That was how much time had passed since she had arrived in the early morning’s ethereal glow and now. Ara hadn’t a timepiece, but she guessed by the position of the sun, the pain in her feet and back, and the crushing, bitter weight lying heavy on her heart, that it was at least noon.
Fears, dark and painful, threatened to consume her. They swirled through her mind, resounding, mocking, and bitter.
He isn’t coming for me.
He has changed his mind.
He does not love me.
As the sun had begun to rise and he initially failed to arrive, she had contented herself with a waterfall of reasons why he had been delayed. Perhaps he overslept, she reasoned. Perhaps he had forgotten. Mayhap his horse had gone lame. But time had lolled slowly on, the sun ticking its way across an overcast sky.
Her naïveté continued to provide her with a fountain of hope for some time. Had she gotten the day wrong? Maybe he had told her three days instead of two. Was it possible she was a day early? What if he had been robbed? Thrown from his mount? What if he had fallen and struck his head on a rock, and he was bleeding and in need of her assistance?
As time stumbled on, her confusion melded into worry. Valise still in hand, she had trekked about as much of the dense undergrowth as she could manage, bogged down by her case and her travel skirts, searching for his fallen form. Her search had turned up not a sign of him, and, fearing he would arrive at their appointed place and she would not be waiting, she returned, solemn.
And waited.
Waited some more.
Her feet began to throb. She paced until her left boot wore a blister in her heel. She stood until twinges in her back and the pain in her feet led her to settle her bottom upon her valise. More time passed. Her chin fell into her hand, and in this miserable fashion she passed at least another hour.
All the while, her mind turned into a tempest. Excuses and worry and fear faded. In their place, came realization. Sobering, numbing realization.
Clay had jilted her.
He did not want to marry her.
Indeed, perhaps he had never intended to wed her at all. Or perhaps in the last two days, while she had been dreaming of becoming his wife, he had changed his mind. Or mayhap her wickedness at their last meeting had disgusted him. Maybe he regretted making love to her.
She could only guess at his reasons, for he was not here to ask.
And he was not coming.
Ara finally admitted it to herself after a few more hours had passed, and she was thirsty and hungry and so very tired. At first, all she knew was a great, billowing swell of numbness. But all too quickly, the pain followed.
The horrible, agonizing pain as realization turned into undeniable fact.
He isn’t coming for me.
He has changed his mind.
He does not love me.
She was not going to marry Clayton Ludlow today. She had a packed valise, a heart filled with dreams, and nowhere to take them. She had begun the morning in secret smiles and tentative happiness, but the Ara who had awoke in the night, so eager to become Clay’s wife that she could not sleep, did not resemble the Ara who stood alone with her valise in the waning hours of the afternoon.
Though she tried to contain them, the sobs inevitably came. She did not know how long she sat on her valise alongside the road, crying into her skirts. When a familiar carriage ambled into view with her father’s crest emblazoned on the side, she did not bother to run. Nor did she stop her tears from flowing.
The carriage halted alongside her. She did not even protest when her mother escorted her inside. As the carriage rattled back to Kingswood Hall, she closed her eyes tightly, refusing to speak.
He was never going to come for youtaunted the rolling wheels.
He didn’t want to marry youwhispered the creaking conveyance.
He never loved you,said her broken heart.
She was a fool, and all the love sonnets were wrong.
Chapter Eighteen
