And now she was going to leave, and he was never going to see her again.
It’s not for the best at all. I’m letting something wonderful slip through my fingers—I’m such a fool.
But he couldn’t find the words to stop her. She wanted to go. He’d already tried to convince her to stay, and it hadn’t worked, so that was the end of that.
“Be happy, Reeves,” she said quietly.
He reached out and took her hand on impulse, and for just a moment, their eyes met.
He was sure they were thinking the same thing. The words didn’t need to be spoken. Possibly she’d stay of her own accord.
But she turned and climbed into the carriage, and then the door was shut, and Reeves knew he had had his last look at the woman who had changed his life forever.
All he could do was stand and watch as she rode away.
CHAPTER 30
The snow began to fall the moment the carriage had pulled away from Greystone Manor, and so did Bridget’s tears.
She had held herself together as long as she could. Saying farewell to Reeves had been agony. In the end, when he had taken her hand, she had believed that he might be intending to draw her back and ask her once more to stay with him. And if he had, she knew she’d have had a very hard time turning him down. Shewantedto stay.
She also knew that she couldn’t. She had made the right choice, even if it was a painful one. But now she let herself cry at last for everything she had sacrificed.
Maybe the driver had noticed her tears, for she heard him begin to hum a tune, his voice loud enough over the winter wind that it muffled the sound of her crying. Bridget was thankful. She used the cover of his humming to center herself, and by the time they were a few miles from the house, she had managed topull herself together once more. They rode in silence after that, a silence that lasted for hours and covered the growing distance between Bridget and Greystone Manor like a blanket, muffling her pain.
She lost track of time, the rocking of the carriage lulling her into a bit of a stupor. After a while, when the sun was high overhead, she realized she was hungry and pulled out the sandwich the cook had sent her away with. She ate it thoughtlessly, unable to give her full attention to what she was doing. If the sandwich was good, that fact did not register with Bridget. She couldn’t have named any of the ingredients.
It took her by surprise when she realized night had begun to fall. They’d been on the road all day, but it hadn’t felt like a full day. She leaned forward in her seat. “Are we nearly there?” she called to the driver, fully expecting his answer to be yes.
But it wasn’t. “I’m wondering whether we ought to stop for the night, my lady,” he said. “There’s an inn not far from here.”
“An inn?” she repeated. “I expected to make it back to the orphanage tonight. Wasn’t that the plan?” They had stayed at an inn on the way to Greystone, but that was because they had departed the orphanage at night. The point of leaving in the morning this time had been to avoid this very thing.
“I’m sorry, my lady,” the driver said. “I know we hoped to be back by now, but the snow has slowed things down considerably. There’s no way we’ll make it there before it gets dark.”
Bridget frowned, weighing her options. “I suppose it would be very dangerous to be on the road after dark.”
“Yes,” the driver agreed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“And you say there’s an inn nearby?”
“About a mile from here.”
“I don’t have any money for a room.”
“I was given money by His Grace,” the driver said. “Just in case anything unexpected happened during our journey. I’ll be able to pay for two rooms, as well as lodging for the horses. Then we can set out again in the morning, and this time I’m confident we’ll reach our destination. We’re only a few hours away now.”
“Well,” Bridget said slowly, “I suppose it’s probably for the best that we stop, then. Yes, you have my permission to take us to the inn. Thank you.”
She sat back in her seat, feeling rather shaky. The emotions of leaving Greystone had been tempered by the knowledge that she would be back in the familiar surroundings of the orphanage tonight. She had looked forward to seeing Vicar John and the children, and to sleeping in the bed that had been hers for so long. It would help her feel like things were going back to normal. But now she was going to have to put that off, to wait one more night for that return to normalcy.
And being at the inn would be difficult, too, for it would be impossible not to recall the last night she had spent at an inn. The very beginning of her journey, when she had first gotten to know Reeves and Emma. She found herself aching to return to that night, as awkward as it had been. So much had been ahead of her then, so many strange and wonderful experiences that she could never have predicted.
The carriage pulled up in front of the inn. Bridget saw with a sinking feeling that it was, indeed, the same one she had stayed at on her way to Greystone. That night had been uncomfortable, but full of a strange excitement. This one would simply be sad.
The driver climbed down from his seat, and Bridget followed suit. “All right,” he said. “It looks as if there aren’t too many people here tonight, so we should be?—”
His voice cut off.
