Again that electric jolt as Mr. Ashford’s deep voice sounded in her ear. She looked down at the pencil he held in front of her, noticing the way his strong fingers gripped the thin wood, at the play of muscles and tendons beneath the sun-darkened skin. His knuckles were scarred, the nails blunt and painfully short.
She took the pencil from him, the remnants of warmth from his skin on the wood seeping into her and grounding her. “Thank you.”
He stood at her side, silent. Finally he said, “Perhaps I’d best go after them.”
Blinking in confusion, Lenora looked up. Margery and Mr. Nesbitt had walked off a way, no doubt to explore one of the many pools. As she watched, they kneeled down to inspect something, disappearing from view behind an outcropping of rock.
“Damnation, I told him to take care,” Mr. Ashford bit out.
“You worry about Margery?” She gave a small, humorless laugh. “You may rest assured, Margery is quite safe with him.”
“You don’t know Quincy.”
“No. I do, however, know Margery. And I can say with utmost certainty that she isn’t affected in the least by your friend’s charms.”
“How can you be so certain?”
She gave a small sigh. “The love my friend had, and still has, for her late husband is uncommonly strong. She mourns him deeply, though you may not know it looking at her. She’s as loyal as they come and will not betray his memory by allowing herself to be seduced by a rake, if you pardon my calling Mr. Nesbitt such.”
“No offense taken, for that’s just what Quincy is.”
Lenora laughed softly.
Margery and Mr. Nesbitt popped into view again, working their way over the rocks to the next small pool.
“How did he die?”
“Margery’s husband?” Lenora kicked at a small stone with the toe of her half boot. “At Waterloo. He wasn’t supposed to have gone off to war. They’d been married a mere six months before he bought his commission. I never did learn why he insisted on going. Margery doesn’t talk of it.”
“And she won’t love again?”
“No,” Lenora said.
“And you?”
Lenora looked at Mr. Ashford, stunned by the soft question. He seemed equally shocked.
“Please,” he muttered, “forget I asked that.”
As if she could. The question preying on her mind now, however, waswhyhe’d asked her. Flustered, she bent down, picked up a smooth rock from the ground, and chucked it out over the water. It fell with a splash, the pale blue of the disturbed water shining like diamonds in the sunlight for the briefest moment.
“And so this is where Hillram proposed to you.”
She cast him a startled glance. He was frowning at the lone tree in the clearing, as if highly offended by its presence. When his eyes found hers, they were solemn, and almost gentle.
“You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t wish to,” he murmured low.
She was tempted not to. Mr. Ashford had known pain and would understand if she wanted to keep her own private.
Yet she found to her shock she wanted to tell him. Here was someone who didn’t know Hillram, who wouldn’t look at her with pity, thereby increasing her guilt tenfold.
But more than that, she felt a connection to this man, one much stronger than she’d ever expected.
She took a deep breath, letting the memory through, carefully probing it for pain, like a toothache. It was there, but so far bearable. “Yes, he did,” she replied hesitantly, “by that rock. We’d come here for a picnic, the last one of the summer before the weather turned. He dropped to one knee on the bare stone. I was worried for his trousers but he laughed. He told me that starting our life in a place so dear to his family’s history would guarantee our future happiness…” Her voice trailed off and she clasped her hands together tightly, vaguely aware of Mr. Ashford’s warmth by her side. It gave her comfort, and the strength to look deeper into the memory.
She’d known the proposal was coming, of course, and had dreaded it. As the day of her departure approached, she’d begun to hope she would escape it. But then he’d asked her to go to the pools, and she’d known she wouldn’t escape. She’d accepted him, seeing no other option, knowing it was expected of them, knowing it would make everyone, even her father, happy.
Everyone except her.
