“I cannot think of that. He can never be replaced.”
“Of course not. Still, the loneliness would be abated, would it not?”
“Perhaps. But I will always want him back. Always long for him.”
“Perhaps there is something we can do. Your uncle is a solicitor.
Perhaps—”
“No. I gave my word.”
“Yes, but you were distraught, desperate. You thought you had no other choice, but now you do.”
“Even if my circumstances change, I have not.”
“But you have. You had just recently given birth. Changes occur in a mother’s psyche, in her nerves, her mind, as I know all too well.”
“But I knew what I was doing. Terrible as it was.”
“Yes—then. But now—”
“Igavemy word.”
He opened his mouth as if to argue further, then closed it again.
Frustration was evident in his stance and features.
“In any case, I could not do it to Edmund. How confusing and cruel it would be to rip his world, his very concept of himself, asunder. I cannot do it. I won’t.”
“But still ... will you not reconsider ...?”
She looked at Daniel and felt tears filling her eyes. Slowly, she shook her head. “I cannot.”
Was she making a terrible mistake? She remembered bemoaning the realization that she had let circumstances and the will of others set her course on many occasions. But now she had made a decision of her own, rejecting the only offer of marriage she had ever received, or was likely evertoreceive. But she had made the only decision she could at present. She had chosen to stay her present course.
She could only hope fate would concur in the months and years ahead.
The butterfly is at the center of numerous superstitions the world over,
and in some parts of Germany it is called “milk thief.”
—ANATOLYLIBERMAN,THEOXFORDETYMOLOGIST
CHAPTER33
Two years had passed since Charlotte returned to London with the Taylors.
She walked slowly up the cobbled street toward the old Manor Home on Store Street.Milkweed Manor, she thought wryly of the moniker by which the place was infamously known. She could hardly believe it had been more than three years since she had first walked this way, carrying her child within her. This being autumn, the day was colder, and beneath Charlotte’s wool cape, a bulge was mildly noticeable, much as it had been then.
She did not knock on the front door of the manor, but instead went around the back and let herself in the garden door. Gibbs looked up from her desk as she entered, then looked down at her rounded middle in question.
From beneath her cape, Charlotte retrieved her bulging reticule.
“Not safe to walk this neighborhood with one’s purse dangling in plain sight,” she said.
Gibbs gave her a rare grin. “It’s good to see you, Miss Charlotte. Sally’s expecting you.”
“Charlotte. There you are,” Sally called, coming down the corridor. “Right on time.”
