20 September, 1894 — before this — Bristol

Emrys drummed his fingers on the sideboard.

"We don't have to go," he said suddenly. A mistake; he shouldn't have said anything. This was only going to make the whole evening seem suspicious, before they'd even started. And perhaps there was a chance if he didn't tip her off to the nature of the evening that Angelica would just think this was a dinner party like any other. Maybe she wouldn't realize the invitation hadn't really been for her so much as it was for his wife; that the hosts had made certain assumptions about her based on their history with him.

He couldn't really blame them (though he would anyway). He had gone so long without marrying, and then he'd married someone who clearly wasn't a fresh debutante trophy bride. It was logical to assume he'd married someone else who was — in the lifestyle. Or that he would have persuaded her to it by now.

Fucking hell, he wasn't sure how he was going to get through this.

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Angelica Selwyn

  

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Lou made this! <3

"You are making it incredibly difficult not to take your suggestion personally, husband." Angel warned in a tone that should be far too familiar at this point. "Why, exactly, do you want to avoid this party so badly?" She found his avoidance exhausting, but it was his constant lies of omtion that bothered her most.

Her discussion with Felix has proven inconclusive, and she was at a loss at how to proceed in her own floundering marriage. And why the bloody hell did Emrys have to be so meek about the whole thing?

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MJ made this miracle!

If it was possible for his shoulders to get any more tense they would have done at this question; as it was he was already at risk of developing a medical condition from how tightly his muscles were bound up. He shouldn't have said anything. He'd known that was a mistake. Now she wanted to know why he was avoiding the party, and she was far more direct than he was. She airways had been.

His options now, as he saw them: lie so egregiously that she would take his words at face value, and then try to keep up the lie for the rest of his life; or dodge. The truth was positively not on the table. If they'd been on better terms he might have tried to seduce her — a dodge, but an effective one — but given the state of their relationship that might look just as suspicious as his sudden declaration that they could skip the party.

"I'm just — tired," he said. Dodge. "This is tiring. It's not you. I'm tired. "

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Lou made this! <3

"Not nearly as tired as I am." She snapped.

It hurt. Whenever he did this when he had the nerve to condescend, he danced around the truth like she was a child. She had fallen in love with a man on precipious of intrigue and romance, he'd enchanted her with his bold seduction and then he'd turned cold. He'd become worse than cold; he'd given up.

"This is exhausting, Emrys, truly. I could bear your anger or cruelty, but this indifference? This rejection is insulting."

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MJ made this miracle!

He hadn't been expecting her to take the suggestion personally at all, so this caught him entirely off guard. Was it better that she thought his reluctance was due to the prolonged unease in their marriage, and nothing to do with the event itself? It was a lesser of two evils sort of situation; both lead to uncomfortable conversations for him. "I'm not indifferent," he protested stiffly. He didn't know how else to defend himself from the accusation other than to just deny it. Surely she couldn't have chosen that word intentionally and seriously? He had never been indifferent to her; could never be indifferent to her. If his feeling towards her were indifferent, it would have been easier to talk to her. He could even have seduced her if he had been indifferent; he'd done it plenty of times before, with other women he didn't truly care about. He had practiced that sort of easy, superficial charm for decades. It was so difficult to be around Angelica precisely because he was incapable of indifference where she was concerned.

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The following 1 user Likes Emrys Selwyn's post:1 user Likes Emrys Selwyn's post
   Angelica Selwyn

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Lou made this! <3

She would not scream at him. She would not scream at him. Angelica tried to imagine a world where she could act as Emrys did: avoidant and escapist, ignoring her existence and claiming not to be indifferent. She had survived a marriage to a man with actual designs on her life, a man who poisoned her. How was being ignored somehow more painful?

"Emrys, I want to go to this party. It is your duty now to explain to me why we are not going. Let me be clear: I will be attending even if you choose to stay home. Do you now have something to say to me?" Her challenge was blatant; her patience was nonexistent.

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The following 1 user Likes Angelica Selwyn's post:1 user Likes Angelica Selwyn's post
   Emrys Selwyn

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MJ made this miracle!

She could be, at times, infuriating. He met her eyes for a moment and considered whether she was being purposefully so; he thought it likely. She demanded an answer and in the same breath told him it didn't matter what answer he gave, because she would do it with or without him. Not an especially enticing proposal if she was trying to get the truth out of him. But then, he hadn't been planning on telling her the truth anyway. What she was really doing was shutting down the conservation from any further attempts to lie or dance around it.

"No," he said, terse. Nothing to say to her, if she was determined to go regardless.

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The following 1 user Likes Emrys Selwyn's post:1 user Likes Emrys Selwyn's post
   Angelica Selwyn

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Lou made this! <3

What she got was the opposite of what she wanted, also known as the subtitle to her marriage. She tightened her hands at her sides, willing herself not to react. That lasted all of a second. She wanted to rage and punish him somehow, but more than anything, she wanted her husband back. "Emrys," She entered his personal space and dared him to remove her from it or purposefully ignore her eyes. "My impulse is to yell at you, and I want you to understand that now I am afraid. I am bloody afraid to go to a dinner because you're behaving like the gallows awaits. Why don't you want me to go? I know that is the heart of this nonsense."

