All these years and her scent hadn’t changed.
She paid her portion of the fare and bid goodbye to the female companion, who remained inside the hackney. Apparently, her son was not of enough importance to bother with introductions.
Old anger pooled under his skin. Old anger, and new hurt.
Together, they watched the yellow carriage turn the corner. Then, she faced him.
“Won’t you come in?” Her tone rendered her request not so much as an invitation as a challenge.
Come into the house where she lived with her artist? Come into the place she’d wanted so badly she had been willing to shatter his world? He shook his head no.
Her features remained blank. Only the tightening of her bodice suggested a ragged breath.
“A walk, then.” Her gaze drifted to something over his shoulder. “There’s a garden down the road. The daffodils are set to blossom any day now.”
Memory unfurled—Bromton Castle’s flowerbeds. Yards of carefully tended, yellow buds crowding up against the castle like a necklace of citrine and peridot. He’d left the flowers to the weeds after she left—a childish and unwarranted act.
He held out his arm. She placed her hand on his elbow. They walked.
She spoke of daffodils while, inside his heart, black crows picked away at intangible carnage. Part of him wanted to beg her forgiveness; another part wanted to curse her anew. Instead, he remarked upon the temperature.
They passed through the iron gates and into the gardens. She stopped by a bed of flowers. She reached down and ran a gentle, gloved finger over a bud whose petals were tight with refusal to bloom.
“Alas,” she said with a sigh. “It is not yet time.”
No, indeed.
“I am,” he said abruptly, “to be married.”
This time, her intake of breath was audible. She recovered quickly. “Lady Clarissa wrote to say she no longer expected you to offer for her hand. I am relieved she was mistaken.”
He stiffened. “My betrothed is Lady Katherine Stanley of Southford Manor. She is,” he paused, “the sister of a good friend.”
She frowned, her eyes moving as if she were paging though a book that existed only in her mind. “Lady Katherine…Lord Markham’s elder sister?”
He raised his brow. “Yes.”
Her frown deepened. “She’s a cousin, then. To the fourth degree.”
Good lord. Had she memorized the family tree?
“She is of the Langley line.”
Her eyes bored into his. “There is truth, I hope, between you.”
Truth?Truth? Did she think he would announce their mutual shame to the world? “She—she does not know.”
“Oh, Bromton.” Disappointment laced her voice. “What have you done?”
Of all the possible responses, this was one he could not have predicted.
What had hedone? He’d solved the problemshe’dcreated. He’d carefully contrived a way to restore honor to the Bromton line. He’d deceived Lady Katherine of Southford Manor into a lifetime yoked to a bastard, all in service of a lineage that had been more important to her than her own son.
Rawness burned up his throat. “Madam, you, of all people, should understand why it is imperative I choose a wife from the Langley line.”
She blinked. “Your father wanted you to marry Lady Clarissa.”
“The marquess?” He lowered his voice. “Or mytruefather?”
