Hawk let out a short, humorless laugh. “Women don’t forget that sort of thing, my friend. Not the good… and sure as hell not the bad. But it’s your life. If you want to rot here at Dasborough Park, be my guest. Just don’t expect me to watch you drink yourself into the man you were those few years after Harrowgate.”
Dash didn’t want to talk about Harrowgate.
“You’re returning to London soon?”
Hawk had responsibilities that he had to take care of there. Family. Duties. Friends… a life.
“Next week,” he answered.
They walked on in silence, boots crunching over the frost-hardened path, each man lost in his own thoughts.
The road from Dasborough Park to London was long, unpredictable. Weather, horses, road conditions—it could take close to a fortnight. He’d made it in less than a week before, when the reason had been urgent enough.
Lately, the urge had been clawing at him to just—go. One too many dreams of his princesse had turned curiosity into something far more dangerous.
What if she could forgive him? What if she still loved him? He doubted it—God, he doubted it—but could he live with himself if he didn’t try?
Dash let out a slow breath, watching it bloom white in the chill.
To go to Ambrosia Bloomington now, after two long years away from each other, after leaving her in the worst possible way… it would be the height of selfishness.
And yet…
He hadn’t permitted himself to be selfish in a very long time.
“How was it?” Beatrice looked up at Dash as he entered the drawing room that had been their mother’s favorite. Although she was dressed in black from head to toe, she’d not attended the funeral. Women weren’t expected to, and Dash hadn’t tried to convince her otherwise.
He knew his sister would mourn Hannah. She didn’t need the ceremony to remind her.
Dash shrugged. “It was… sad.”
Beatrice nodded, her gaze distant. “It still doesn’t seem real. She was just… so young.”
“Yes.”
“There were days,” Beatrice said quietly, “when it felt like she wasn’t entirely here… as if some part of her already belonged to Heaven.” She shook her head, a faint crease between her brows. “Is that a terrible thing to say?”
“If it’s what you feel, it isn’t wrong, Bea.”
And Dash understood. Hannah had seemed to live half in this world and half in the next, a gentle, untouchable presence they all knew they would lose too soon.
Even if he hadn’t already been in love with Ambrosia, even if his heart hadn’t belonged wholly to another, he doubted he could have reached her.
Dash leaned against the mantel, the familiar weight of the room pressing over him as his gaze settled on his sister. Her copper-brown hair was pinned in a knot at the back of her head, her eyes the same gray-blue as his own. Once, those eyes had sparkled with innocence, alive with the excitement of a girl with the world at her feet.
But she had long since abandoned the whirl of London society—no more balls, no more Seasons. Whenever he pressed her, she brushed him off, claiming to disdain the institution of marriage, of having no desire to parade herself about town. Instead, she kept to Dasborough Park, running wild across the countryside with her bow and quiver, as if arrows might shield her from the world.
He loved Beatrice with all his heart, though he could not always understand her. And today, as he studied her face, he saw no spark at all—only eyes shadowed by another loss in this house and cheeks drained of color.
“And Lord Beresford?” she asked at length. “He truly was absent from his daughter’s funeral? I had hoped—foolishly, perhaps—that he might relent.”
Dash shook his head. “They could not bring themselves to visit while she lived. Why pretend to care now that she is gone?”
Beatrice’s frown deepened. “They never came. Not after the wedding. Not when she was strong enough to receive callers. Not even when she could barely lift her head from the pillow.”
“‘Too far to travel,’” Dash supplied dryly.
Her bark of laughter held no mirth. “It was never about her, was it? Only the title. The satisfaction of saying their daughter had married a duke.” She looked at him then, sharp but fond. “Thank God Lark wrote to me. Else how should you have known to save her from Groby?”
