Edward took her to a bookshop.
Not one of the grand establishments on Bond Street where fashionable society browsed with no intention of buying. This was a cramped, dusty shop in a questionable neighborhood, its windows crammed with volumes that looked as though they might crumble at a touch.
"Here?" Margaret asked as Edward helped her from the carriage.
"Here. Trust me."
Inside, the shop smelled of old paper and leather and possibility. Floor-to-ceiling shelves created narrow corridors that seemed to go on forever. An elderly man dozed behind the counter, his spectacles sliding down his nose.
"This is my favorite place in London," Edward said quietly, leading her deeper into the maze of books. "I found it years ago, before we married. When I was drowning in debt and couldn't afford proper books, I'd come here and lose myself for hours."
Margaret watched him run his fingers along the spines with reverence. This was a side of Edward she'd never imagined. She'd thought his London life was all clubs and cards and cynical sophistication.
"What did you read?"
"Everything. History, philosophy, terrible gothic novels." He pulled out a volume and handed it to her. "This one. I read it seven times. It's falling apart now."
Margaret examined the book. A collection of poetry, its pages yellowed and fragile. "You read poetry?"
"Don't sound so shocked. I'm not completely devoid of culture." But his tone was gentle, teasing rather than sharp. "Read the inscription."
She opened to the frontispiece. In faded ink: For my beloved Thomas, who sees beauty in broken things. Forever yours, James.
"Someone loved this book enough to give it away," Edward said softly. "I like imagining their story. Who they were. Whether they stayed together."
Margaret looked up at him, seeing him truly for perhaps the first time. Not the resentful aristocrat or the careless rake, but this complex man who read poetry in dusty bookshops and wondered about strangers' love stories.
"Pick something," he said. "Anything you want. Let me buy you a book, Margaret."
"I have a library at Blackwood Manor full of books."
"Yes, but I've never given you any of them. Let me give you this. A courting gift, three years too late."
She wandered the narrow aisles, Edward following silently. Every so often she'd pull out a volume and he'd tell her about it, whether he'd read it, what he'd thought. His knowledge was vast and surprising. He had opinions on everything from Greek tragedies to agricultural treatises.
Finally, she found it. A slim volume bound in blue leather, its title barely legible: Essays on the Nature of Connection.
"That one?" Edward asked, reading over her shoulder.
"I want to know what it says. About connection. About whether two people can find their way to each other even when they start from opposite directions."
Something shifted in his expression. "Then it's yours."
At the counter, the old man woke with a start. He examined the book, named an absurdly low price, and wrapped it in brown paper with hands that trembled slightly.
"Young man," he said to Edward, "you've been coming here for years. I've watched you change from an angry boy to... something gentler. This is because of her, yes?"
Edward glanced at Margaret, and the look on his face made her breath catch. "Yes. Because of her."
"Good. Love should change us. Make us gentler, braver." The old man handed Margaret the wrapped book. "Read it together. That's the secret. Connection isn't found in grand gestures. It's built in small moments. Reading together. Sitting in companionable silence. Learning each other slowly."
Outside, Margaret clutched the book to her chest. "That was unexpected."
"Everything about today is unexpected." Edward offered his arm. "Come. I have more to show you."
He took her to a small gallery where an artist she'd never heard of was exhibiting paintings of ordinary people doing ordinary things. A woman hanging laundry. A man repairing a fence. Children playing in a courtyard.
"Why these?" Margaret asked, studying a painting of an elderly couple sitting together on a bench, not touching, but the space between them somehow eloquent.
"Because they're real. No grand historical scenes or flattering portraits of people who paid to look important. Just life as it actually is." Edward stood close enough that she could feel his warmth. "I'm tired of performance, Margaret. I want the real thing. Even if it's ordinary."
"Is that what you want from us? The ordinary?"
"I want whatever we can build together. Ordinary or extraordinary or somewhere in between." He looked at her. "What do you want?"
Margaret studied the painting of the elderly couple. The way they sat together, separate but connected. The history written in their postures.
"I want that. In forty years. I want us to be able to sit in comfortable silence, knowing each other so well that words aren't necessary."
"We have to survive the next forty years first."
"Yes. And the next forty days. And tomorrow." She turned to him. "I'm still afraid, Edward. This doesn't erase that."
"I know. But you're here. You came to London. You're standing in a gallery with me looking at paintings of ordinary life and talking about our future. That's something."
It was something. It was more than she'd thought possible a week ago.
