“I am leaving, Idris,” Devlin said. “I will not be back.”
Gwyneth fought to save herself from fainting. She had never fainted in her life. She had no patience with vaporish women.
“I was wondering,” he was saying, “if I might have a word with Gwyneth before I go. Alone if it is possible. With your permission, ma’am. And with hers.”
The tunnel had opened back up a bit through the sheer effort of her will and the slow, deep breaths she was taking. She wasnotgoing to faint.
“But of course,” her mother said. “If it is all right with Gwyn.”
“I am going to have a word with Ben,” her father said. “Come with me, Bronwyn. You too, Idris.”
Idris stood frowning intently at Devlin for a while before turning to follow his parents outside. Gwyneth got to her feet, and she and Devlin faced each other across the table.
“I have to go,” he said. “It seems that what happened last night was my fault, and I am the one who must leave.”
“It will all be forgotten in a while,” she said, “and you will be able to return.”
She did not for a moment believe what she was saying.
“No, Gwyneth,” he said. “Even if I could come back, I would not. Everyone—my whole family—has lived with a lie for years andyears. Perhaps all the years of my parents’ marriage. My mother has lived with it. Perhaps especially her. Even I have had niggling suspicions for longer than a year but have suppressed them because I did not want to dig deeper and perhaps discover that they were well founded. I did not know for sure until last night, but I have not been entirely innocent. I do know now. And it seems I made my decision last night not to be a part of the happy illusion that everyone condones by refusing to acknowledge the truth. Even my mother’s own family—her parents and her brother—have perpetuated it. All of them are doubtless frantically thinking at this very moment of ways to reconstruct the illusion so thatnormallife can resume. There has been nothing normal about our lives. I will no longer ignore the truth just because it is the convenient and polite thing to do. I will not live beneath a roof with that man again. I cannot.”
That man.He was talking of his father, whom he had clearly always adored. Whom everyone had. Or did. Oh dear God.
“Where will you go?” she asked him. “What will you do?”
“To London first,” he said. “I have money of my own. I am going to purchase a commission. In a foot regiment if they will have me. I daresay they will, though. The fight against Napoleon Bonaparte is heating up, and it is going to be a long and brutal one, I suspect.”
Gwyneth swallowed and gripped the edge of the table. NotDevlin.No one could be less suited... She tried to speak, but no words came out. She did not even know what she wanted to say. Her mind was refusing to function properly. He was leaving. Leaving Ravenswood. Leaving her. Forever. He was going to be an officer in a foot regiment. He would almost surely be killed and she would never see him again after this moment.
She would never see him again even if he lived. He was leaving.
“I am sorry, Gwyneth,” he said. “I amsosorry.”
She nodded and looked down at her hands. How absurd, really. This time yesterday he was just a dream from the days of her youth. This time yesterday a scene like this was unthinkable. If all had stayed as it was this time yesterday he would not even have been on that hill to overhear his father and Mrs. Shaw in the pavilion.Noneof last night would have happened. None of this would be happening now.
And suddenly he was behind her and his hands were gripping her shoulders and she was turning and burying her face against him.
“I am so sorry,” he said again, his voice low and unsteady against her ear. “Forgive me for saying this, for I have no right and you must forget me immediately. Today. But I do love you, Gwyneth. With all my heart. I will always love you.”
“If you loved me,” she heard herself say, pressing her hands against his chest so that he would move back from her, “you would not have made that public scene last night, Devlin. I begged you not to, but you did anyway.”
The words, bitterly spoken, seemed not to be coming from her. They were not what she wasthinking.She was not thinking at all, in fact. She was all pure, raw agony.
“Yes,” he said, gazing at her. “You did, Gwyneth. And I did. Accept my apologies, please.”
“And if you loved me,” she said, “you would not be leaving me in this cowardly manner. You would be staying here and fighting for me. You would be persuading Dad to let you marry me, and you would be taking me off to Wales or somewhere to set up a new life with me instead of with your stupid foot regiment. You knownothingabout love. You have never loved me. You scarcely knew of my existence until suddenly yesterday you thought you fancied me and got stirred up by a bit of moonlight and music. Andlust.And you called it love. You do not know the meaning of the word. A man does not leave the woman he loves.”
He gazed at her with that closed-off Devlin look of his—the one he had used on her a year ago when she had met him at the bottom of the hill while they were both out riding. “I am so sorry,” he said. “I cannot offer you so little. It would be the ultimate act of selfishness.”
“One’s heart is such a little thing, is it?” she asked scornfully. “There is no warmth in you, Devlin. Nogive.You are all inflexible righteousness. I have never loved you either. How could I have? The man with whom I have been infatuated does not even exist. I saw you, and I made you into the image of my dream man. You are not the only one who learned truth last evening. I learned it too. I saw that I have loved an illusion. I do not evenlikethe real Devlin Ware. I am glad you are going away and never coming back.”
“Gwyneth,” he said, and reached out a hand for her.
She batted it away. “Go on,” she said. “Go. I have to get ready for church.Go.”
And he dropped his hand to his side, made her a formal bow, and strode from the room without another word.
By the time the sound of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels came from outside, Gwyneth was on her knees on the floor, her head bowed forward, the heels of her hands pressed to her eyes.
