whether he chose the most wonderful woman in Boston or a girl off the corner in Whitechapel, his bride would be inheriting a life that should have belonged to Belle.
She knew it was petty, and she hated herself for this jealousy. It wasn't even about Gaston, it was everything he represented. It was her mother's ring, it was her childhood home, it was servants who had watched her grow from a girl into a woman, it was social seasons and holidays and children and a life that was now completely lost to her. She had been raised her entire life to be Lady Belle, and she just wasn't sure what to do now that her life had changed so fully from what it was supposed to be.
At least her father was happy to see her when she was escorted into the drawing room with her husband.
"Belle!" he exclaimed, standing up and lurching forward just enough to let her know he'd been about to embrace her before remembering himself and staying where he was. "How have you been?"
"I've been well, Papa," she reassured him, going to him and letting him hug her tightly. "I've been very, very well."
She smiled at him as sincerely as she could, hoping he'd believe her as he searched her face for signs of distress. She'd have told him the same thing whether she were happy or not, but she wasn't lying. Rhys had been nothing but solicitous and understanding. She honestly couldn't have asked for a better husband in this situation, and she hated herself a little bit for her greed in wanting more.
Gaston greeted her kindly, but not as warmly as he used to. She understood, though. He had never wanted to be on the marriage market, and she didn't think the idea of going to America had ever held any particular appeal for him. He was at his most comfortable in the country and in private groups. Hunting, fishing, and sport were his passions; he'd never learned more than the very basics of dancing. Now he was supposed to travel across the ocean to stay with someone her father distantly knew and who Belle had never met in order to hopefully catch a bride. He was never a man who liked change, and now everything was changing whether he wanted it to or not.
Fortunately, the rest of her visit was taken up with her father being entirely focused on her and her wellbeing. He'd visited her in her new home a handful of times since the wedding, but she hadn't been back to his house in the weeks since her marriage. She thought it was hard for him to think of her as a wife now.
Belle was an only child, and her father had spoiled and pampered her into oblivion. He had loved her mother desperately, and had refused to remarry after Colette had died in childbirth. Instead, he had declared Gaston his heir, bringing the cousin into his home and raising him to marry his daughter and take over as Lord.
Belle had always wondered if Gaston might grow to love her the way her father had loved her mother, but had never truly dared to hope. It hadn't ever really occurred to her to try to love him that way, though she wasn't sure why. In the carriage on the way home, she watched Rhys as he looked everywhere but at her and she thought for the first time that perhaps she could choose to be in love. He had given her a home and been nothing but kind to her. If she could love anyone, surely she could love her husband. At least she could try.
In the days following the visit to her father's house, Gold found his wife beginning to keep to a consistent schedule. She joined him for meals, spent her mornings outside with her embroidery, and kept to her room in the afternoons. She was even spending precisely forty-five minutes sitting with him after dinner, which he would have found a lot more encouraging if she didn't tend to spend a large portion of that time casting furtive glances at the mantle clock. Still, progress was progress ,and she was definitely making an effort towards that end. Gold was proud of her - she was trying, and trying was its own sort of progress.
He'd been completely terrified of going to her father's house, though. He'd been a guest there dozens of times, but something about having Belle with him...she belonged there. She belonged in a manor house with armies of servants and a name stretching back for generations. His wife had been born to be a lady, not the wife of a retired merchant.
There was also a (not insignificant) part of him that was intensely jealous of her old life. He wasn't in any way glad that she had been hurt - far from it, every time he watched her struggle to carry on a conversation with a man or to force down a moment of panic, he cursed Nottingham for what he'd done to Belle. She'd been the sort of woman who made a room feel warmer, and now she seemed to be struggling just to get by and he hated every second he had to watch that happen. But, there was a part of him that was intensely aware that if she hadn't been violated, she would never have married him. The thought of asking would never have even crossed his mind, and if it had she'd never have agreed. As a maiden, she was entirely beyond his reach. As a fallen woman, she'd been fortunate for his attentions.
He didn't want to want her, he had in fact promised her that he never would. But the longer she was around and the more effort she made to be near him the more he loved her and the happier he was he'd married her which just made him feel worse.
