A Closed Heart by Oster, Camille (acx book reading txt) 📕

This type of behavior was farcical and she hadn’t seen it in Jonathan until she’d brought a lover out in public.

“Friend of yours?” Julius asked as Jonathan took himself off. Perhaps not surprising as Jonathan had just acted like a former paramour, which he strictly wasn’t.

“More like an acquaintance.”

“I think I’m perhaps causing you trouble,” he said after a moment.

“No, you’re not. I am beholden to no one. That is the point I have been trying to stress, and I’m not going to act as if I am because someone is confronted by the reality.”

“You believe this man has designs on you.”

“What he has or hasn’t got is nothing I care about. Now, are you hungry? As I said, they do quite good sausages here.”

“I will order some,” Julius said and returned to the bar, taking a moment to listen to the philosophers who hadn’t dulled in their fervor. “They are rather naïve,” he stated when he returned.

“They’re idealists.”

“Ideals are wonderful when someone else pays for them.”

“So are paintings.”

Chapter 34

THE FOOD WAS SIMPLE, but tasty. The brandy was of inferior quality, Julius had to admit, but the discussions across the room was diverting. At times he felt like going over there and telling them how utterly naïve their notions were. One couldn’t simply undo the fabric of society. It would cause mayhem. The things they suggested were simply ludicrous. Society ordered themselves naturally.

But then there was that man who had joined them for a while, who now sat at a table across the room with his companions, sulking by the look of it. Jane suggested he was a mere acquaintance, but Julius didn’t like the look of him.

The lifestyle she led put her within reach of men like that—who obviously had designs on her.

“Shall we walk?” she asked and he agreed.

“You come here quite often?”

“Yes, my friends visit.”

“Not that man, I hope.”

“He is a little temperamental.”

“I didn’t care for him.”

“Well, luckily, you don’t have to.”

No, he didn’t like it one bit, nor did he like how blasé she was about it. “I suppose in every community, one needs to deal with the unpleasant portions of it. And people ask me why I prefer Denham. I have no tolerance for aggrandizement of self. Who knows what that man thinks he is entitled to?”

“I can handle people like Jonathan Rappier,” she said quietly.

“You shouldn’t have to. One of the benefits of having means is forgoing having to deal with people like that.”

“Well, I don’t have means, and he is part of my community.”

But he had means, he wanted to say—which meant she had means if she chose to. “We can make arrangements whereby you have more security.”

Jane paused as she walked and turned to him. “No,” she said.

“What do you mean no?”

“I won’t be changing anything of my life.”

“Change comes to everyone. How can we possibly proceed in life if we don’t accept change? It isn’t a bad thing. The opportunist embraces it. I’m trying to learn that myself.”

Still, she was staring at him. “Julius, while it is lovely to see you, there is nowhere that our lives intersect. I won’t be leaving Brighton. I’m not giving up my associations to be your mistress.”

“Or my wife?”

“Or your wife. It’s simply not a role for me. I truly wish you all the best, and I wish a happy marriage for you, but it won’t be with me. I just cannot see how we can accommodate each other.”

“There is always a way.”

“No, some things shouldn’t be forced. We are simply too far apart in every way possible.”

Except when it was just the two of them. It was the only time he hadn’t felt apart. That had to mean something. How could there not be a way? “Everything worth having requires some kind of compromise.”

“I’m sorry. I am not compromising. I simply cannot. It’s a choice I’ve made and I have never suggested anything else. That will not change simply because you want it to. You shouldn’t have come, Julius,” she said and walked away. “Go home. Go back to London.”

“Jane!” he called, but she didn’t turn back, simply kept walking.

With a groan, he watched her as she walked away. In his gut, he’d known this moment would come, but he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. Throughout this time, he’d been trying to distract her, to simply gloss over what he’d known was always there. Jane wasn’t going to give, and he was both angry and disappointed with her because they’d found something special, and that was worth compromising for. It wasn’t as if she was expected to give up her art.

However, it wasn’t the art she would be giving up, but the artist’s lifestyle. Her freedom. A voice inside his head told him this. He understood her perspective, but there had to be some way they could exist. Sacrifice had to be made, but she refused to even entertain alternatives. Every single relationship needed people to adjust so they could fit each other in their lives.

He would even be prepared to spend a portion of his time in London so she would live the kind of life she wanted. He wouldn’t like it, but he would do it. A grave compromise on his part, but she gave nothing—made no room for him in her life at all. It simply wasn’t worth it to her.

That was what hurt the most. He meant so little to her that she would make no sacrifices at all. A deep ache in his chest felt as though it wanted to suck him in whole.

How was he better off now than he had been six months ago? Dragged out of his shell to be utterly stomped on. In fact, this hurt more than anything Cressida had ever