Chapters (30)
Jane laughed and caught his hand. ‘Oh, love. Yes, let us go to the Continent. But you do not need to tempt me with any more reason than that there is a glamourist whom you wish to visit.’ She rubbed his temples, inducing him to shut his eyes once more. The Continent sounded like a grand adventure. The only cause for chagrin was that she had counted on visiting her family once their work here was finished. Her mother would be so distraught to hear that they were not coming.
‘What is the matter?’ Vincent lifted his head, seeking a better view of her.
‘Pardon?’
‘You sighed.’
‘I did? I have no recollection of that.’
‘Nevertheless, you sighed just now.’ He waited and Jane wished for a moment that he might not know her moods quite so well.
‘I was only thinking about the difficulty of telling my parents. We should have them to dine with us on Monday.’
He lowered his chin, and, with only the slightest compression of his lips, expressed his lack of enthusiasm for this suggestion. ‘Of course.’
Jane sighed in earnest now. ‘Is it really that distasteful for you to visit my family?’
‘It is not distasteful.’ Vincent worked his jaw, and then blew his breath out in a groan. ‘I esteem your family, but I will own that I am not comfortable with them. There is no place where I fit.’
‘You are my husband. My parents look on you as family.’
‘Yes, but . . . but your family has practice at being with one another.’ He picked a loose thread off the sheets, examining it rather than her. ‘I do not even have practice being with my own family.’
Jane felt heartbreak for him. With all of her family’s faults, Jane could not imagine a world in which she was not intimately connected to each of them, or doing without all the benefits of family, which only one who has been truly loved as a child can appreciate. Chief among her wishes was that Vincent might appreciate her family as she did, and likewise, that they would begin to see those qualities in him that she esteemed. ‘Perhaps rather than avoiding time spent with them we might practice together?’
‘Of course.’
Holding back another sigh, Jane stroked away the new furrow that had appeared in his brow. This was another type of knot to learn to tie.