His heart released, and he nodded once. His body numb with despair—there was no less dramatic way of describing the feeling—he turned his back to her and strode down the hallway, his pace picking up with each step. It was the only option left to him. He must keep walking, placing one foot in front of the other.
Had he only imagined the force connecting them tonight? For a flicker of time in that room, she hadn’t been irrevocably lost to him. He gave his head a shake to clear it.
Imaginings and wishes mattered not. They weren’t tangible. He couldn’t hold them in his hands, or envelop them within his arms. This position of having no control over the present or the future was a novel experience. But it was reality . . . his reality.
He’d played his hand.
And lost.
Chapter 28
Vagaries: Frolics, wild rambles.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Nick cleared the ha-ha and stomped his way toward the copse of woods. It occurred to him that he was exhibiting all the symptoms of a lovesick wretch. He’d told himself he needed fresh air and blessed quiet to think, but the deeper into the woods he wandered, the worse he felt.
Simply put, he was heartbroken. He’d never experienced heartbreak before, at least, not that he was willing to admit to himself. The feeling was . . . singular. And, yes, wretched.
It was as if he’d been stripped of a vital organ, and all that was left in its absence was a hollow pit that ached and longed and could never be soothed or filled. Poetry didn’t do the feeling justice, but he now understood the compulsion to try. Anything to relieve the anguish. For the poets, it was flowery words. For a man of action, it was a midnight ramble.
He should make his way back to the inn where his horse was stabled and ride like hell for London. His sanity likely depended on it. But, then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d made a sane decision. Not since he’d laid eyes on Mariana in Paris, and certainly not in coming here tonight.
His feet carried him forward alongside thoughts that refused to be tethered to the back of his mind. An unconscious smile began to play about his lips. Mariana had handled Bertrand Montfort like a master, striding into that room and neutralizing her uncle within minutes. And Montfort . . .
Well, Nick could admit a grudging respect for the man. He’d chosen family over pride. Not many men were big enough to make that choice. Montfort had even voiced an admiration for his niece, a feeling to which Nick could well relate. Mariana was a rare woman.
A discordant thought wedged its way in. He’d waited too long to trust her—with his secrets, with his life, with his heart—and now time had run out. Some wounds ran too deep. Some heartbreaks were destined to forever be aching voids of the soul.
What mawkish rot.
He exhaled a rough breath and glanced around at the night wilderness rendered into various shades of gray by indifferent moonlight. Above, a soft breeze fluttered leaves cast dark slate against an indigo sky. Below, the undergrowth of shrubbery to either side of the path transformed into an indistinct morass by the deep ash darkness. A quiet world, both aurally and visually, surrounded him.
His eye happened upon a tiny grave marker to his left, and he stopped.
Here lies Horace
A beagle after one’s own bacon
He wished he had a slice of ham with him to offer in remembrance. It didn’t seem fitting that anyone should pass Horace’s final resting place without a breakfast meat of one variety or another.
His feet resumed their ramble, his thoughts, too, resuming their newly established pattern of maudlin regret. Hopefully time would erase the maudlin part, but he suspected it had no fix for the regret.
His eye happened upon an object in the middle distance, momentarily diverting his morose state of mind. It was a slight, insignificant object. What lent it significance, however, was the simple fact that it glowed crisp and white against the dark and blurred world around it.
Curiosity piqued, he strode over and snatched it up. A line formed between his eyebrows as his mind registered the long, sinuous object in his hand: a diaphanous silk stocking the color of alabaster.
His head snapped up, his awareness of the surrounding wood suddenly razor sharp. Just ahead, at the bend in the path, he spotted another bright object. The stocking’s mate. Within seconds, he held the matched pair, his feet continuing forward in a determined line.
Here was the thing about these stockings: they belonged to a lady. A servant frolicking with her lover didn’t lose these stockings. If a servant had the good fortune to own a pair of stockings of this quality, she wouldn’t forget them on a country path, no matter how diverting the tryst. Aladyleft these stockings.
If he didn’t know better, he might think he was following a trail of crumbs. The crumbs in this case being a lady’s undergarments. And not just any lady’s undergarments, he knew deep in his bones.
Again, he scanned the area, but no more lady’s finery jumped out at him. The path before him led to Duck Pond. He would know his way down this trail blindfolded. A hope threatened to blossom in his chest, a hope he must tamp down. He should know better by now. But the heart, it seemed, never learned.
After a few bends of the path, his eye snagged on another object, and his foot tripped on a root. In a single, efficient motion he righted himself and caught the object between forefinger and thumb. This item was smaller, yet more substantive. His heart kicked up a notch when the moon moved from behind a cloud and illuminated the bit of silk in his hand: a lady’s garter—a lady’sfuchsiagarter.