He had benefited from her being hurt, and that thought was destroying him inside. He had taken to spinning privately in his office most of the day to avoid her. He hadn't needed to use a spinning wheel to earn a living in a long time, but it had always settled his thoughts, and he needed that right now.
"I didn't know you could spin." Belle's voice came from behind him and he twisted around to see her.
She was wearing a simple day dress, but her hair was loose around her shoulders. He'd never seen it like that; she always kept it pinned up. He hadn't realized that it would be so lovely to look at.
"I learned when I was a boy," he replied as she came and brushed a finger across the spinning wheel. "My aunts spun and weaved. It was how I first began working in textiles."
"Your aunts?"
"They raised me," he said, trying hard to force down whatever stray emotions might threaten to overwhelm him. "After my parents died."
He hoped that she wouldn't press him for the details, that she would stick to their carefully drawn borders and not ask him for more than he was ready to give to her. There had been an unspoken agreement between them (broken only that day she first came down from her room) that they never discussed their lives before the wedding. Whatever they already knew of each other going into the marriage was all they needed to know. Truth be told, this suited him just as well as he thought it suited her. They both had their own demons to hide.
"Can you teach me?" she replied idly, and he only had a second to be thankful that she hadn't wanted to know about his parents before he registered what it was she had asked of him.
She wanted him to teach her to spin, wanted to spend even more time in his presence, wanted him to touch her. She couldn't possibly realize what she'd asked, could she?
"Of course," he said as calmly as he could, getting to his feet and drawing an ottoman over to the wheel.
He gestured for her to sit on the stool he'd vacated and she did. He settled next to her on the ottoman as she straightened her skirts and picked up the ball of roving he'd been working from. He took a few minutes to explain to her how the wheel worked and to demonstrate the correct hand positions before he let her give it a try. She was holding the wool too tight, letting it twist into a string that was too fragile to use.
"No no," he said, stopping her and taking her hand in his and readjusting her fingers until the yarn was thicker and didn't twist as badly. "You can't let it get too tight."
She nodded, and went back to her work. This time she began pedaling too fast and he saw the moment the yarn was going to be ripped from her hands just a moment too late to stop it. He put a hand out to stop the spinning of the wheel before the whole thing could get too tangled, and she was apologizing before he could even get a word out.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "I let it go too fast."
"It's no matter," he replied. "Everyone makes mistakes when they're learning."
"Did you ever do that?" she asked.
"Once or twice," he said. "Mostly I broke the yarn. Or I'd spin it so tight it tangled."
She was smiling at him a little when he turned to face her and he could feel his face flush. This was ridiculous. He was a grown man and she was his wife and he shouldn't be this unnerved by her smiling at him. He focused on straightening the roving back out and by the time he had completed his work and handed the wool back to her she was looking down at her lap and twisting her handkerchief between her fingers.
It would be infinitely easier to show her how to do this if he could sit behind her on the stool, wrap his arms around her, and guide her hands with his own. He couldn't do that, though. He didn't want to overwhelm her with his proximity when he had never done more than let her put her hand on his arm and lead her into a dining room. Still, though, she was becoming frustrated and he could see what she was doing wrong.
Finally, he took a chance and angled his body towards her and took her right hand in his to hold her fingers in the correct way. She didn't flinch from him as he'd feared, and he practically collapsed with relief at that. She was able to spin a few feet of slightly lumpy yarn this time before it slipped through her fingers.
Belle seemed almost shocked at that, and it took him a moment to realize she'd dropped it because he had placed his left hand on her back while she spun. He jerked his hand off of her instantly and muttered a quick apology as he reached down to recover her yarn.
When he finally handed the ball of wool back to her, he realized she hadn't stopped watching him. He paused, unsure if he should try apologizing again when she suddenly leaned forward and kissed him. It wasn't a long kiss, just a chaste little press of her lips to his and over almost before it began, but he had to remind himself to breathe when she pulled away and settled back at the wheel.
By the time she finally retreated to her room, he knew that something concrete had changed in their relationship, even if he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.