“Someday you won’t fear it anymore.” She spoke into the darkness, her breathing still labored.
She was wrong but he would not contradict her.
“Believe me, Maggie, if that were to occur, I’d race across the world to find you,” he promised. “But don’t wait for me.”
Margaret lay in bed.His scent was on the pillow, aches in her body proved it had not been a dream, and yet she lay in bed alone.
Shortly before dawn, he’d removed himself from her arms, from her bed. She’d feigned sleep as he’d gathered his clothing from the floor and dressed.
She’d not moved when warm lips pressed against her temple and then each of her eyelids. She hated goodbyes. If she had opened her eyes and made to bid him farewell, she wasn’t certain she wouldn’t have made a fool of herself.
She’d not wanted him to leave but she could not go with him.
A fling at a house party might be considered an indiscretion; a full-blown affair in London would alter her social status forever. Oh, not officially, but she would be that woman. Rockingham’s aging mistress… Until she was only aging.
Of course, she’d had to tell him no.
Although, there had been moments when she’d almost considered it.
Almost.
Rolling on her side, she pressed her face into the pillow and caught an even stronger whiff of his scent. Maleness. There was no other way to describe it.
Emotions, passions, all of it burned hot between the two of them now, but he would leave on his journey eventually.
She’d thought he was the braver person, but recalling his fears, she wondered if it was her. But none of that mattered now.
She was being left behind.
Again.
26
Winter
Land’s End, December 2nd, 1828
The sky appearedlow and white and ominous, and Margaret could almost imagine it would snow as she stared out the window of the drawing room where she’d intended to open and read all the mail that had been forwarded to her from London.
Invitations. A letter from one of her mother’s cousins and…
Her heart stopped. She knew his handwriting immediately. Tidy, small, and deliberately formed words.He’d promised to write to her but she hadn’t expected him to follow through with the letters after the way they’d ended things.
Because they had decided to end things. Hadn’t they? They’d decided they could not have a future together. And she’d asked him to go—to leave her—so that she could move on with her life.
What could he possibly have to say to her? Sitting on the loveseat with Penelope across from her knitting,she stared at it with mixed feelings—craving his words but also dreading them.
“Something wrong?” Penelope must have sensed Margaret’s change in mood.
Margaret stared over the top of the letter with raised brows. “He wrote to me.” She lowered the envelope to just beneath her chin.
“Lord Rockingham?” Penelope set her knitting aside.
Margaret bit her lip and nodded.
“Are you going to open it?”
“I will. I just… didn’t expect…”
