‘I often think of it because I am usually far more circumspect. I’m not a wanton woman, my lord, and I should not wish you to think that I might be.’
‘I did not.’
‘I also do not have a loose tongue like George Fitzgibbon. I would never say anything about what was, after all, a moment only between us. You have made it abundantly clear to me that you do not wish to marry again and I hope I have impressed the same on you, and so....’ She stopped, at a loss as to where she might take this next.
Part of her urged a certain daring but the larger part understood that he would not want that. If they had been other people, younger people, less damaged people it might have been easier to take his hand and allow him to know her truer feelings…but they were not those people. Her teeth worried her bottom lip.
‘I appreciate your candidness, Mrs St Claire, and I assure you that I likewise would do nothing to ever harm your reputation.’
‘I doubt my reputation here is quite as salubrious as you might think it.’ She could not help but smile.
He turned his horse into the wind, a beautiful man framed against the trees behind him.
‘You do yourself a disservice. I have come across not one person in London who would disparage your name. They admire you. Money has a voice, as you say, I do not doubt it, but true admiration has little to do with the size of a person’s fortune. No, it seems you are kind and clever. And joyous,’ he added.
She smiled. ‘Oh, I do like those words, my lord. Particularly joyous, given I had so many years when I was not.’
She looked so young out here in the breeze and the sun, her golden eyes dancing and her hair full of every shade of brown imaginable. She looked as if she had escaped from the pages of a fairy tale with a happy ending assured and a lifetime of possibility ahead.
No wonder people here were so drawn to her. They wanted the same things that she was full of, the jaded, worn restrictions of London town heavy burdens in the face of such…lightness.
Phillip understood the look in George Fitzgibbon’s eyes at that moment in a way he had not before, for Wilhelmina St Claire offered an uncomplicated honesty that was rare.
And she deserved a man who might give her the same back, which was most definitely not him.
Still, he couldn’t find it in himself to cut her off completely.
‘Your horse looks worn out, Mrs St Claire. How far have you come?’
‘Only from Mount Street, Lord Elmsworth.’
‘Phillip,’ he replied before going on. ‘You give the impression of being a fine rider.’
She looked up at the compliment.
‘I used to ride at Belton, though my husband had no love of the sport at all.’
‘He was too busy searching for stars?’
Her laughter warmed him again.
‘I heard that he had named one after you.’
‘He found it in the early years of our marriage. I doubt he would have been so generous if such a discovery had been made in the latter ones.’
‘What did he die of?’
‘He fell from the second storey balcony at Belton Manor. He held on to life for a few wretched hours and then he succumbed, and now when I look at the night sky I apologise.’
‘To him?’
‘And to our life together. A poor marriage is seldom one person’s fault entirely and I had my part in it.’
When he did not speak she elaborated further.
‘Lionel was an unhappy man and I lost patience with him. It is hard to be with someone whom you fail so badly to understand, even with all the trying in the world. Which I did, I tried and tried and tried,’ she finished off and breathed out heavily. ‘Because to me simply giving up is a failure and life is never a perfect thing, no matter how much one would wish it to be.’
How did he do it? How did Phillip Elmsworth make her admit things she had kept inside and hidden for so very, very long?
