Her arms went around him, and she pressed her cheek to his steadily thumping heart.
“Four seasons fill the measure of the year,” she recited Keats. “There are four seasons in the mind of man.”
“This is her winter,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Christ, Julianna. I am going to miss her desperately. She was the heart and soul of this family.”
His shoulders shook—he was sobbing. And so was she. Tears trailed down her cheeks as they held each other, both of them trembling. How she hated his pain. His sadness. If she could, she would take it all from him, bear it herself so that he would never hurt.
But that was not how life worked either. She could no more take on his pain than she could accompany him to Buckinghamshire. Because she did not belong in his world.
Not yet.
They had grown close—incredibly, intimately so. They had made love not just in the Palladian temple as they had that first day, but they had met again and again clandestinely. His chamber. Hers. In the darkened halls. The shadowy library. Anywhere they could. They spent their nights learning everything about each other. Talking until the sun rose. Whispering, laughing, kissing.
And here they were, about to be ripped apart.
He had been courting her, but there had been no discussion of a betrothal. Now, there could be none. Not yet. She understood, of course. His grandmother was dying, and he needed to be at her side. But that did not make their parting any easier. Nor did it calm Julianna’s suddenly frayed nerves or quell her concerns. Every lady knew her reputation was paramount. Every lady knew she should never allow a gentleman liberties without benefit of marriage.
But Julianna had been a wicked lady, and she had not wanted to wait.
“This is not the way I wanted our days together to end,” he said hoarsely. “It is not at all what I intended.”
“You must not fret over that,” she reassured him, her palms coasting over his broad shoulders as she inhaled deeply of his familiar scent.
How she wished she could carry it with her until they met again. But that, too, was impossible.
“Julianna, there is so much I want to say.”
She sniffled against his chest. “Save it for when we meet again. You must go to your grandmother. Be with her. Ease her final days.”
“Are you weeping, darling?” He drew back, looking down at her, frowning.
She attempted to dry her tears with the back of her hand, feeling like a ninny. She had never met his and Hellie’s grandmother. But their pain was hers. Because she loved them both.
He whisked a handkerchief from his waistcoat, then used it to dab at her cheeks.
His grandmother was dying, and Sidney was dryinghertears. With another sniffle, she took the scrap of linen from him. “You needn’t do that. I ought to be strong for you and for Hellie, and yet here I am, an utter watering pot.”
She dried the tracks on her cheeks, but her gaze was still swimming with more tears. And he was looking down at her with such undisguised tenderness, she fell in love with him again, right then and there. His handkerchief smelled of him, bay and musk and leather, his initials embroidered on the corner.S. E. D.She would ask him what his middle initial stood for later. Something else to learn about him. Another secret to unlock and cherish.
“You are one of the strongest ladies I know.” He swept a stray curl from her cheek.
She did not feel terribly strong just now. Indeed, she felt wretchedly weak. She would miss him dreadfully.
Still, it was not lost on her that he was being a pillar of strength when she should be that for him. “I am the one who ought to be reassuring you.”
“Seeing you, touching you, holding you is all I needed.”
Oh, Sidney. I feel the same.
But she didn’t say that. Instead, she nodded. “I wish there was more I could do.”
“There is not. I haven’t much time. My cases are packed, and we leave in the next few minutes for the train station,” he said, his eyes traveling over her as if he were committing the sight of her to memory.
She knew the feeling; she, too, was memorizing everything about him. The divot in his chin, the chisel of his jaw, the slash of his cheekbones, those lips that kissed her so sweetly, his emerald eyes and dark, wavy hair. He was so handsome and so beloved, and try as she might, she could not shake the inner prodding of fear tainting her every thought.
This did not feel like goodbye. It felt like something deeper and longer. She could not shake the worry within her. The voice in the back of her mind warning her that with their idyll at Farnsworth Hall at an end, so too was everything between them.
Courting was not a promise. It was not marriage or a betrothal.
