Chapter Three
The following morning,with mist along the rooftops, Mary-Ann’s mind refused to stay in the present. She conjured up the last time she’d been with Quinton before he left for the Peninsula.
It had been early spring then, too. The cherry trees had just begun to bloom along the edge of Seaton Drive, and the breeze carried the scent of sea salt and wild thyme. He had arrived early, dressed in his regimentals, the gold buttons glinting beneath a gray sky. His horse fidgeted near the gate, sensing Quinton’s tension. So had she.
“You’re leaving now,” she had said, trying not to let it sound like an accusation. Try as she may, her voice caught anyway.
“It’s only a short mission.” He had smiled, that half-smile that never quite hid the sharpness in his eyes. “I’ll be back before you miss me.
She stepped closer, and his laughter quickly faded.
He was still, his expression softened as he looked down at her. He gently slipped his arms around her and drew her into his embrace.
She went to him without any resistance, resting her hands on the front of his coat, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breath and the firm line of his shoulder beneath her cheek.
“I’ll miss you the moment you’re gone,” she whispered.
“I’ll write every week,” he promised. “Now, don’t lose any of my letters,” he added with a wry tilt of his head.
“I never lose letters,” she said, defiant even then. “Why would I misplace something that matters to me more?”
He sobered at that, his hands lifting to cradle her face. His brow touched hers. “I love you, my Mary-Ann. Always remember that. I vow to you that when I come back, I’ll make you my wife.”
She’d nodded, too choked for words.
He kissed her. Not gently, not cautiously, but as if sealing his vow with something more permanent than paper. It was the kind of kiss that branded itself into memory. The kind that lived in the spaces between heartbeats. Her hands tightened in the front of his coat as her feet left the ground just slightly, as though the force of it lifted her. Time blurred. The scent of him, the heat, the certainty. Everything else fell away. It wasn’t her first kiss. But it was the first that made her believe in forever.
And then, sharper than guilt, deeper than regret, came the sudden thought of Rodney. His quiet steadiness. His trust in her. The ring on her finger. What would he think if he knew what stirred in her heart now?
She hadn’t meant to betray anything. Only to remember. But remembering felt like a betrayal all the same.
Mary-Ann’s fingers touched her lips. She could still feel the pressure of his kiss, the promise that it held. He had mounted his horse, turned back once to tip his fingers in salute, and then he was gone down the lane, his red coat disappearing like a flag swallowed by the mist.
But yesterday’s man was different. The fire that once blazed so brightly had tempered into something quieter and more deliberate. He had been tested, shaped by things he had not yet spoken aloud. The boyish laughter was gone, but in its place stood a man forged by experience. And somehow, that made him no less hers.
Quinton hadn’t begged. He hadn’t tried to reclaim her. And that unsettled her more than if he had. It left room for questions she wasn’t ready to answer and feelings she had buried too deeply to ignore.
She thought of the way he looked at her, the way his hand had closed around hers like an anchor. If Mrs. Bainbridge hadn’t appeared… would he have kissed her? And what unsettled her more was the quiet flutter in her chest at the thought.
She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t screamed. She had simply… stopped. As though the world narrowed to the space between them, and for a heartbeat, nothing else existed.
He was here. Not a dream, not a whisper of the past, but flesh and blood, and more than anything, he was real.
Relief struck her first, sharp and bright. Then came the confusion. And the ache.
Her fingers brushed the rose-gold satin gown hanging on her dressing screen. It was meant to mark a beginning. But now it felt as if she was suspended between two lives, one imagined, and one returned. The silk had been chosen for a future she no longer recognized. A future that now felt like someone else’s dream.
She had changed into a soft morning gown, hoping the shift might settle her thoughts. But the silk still clung to her skin, not the fabric, but the memory.
She had not slept. Her mind churned with questions, her heart caught between memory and uncertainty. All night she had stared at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what had happened and what it meant that Quinton was here, dusty, hollow-eyed, standing beneath the chandelier like a ghost given flesh. That image refused to leave her.
For years, she had begged for a word. Letters, whispers, confirmation of life or death. Nothing came. And so she learned to stop asking. She trained herself to smile, to laugh again. Tobelieve it was right to move forward. But yesterday, when she saw him, it was as if time had collapsed in on itself. As if the years he’d been away never happened.
Each time she closed her eyes, she saw his face. Worn, drawn, but still Quinton. The slope of his brow. The way he said her name, his voice roughened now, shadowed with experience.
It wasn’t just that she had grieved him. She had loved him. And love like that did not vanish. She let out a deep breath. No, a love like theirs settled in the quiet parts of the soul and waited, even if she had convinced herself otherwise.
Rodney had never made her breath catch. She never found herself reaching for him in dreams or seeing him in sunlight through the window. He had always been practical. Present. Polite. But love had never burned between them. It had only ever simmered, safe and subdued.