They had lunch at a small café where the food was simple but good, and they sat in a corner where no one recognized them. Edward told her stories about his childhood, the pressure of being an only son, watching his father gamble away their fortune and feeling helpless to stop it.
"I resented you for saving us," he admitted. "Your father's money kept Blackwood Manor afloat, but it also meant I'd failed. I couldn't save my family estate myself. I had to sell myself to do it."
"I resented you too," Margaret said. "For having something I wanted and not valuing it. For treating our marriage like a burden when it was supposed to be my triumph."
"Was it? A triumph?"
"I thought it would be. Lady Blackwood, wife of an earl's heir. My mother's dream realized. But I learned quickly that titles don't matter much when the person you're tied to can't stand you."
They were quiet for a moment, the weight of three years hanging between them.
"We've wasted so much time," Edward said finally.
"Or maybe we needed that time. To become people who could actually build something together." Margaret reached across the table, took his hand. "Maybe we had to break before we could begin."
His fingers tightened around hers. "You're unexpectedly wise for someone who once told the Duchess of Pembroke her hat looked like a dead pigeon."
"The duchess agreed with me."
"Did she really?"
"No. But I tell myself she did."
Edward laughed, genuine and warm, and Margaret realized this was what she'd been missing. Not passion or grand declarations, but this ease. This ability to be themselves together without performing or protecting or pretending.
They spent the afternoon wandering through parts of London Margaret had never seen. Not Mayfair or the fashionable districts, but Edward's London. The hidden corners, the quiet parks, the small bookshops and galleries and cafés where life happened away from society's watchful eyes.
As the sun began to set, they found themselves on a bridge over the Thames, watching the water flow beneath them.
"I leave tomorrow," Edward said. "Back to Blackwood Manor. Will you come with me? Or do you need more time?"
Margaret considered. She could return to the estate separately, maintain some measure of independence. Prove she wasn't desperate or clingy or any of the things she'd feared becoming.
Or she could simply be honest.
"I'll come with you. I don't want to be apart again."
"Even though you're still afraid?"
"Especially because I'm afraid. Because if I let fear dictate my choices, I'll spend my whole life hiding." She turned to face him, the setting sun painting everything golden. "I'd rather be brave and frightened than safe and alone."
Edward cupped her face in his hands, his touch reverent. "I don't deserve you."
"Probably not. But you're stuck with me anyway."
He kissed her there on the bridge, unhurried and tender, as London bustled around them and the sun set on his old life.
When they returned to the townhouse, it felt different. Less like Edward's bachelor lodgings and more like a space they'd shared. Tomorrow it would belong to someone else, but tonight it was theirs.
In his chambers, Edward undressed her slowly, his hands gentle and sure. This time there was no desperation, no three years of need and resentment fueling the encounter. Just connection. Learning. The slow discovery of what made her gasp, what made him groan.
Afterward, she lay in his arms, her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
"For what?"
"For today. For showing me who you are when you're not performing. For the bookshop and the gallery and the bridge." She pressed a kiss to his chest. "For courting me."
"It was my pleasure. Literally." His hand traced patterns on her back. "Margaret?"
"Mm?"
"When we get home, things will be different. Not today different. We'll have obligations, responsibilities. The estate to run. We can't hide in a perfect bubble forever."
"I know."
"Will you still want this? When it's not perfect anymore? When we have our first real argument as a couple who actually cares about each other?"
Margaret considered the question seriously. Today had been extraordinary. A perfect day carved out of time, where nothing existed but the two of them discovering each other. But life wasn't made of perfect days.
"I'll want it more," she said finally. "Because the hard days are when connection matters most. When you have to choose each other despite the difficulty."
"You're sure?"
She propped herself up on her elbow to look at him. "I'm not sure about anything, Edward. Except that I'd rather fight with you than be cordial with you. Rather struggle to build something real than maintain our careful fiction. I want the messy, complicated, imperfect reality of actually being married to you."
"Even knowing I'll disappoint you sometimes? Make mistakes?"
"Even then. As long as you promise to keep trying."
"I promise." He pulled her back down against him. "Go to sleep, Margaret. Tomorrow we go home and start the hard work of actually being married."
She closed her eyes, feeling safe in a way she couldn't remember feeling before. Not the safety of walls and distance, but the safety of being known. Being seen.
It was terrifying.
It was exhilarating.
And as she drifted off to sleep in Edward's arms, Margaret thought that perhaps this was what her mother had meant about choosing each other every day. Not one grand romantic gesture, but a thousand small choices.
Today she'd chosen bravery over fear.
Tomorrow she'd have to choose it again.
And the day after that, and the day after that.