It was as though his own life had stopped two years ago, when he had left the woman he loved?—
Dash cut the thought short before it could take shape, before it could conjure what he had forbidden himself to remember. Some memories were too dangerous to touch.
A hand clapped hard onto his shoulder. “It’s done, old man. You’ve paid your dues, seen your sentence through. You’re free, my friend. Question is—what the hell are you going to do with yourself now?”
Hawk, of course, had stayed long after the service ended.
But Dash wasn’t sure how to answer his friend’s question.
He was free to do as he pleased now.
Or was he?
There’d be the obligatory year in mourning. Another year alone. And if he set foot in London, there’d be no avoiding…
Her.
Dash kept his gaze on the headstone. “I don’t know,” he said finally.
Whereas Longstaffe, Grimm, and Black only knew that Dash had felt some responsibility for Ambrosia Bloomington and ensured she’d never be in want, Hawk knew more.
Over the course of one wretched night—too much brandy, too little sense—Dash had told him everything.
He had spoken of the auburn-haired widow he had met at the worst possible moment of his life. How he had felt for her. How he had left her.
The memory of that morning two years past lodged in his gut like a blade. He had hurt her—of that he was certain—but he had told himself it was the kinder wound. If she hated him, she might find happiness elsewhere.
Hannah’s future had been a question no physician could answer. Weeks, months, years—there’d been no knowing how long she might hold on. And the thought of Ambrosia waiting for him, of him waiting for her… it would have been cruel. For all of them.
So he had settled on the only acceptable solution: better she despise him than be bound to a life of uncertainty.
And thus he had done the one thing he had sworn never to do—left her without so much as a goodbye.
“She is still in London, by the by,” Hawk remarked, his tone far too casual to be anything but deliberate. “Unmarried, too. Do not tell me it never plagues your thoughts—that you might go to her. That you might do both of you a favor by speaking the truth.”
An icy gust swept across the field, scattering brittle leaves through the Dasborough graveyard. Dash’s gaze drifted to the next row of stones—his parents’ resting place, his mother buried beside his father less than a year ago. Two years, and everything had changed. He felt decades older than the man who had traveled with Ambrosia on their unforgettable journey.
“If you dawdle much longer,” Hawk went on, his voice rich with provocation, “you’ll have missed your shot. She will not sit about indefinitely, waiting upon your convenience. And it is not merely the usual crop of fortune-hunting bachelors sniffing at her heels—why, even Grimm has been seen in her company. You know well enough what that signifies.”
Dash’s jaw locked. His fingers curled reflexively, itching to close around the Earl of Grimstead’s smug throat.
“And let us not forget the obvious,” Hawk continued, all wide-eyed innocence. “She is beautiful, intelligent, charming… and possessed of an income of her own. Men will queue for such a prize. One day she will say yes to one of them. Tell me, my friend—do you mean to spend the remainder of your days wondering what might have been?”
Dash cut him a sideways look, a scowl pulling at his mouth.
Not a day had passed he hadn’t thought of her. Not a night without her face invading his dreams, her voice, her scent… the taste of her on his tongue, the sweet ache of her warmth surrounding him.
Two years.
He’d never meant to make love to her. God knew he’d wanted to—ached for it from the moment they’d met—but he’d sworn to himself, from the second she’d agreed to share her carriage, that he wouldn’t cross that line. He’d renewed that vow a dozen times over as he came to know her, respect her, need her.
And then, in the end, he’d broken every promise—first the one to himself, then the one he’d made to her.
Dash pulled off his hat and raked a hand through his hair. The wind had picked up, the scent of the sea heavy on the air. A storm was moving in, and even his greatcoat was no match for the biting ocean gusts that cut through to the bone.
“If she no longer hates me,” he muttered, “It means she’s forgotten.”
It would mean, perhaps, that she never loved me.