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MJ made this miracle!

The air between them changed when she closed the distance; or maybe it was the same, only condensed. He held her gaze. His stomach did flips. Hell, he thought. He hadn't meant to scare her off, although he had been hoping to dissuade her from going. He hadn't meant to be this obvious. Was there any chance that he was wrong about tonight, and if he got out of his own head it really would just be a typical dinner party? There was a chance; even hedonists had to interact with the rest of the world on occasion. And there was still the chance that she might not have noticed anything, if he hadn't gone and primed her to be on the lookout, with all his projected anxieties. But that ship had rather sailed, and he was finding it difficult to be evasive when her eyes were only a foot away from his.

"I — don't think it's your sort of party," he said, wondering if this was suggestive enough that she'd be able to piece anything together. Years into their marriage, he'd still never come clean about the sorts of things he did before she was in the picture (or in some cases continued to do when she wasn't around). The only thing he'd admitted to was having slept with men; he didn't know what her mind would jump to next. Maybe straight to the bottom — there were rumors about men with his proclivities, after all. Perhaps she believed them.

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Lou made this! <3

"I need you to explain. I need you to act as if you love me and tell me what I am walking into tonight, husband, because I don't know if they will critique my gown or ask me to slaughter my supper, but I am not happy." He had joked that he knew something more scandalous than the average gentleman, but that couldn't be what he was telling her. Unless it was. Angelica's heart sank. "That's the answer, isn't it? Some mistress of yours will be there tonight."

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MJ made this miracle!

Act as if you love me, she said. Emrys' stomach dropped and he felt he would have to explain in the end, however mortified it made him to discuss such things with her — however the associated admissions might lower her estimation of him. The truth couldn't be worse than her imagination if he kept refusing to elaborate, he realized. But then she continued, and the phrase some mistress got his hackles up.

"I don't have a mistress." The irritation was clear in his voice. It was less the suggestion of infidelity and more the dismissive of the phrasing — she might as well have said some whore. In any case, he hadn't been sleeping with anyone since their marriage — except Arthur, whom it did not even occur to him to put in the same umbrella as the word mistress. "Do you want a list of everyone I slept with before I married you so you can find them at parties? Would that make you feel better?"

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Lou made this! <3

His reaction didn't surprise her, but the words did. There was no version of events she could believe didn't involve another woman in his bed. Every horrid dream she had of his actions involved any number of women. 'No mistress' didn't compute. She scoffed at his suggestion; the last thing she needed was names and faces to go with her insecurities. "Of course I don't." She snapped in defense. "You know it wouldn't." She added bitterly before forcing herself to take a breath.

"Please stop playing games with me. Just tell me the truth."

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MJ made this miracle!

She had scoffed; she didn't believe him. Why did you marry me if you didn't trust me? he could have asked, but the answer was obvious. The pregnancy. The baby. The one which had never materialized. The baby may not have been real, but the flurry of emotions surrounding it had been, at least for her. The desperation; the hope. The grief. She'd never really believed him, never trusted him, but she'd thought being a father would reform him. Now she didn't even have that.

"The truth is it will probably be an entirely banal, perfectly pleasant dinner party," he said. (At least from her perspective, anyway). "And I don't want to go with you."

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Lou made this! <3

She let him see the words land, didn’t bother to veil the hurt that came with them. She loves him and all that came of it was pain. He had never explained himself to her, had never made sense of his change of heart. She’d gone to his bed, spent a summer with his promises and then he’d chosen some mediocre girl to marry. He’d done so while swearing he cared for her, that his choices protected her.

It was a promise of a new start, the baby she’d wanted for over a decade, that made him see sense. But even that was taken from her. He’d all but abandoned her, when the healers told them the child she was expecting had been a trick of her body. She had lost her future and him in the same horrible moment.

“I will not help you avoid me. You barely acknowledge I exist. You seem to take pleasure in punishing me, but I will not be relegated to the shadows.”

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   Rosalie Hunniford

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MJ made this miracle!

"Then there's nothing to discuss," he snapped. Her words were unfair — he never wanted to punish her, even in the worst moments — but the conversation so far had left him feeling raw enough that he didn't bother to argue with her. Why take the trouble, when she didn't believe he cared for her anyway? She thought he was running around with half a dozen mistresses, and neither his actions nor his words would dissuade her. Why bother?

"Let's go." At least once they arrived he'd have a drink in his hand to distract himself — and someone other than her to talk to.

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Lou made this! <3

He won every fight they had the same way. He ran away. She didn’t know how to engage him, how to push him to work with her instead of against her.

She forced herself to breath, to resist the urge to tear up, to be witnessed hurting now. It wouldn’t do to be seen as anything but stone now, so she would become untouchable, cold. She could do it, too. “Lead the way.”

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The following 1 user Likes Angelica Selwyn's post:1 user Likes Angelica Selwyn's post
   Emrys Selwyn

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MJ made this miracle!