She closed her eyes.
“If you would permit it… I would be glad to stay.”
She did not turn.
“You know I won’t,” she whispered.
A long silence.
“…Yes,” he said quietly. “I know.”
A breath.
“But I will keep trying, Violet, no matter how long it takes. I meant every word I gave you, and I intend to stay—and to earn the right to stand beside you again.”
Her jaw tightened, a tremor shivering through it. If she opened her mouth, she feared the truth of her heart might slip through the cracks.
So she said nothing.
He didn’t wait for her to.
She listened as his footsteps retreated down the lane, fading into the growing twilight, until even that small sound disappeared.
But his words remained.
He says he’ll stay.
He says he’ll earn it.
He says he’ll try.
And she’d believed him once.
Once had been enough to break her.
With her composure in tatters, Violet stepped into the cottage she shared with her daughter—heart aching, walls rebuilt stone by stone—and closed the door on the sight of the repaired fence outside.
A quiet reminder that some things could be mended.
Even if she wasn’t ready to believe it yet.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The road back to Nathaniel’s estate stretched long and quiet beneath the fading light. William walked it with a single image echoing again and again—
Violet moving toward Lily the moment she ran to his side. The simple, instinctive motion struck him harder than any words could.
She was not rude.
She was not ungracious.
But she was careful in a quiet way that told him exactly how little she trusted him.
And why should she?
He had broken every promise he had ever made her.
Words meant nothing now, not when her first instinct had been to draw Lily closer, to shield her without even thinking.
