His question seemed to reach her. Perhaps it gave her permission to speak of whatever it was that distressed her so. She drew herself more upright and groped in her pocket for a kerchief. The one she drew out was stained and torn, more fit for a Jamaillian street urchin than a Trader’s wife. Nonetheless, she dried her face with it, took a breath, and spoke. She watched her candle in its holder as she talked, never glancing at him.

“When Hest first courted me, I was skeptical of his intentions. He was such an eligible bachelor, such a prize, and there I was, a younger daughter, not pretty and with no prospects and scarcely any dowry. It actually made me angry that he would court me. I kept thinking it was some sort of wager or cruel jest. I even resented how he intruded into my life and work. But as our courtship went on, he was so charming that somehow I persuaded myself that not only was I infatuated with him but that he concealed a similar feeling for me.” She gave a strangled laugh.

“Well, he concealed it very well, and continued to do so for all the years of our marriage. He has the cleverest way of twisting words, of delivering a compliment that leaves everyone at the table smiling for me while only I see all the barbs it carries. To everyone else, he shows such a fair face. He seems an attentive, even a doting, husband to our friends and families. Yet to me…” She turned suddenly to face him. “Is it me, Sedric? Do I expect too much? Are all men like him? My father was sometimes tender, sometimes merry, and always kind to my mother.

Was that only for show before us children? When they were alone, was he cold and boorish and cruel?”

There was such need in her question, such honest confusion that he felt carried back in time to when they had been much younger. She had sometimes asked him such questions then, in full confidence that he was older and wiser in the ways of the world. Without thinking, he took her hand, and then wondered at himself. How could his feelings about her weathervane so freely? It was mostly her fault that he was in the forsaken place on this dreary vessel, and now bonded to a simpleminded dragon. How could he feel sympathy for her?

Perhaps because it was mostly his doing that she was locked in a marriage that was equally forsaken and dreary, bonded to a man who regarded her with the sort of affection usually reserved for a dog with mange?