It read:
TITUS
in clean, bold print.
Underneath was scrawled:
For Gilly-Gil-Gil.
Titus let out a soft snort. How had she known he would miss her so viscerally, he would come in here hoping for the tiniest remnant of their connection?
He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled the parcel into his lap. Titus set the note aside. He would read that last. He was dying to know what sort of gift she thought a man like him most longed for.
The parcel felt soft and light and lumpy. As if it perhaps contained the garters and silk stockings she had worn the night before.
He untied the knot, slid the twine aside, and unwrapped the parcel. Not garters after all.
Oliver’s blanket.
Matilda had sewn it back together.
He hugged it to his chest, burying his face in its familiar softness. It had lost the scent of Oliver long ago, but now smelled faintly of Matilda.
That wasn’t the only change. The new seams, like Titus’s old scars, were obvious. But Oliver’s blanket was whole again. Whole and home, and back in Titus’s arms. He tried not to sob.
When he could bear to release the blanket, he reached for the note. It read:
* * *
Nothing can ever return exactly as it was,
but rifts can often be mended.
* * *
He stared down at the scarred, beloved blanket in his hands, then rose to his feet with determination.
She was right. He had wasted enough of his life by centering his focus on the things he had lost, never appreciating the new things he had found—until he’d lost them, as well.
Titus didn’t want to waste any more of however much life he had left. He wanted to spend every minute that remained with the woman he loved.
If she would have him.
Chapter 31
Buttons was beside herself to be trundling along in the earl’s grandest carriage. She practically hung out of the window to gape at all the sights—or to ensure all of the passers-by glimpsed a mere lady’s maid, traveling face-forward in an elegant coach-and-four with the Earl of Gilbourne’s unmistakable coat of arms painted on the side.
Matilda was less enthusiastic.
The drive would take fourteen long hours if they were lucky. The further the carriage got from London, the worse the roads would become. By the time they reached the East Midlands, there would be sections with ruts big enough to bathe in.
Not that any of that was what was bothering her.
There had been a brief moment when Titus had handed her into the carriage, when she’d thought, just for a second, that maybe he might…
But he hadn’t. Of course he hadn’t. He’d told her he wouldn’t. The first thing he’d said to her once he’d learned she was his ward was that he couldn’t wait for the day she would leave. Last night, when she was naked in his arms, nothing had changed.
Matilda could dress up as a fine lady, could memorize every note she jotted down in her notebook, but when it was time to stay or to leave…
