She believed that voice. She had to.
But the yard was empty. No telltale shape near the barn. No flash of an evergreen coat. No footfalls behind her.
Just birdsong and a mocking gentle breeze.
Ambrosia walked the full perimeter of the house, calling his name once, then again—just in case. She stepped into the barn. Nothing. She even walked a short way down the road, heart thudding dully with each step.
She turned back, the quiet pressing harder now.
When she entered the barn again, this time there was noise: the creak of wheels, a man’s low mutter. Her heart leapt.
Until she saw it was only Mr. Daniels, hitching the horses to the newly-repaired carriage.
“Is…” Her throat dried. “Is Mr. Beckman with you?”
Mr. Daniels didn’t glance up right away. “He hired a mount from the village. Left before sunup. Seemed in a great hurry.” He paused, then looked her full in the face. “Will you be ready to depart shortly, Mrs. Bloomington? The new wheel should hold us all the way to London.”
Mrs. Bloomington.
The name hit harder than it should have. As if it stripped the last thread of hope from her skin.
She opened her mouth, but no words came.
What if Dash returned for her? What if that was his plan all along?
Or, what if, after reaching London—or Margate, or wherever it was he thought he needed to be—he realized he came to find her?
What if this was all just some massive mistake?
The foolish, hopeful part of her whispered, If I wait… he’ll come back.
But he hadn’t made her any promises. He hadn’t told her there was a future. No declarations. No vow. Nothing but a night that had meant everything to her.
And maybe only to her.
Mr. Daniels must have noticed something change in her face, because his tone softened. “You’ll be ready, then?”
She dropped her stare to the wooden planks beneath her feet. “He left without saying goodbye.”
There was a beat of silence. Then her driver, who’d seemed so apathetic to her circumstances up until now, surprised her. “Probably for the best, if you don’t mind my saying so. Wouldn’t have looked right—arriving in London, unchaperoned, with a gentleman. People would talk.”
Of course they would.
Of course he was right.
Mr. Daniels was right. Ambrosia knew it. There was no acceptable version of this story—her picking up a strange man along her travels—that wouldn’t make its way back to Rockford Beach. Winifred and Milton would hear of it. They would whisper, judge, perhaps even pity her.
They would say she’d given herself over to the devil.
And perhaps, in a way, she had.
Knowingly.
Willingly.
With her eyes wide open.
Why did it have to hurt so much?
