That thought lingered on the tip of Micah's tongue. He nearly said it out loud many times, and stopped himself just as many times.
Avery was humming the same song again, having rediscovered it after emptying what's left of his brain. Maybe that's a sign that the conversation had ended, that the chance to ask more about Adeline had passed.
And maybe that's for the better.
Micah's sweat had turned the hair powder clumpy and the padding under his maid uniform was no more cooperative than it had been at the start of this little excursion. Even then, he could not deny that it's a beautiful day. The sky was clear, the temperature comfortable, the winds gentle.
It became more beautiful as they left Lunsford and its shadows behind.
Maybe it's too beautiful a day to ruin with a difficult talk about the true nature of his former fiancée. So what if he had been her puppet, unwilling, unaware, and unfavored? So what if he had never known the real Adeline?
So what?
She would just remain an enigma, albeit one that kept bothering him like a pebble in his shoe.
Micah could take off his metaphorical shoe and shake out that metaphorical pebble by asking Avery about Adeline. He could, so he did not.
Instead, he tried to rationalize that pebble away by sorting through what he knew about her.
Which was nothing.
There's no sorting to be done.
He should have just swallowed his dumb pride and asked Avery.
He should have, so he did not.
Instead, he attempted to resurrect a dead conversation. "So what's their relationship like? I mean Adeline and Felicia."
The humming stopped, but no reply came. Micah looked up to see Avery giving him the side-eye.
"What? I'm just curious."
"Curious, yes, but not about Felicia. You don't care about her. Orrr," Avery's shit-eating grin made a grand comeback, "do you?"
"Not like that!"
"Then like what? Is she your Juliet, your Lady Chatterley, your Ms Sorel?"
"No!"
"Ah," Avery sighed in mock disappointment, "then you are more heartless than Uncle Percy. Tsk, tsk. At least he can say that he overcame backward traditions, class divisions, gossipy relatives, and a suspiciously large age gap to be with his true love! You, on the other hand, just pleasured yourself with Felicia's body and then cast her aside to marry a woman with more money! Tsk, men."
"I did not! It's a fling and neither of us expected anything more. We're both consenting adults!"
"On that note, I wonder how many men caught fucking someone they shouldn't say that."
'A lot,' Micah thought. "It's not an admission of guilt," he said.
"It's not, but it's odd to put yourself in a position where you feel compelled to say it. This isn't really a thing you can say without sounding defensive."
Micah agreed, but he did not want to give Avery the satisfaction of being correct. So he held his tongue even if that made him look like a child sulking after being told off for his bad behavior (because he was). If he had to finish the rest of the trip in complete silence to avoid admitting that Avery was right, he'd gladly do so.
Even if that meant nothing could distract him from how warm and sticky and heavy his disguise was getting.
Regret started setting in within approximately three minutes.
Micah resigned himself to a humiliating defeat. To his surprise, Avery spared him and his pride by speaking first. "Angry?"
"No."
Avery laughed. "I was just teasing," he promised as he cocked his head to the side, lightly bumping Micah's temple. "Don't sulk. I'll tell you what you want to know about Adeline. Just ask."
This offer was an olive branch, but Micah felt more startled than appeased. Had he always been this obvious and readable to Avery? Was Avery toying with him the way Adeline had?
Avery clearly knew him better than he knew Avery. The imbalance unnerved him, but he also did not detect any ill-will from Avery.
In fact, he thought they'd been getting along mightily fine.
As to why Micah trusted one twin so soon after the other had just played him like a fiddle… People who could not grow from experiences likely struggled with rote learning as children, and Micah, despite his confidence, had never been a good student.
"What's Adeline like?"
Avery grinned. "That is a very open-ended question. Well, if I have to sum her up in one word, I'll say she's whimsical."
"Is whimsical standing in for something else?"
"I see your experience with her has left you scarred. Maybe capricious is a better word. Yes, capricious. She cannot be bored so she does whatever she feels like doing at the moment. If any consequences crop up—and they always do—she bails and makes them other people's problems. Felicia is pretty good at cleaning up after her."
"She didn't seem very impulsive when she's with me."
Avery caught the implication of Micah's words. "You mean to say that maintaining a facade, especially one so different from her real personality, was too sustained an effort to be done by someone as flighty as her."
"I guess so."
"I must say I am also surprised she managed to keep up the demure act for a year, but" Avery's gaze stayed on Micah's face, " I think you are dying to call her calculative and psychopathic and other choice words."
"…"
"I am going to take that as a yes. I suppose I have to defend my baby sister a little here. Adeline is no paragon of virtue. She's incredibly selfish. There is no doubt about that. However, she usually does not go out of her way to hurt people."
"Ha."
"I am telling the truth. She simply prioritizes herself and in doing so affects others by accident."
"That's not an excuse," Micah retorted, already prepared to ignore the pointed look he knew his hypocrisy was going to get.
"It's not, especially not at our age, but I still think it's an important distinction to make. She is not sadistic, no more than the average person at least. The inconveniences and harm she brings others tend to be side effects she has not bothered to control for. They are not her end goals and she does not find any joy in them."
"Then," Micah asked in a small voice that was nearly a whimper, "why me?"
"Because you deserved it."