Perhaps, she thought, he would merely nod and go on his way. But he crossed the road and came right up to her garden fence.
“Lydia,” he said.
And she wanted to weep. For no reason whatsoever that she would have been able to explain to herself. She set down her gardening tools, pulled off her gloves, and rubbed her hands to rid them of the grains of soil that had got underneath the gloves—all with slow deliberation so she could collect herself before standing and turning toward him and looking fully at him.
“I got home yesterday,” she said. “And the garden is a mess.”
And so was she. A mess, that was. She had forgotten just how overwhelmingly gorgeous he was.
“Got home?” he said, frowning. “Have you been away?”
He did not know? Oh.
Oh.
“I went to spend Easter with my father and brothers,” she told him. “And my sister-in-law. She is in a … delicate way.”
“I did not know you were gone.” He rested one hand on top of the fence and looked down. “Be quiet, Snowball. I see you.”
Snowball settled on the grass, gazing upward.
“That was why I got no answer when I called here twice on the same day,” Harry said, looking back at her. “I thought you were avoiding me. But I suppose you were.”
“It was Easter,” she said lamely.
“Lydia.” He looked at her for long moments before continuing. “Are you with child?”
Oh goodness. She felt color flood her cheeks. “No,” she said. “Oh, no, I am not.”
His hand was gripping the fence, she noticed. But he only nodded briefly and said nothing more. He had come that day, then—twice? But not since then? He had not known she was away. Yet it felt as if she had been gone forever.
“Harry,” she said. “I am sorry—”
“Please do not be,” he said, cutting her off before she could finish. “I am sorry too. But it would be better, perhaps, if we did not belabor the point. You found your family well? Your sister-in-law too?”
“Yes,” she said. “My father had a nasty chill a month or so ago, but he is quite better now.”
“I am glad,” he said.
They were talking like polite strangers, making stilted conversation. It was almost impossible, as she looked at him now, simply but elegantly dressed like a country gentleman, to believe that they had actually made love in the house behind her. That they had been naked together …
“The weeds did not stop growing while I was gone,” she said.
“Why should they?” he asked. “They are as eager to survive as any other living thing.”
“I suppose,” she said.
He dropped his hand from the fence and took one step back. “Are you planning to attend the assembly at the inn on Thursday evening?” he asked her.
Ah, the spring assembly that always happened soon after Easter. She had always attended while Isaiah was alive. He had disapproved of the frivolity of dancing and would never dance himself—nor, consequently, had she—but he had not considered it actually sinful. And he had judged his presence to be necessary, as it was at all village events, so that he could open it with a prayer of blessing and thanks. She had always found that prayer a little embarrassing.
“I will be going,” Harry said.
So would almost everyone else. It was a much-anticipated event. Each family took food, so the tables positively groaned with it. The music was always lively, the dancing vigorous, the conversation loud and merry. She had always behaved with quiet decorum while her heart danced to the music and her toes tapped, even if only imperceptibly inside her slippers. She had not attended last year, as she had been in mourning.
“So will I,” she said. “Probably.”
He nodded. “I will see you there, then,” he said. And he turned and walked away. But not along the street into the village, as she had expected, but back up the drive in the direction of home. He had come specifically to call upon her, then, had he? After two weeks of not even knowing that she was gone?
