“He hasn’t changed much from where I’m sitting,” I began my defense of him. “Title or no, he is the hardest working man I know. He is still kind and practical. He has never met a problem he cannot solve. I haven’t found a single concern I cannot trust him with.” The words poured from me. I’d never given voice to my thoughts. But they were the truth. Practical, sullen Mr. Summers was, perhaps, the single most reliable person in my life. Kit may have grumbled, but he’d never once faltered.
She wore an astonished look, probably matching my own. But then it faded into something harsher, shrewd. “But you were not willing to wed him when he was a mere solicitor?”
“I was not willing to marry anyone. Ever. I didn’t marry him for a title. I didn’t marry him for wealth. I’ve no need for either. I married him because of him and in spite of myself.” My breathwas harsh in the dark, ragged. Because for a second, just a moment, I had forgotten myself.
I wasn’t Kit’s wife. He wasn’t my husband. And this was all a lie.
She knocked back the rest of her drink, and the idea was so appealing I followed suit. “It seems that I’ve underestimated you once again. My apologies Lady Leighton.”
“Davina, please. I prefer Davina. The title still makes Kit uncomfortable.”
“All right, Davina. My siblings call me Lizzie.” At my slow, confused blink, she added with a smile, “For better or worse, we’re sisters. You’ll not be rid of me now.”
I brushed aside the turning in my gut at that thought. “Does this mean I now have nieces and nephews?”
“More than you can stand, to be sure.”
“Oh, this is delightful! I’ve always wanted children in my family to spoil.”
Eighteen
EARNSHAW RESIDENCE—APRIL 11, 1817
KIT
After the fourthtime my gaze turned to the door, Mother called me over with an irritated, “Let them talk it out.”
“But what if it’s going poorly?” I asked as I found my way to her side at the table.
“Lizzie is in a snit because she thinks Davina doesn’t love you the way you deserve. When she finally sees that she’s wrong, she’ll be nice as pie.”
My chest tightened at the reminder that this was all a lie. Lizzie was wrong about many things today, but Davina’s feelings for me were not one of those things.
“Chin up, dear.”
I fixed a smile onto my face. It felt a little forced but Mother must have attributed it to nerves.
“I noticed something else today, ducks.”
“What is that, Mum?”
“That girl’s finger is bare.”
I looked down at my hands against the worn table, feeling the flush creep over my cheeks and down my chest.
Suddenly, my mother’s fingers, still elegant even though they now bore the creases and lines of age and life, dropped a delicate gold band into my hand. In the center of the fine-spun, oval-shaped gold filigree was a pearl.
“Mum…” Something about her closed-mouth smile read as proud to me. The expression ripped open my chest, guilt and love fighting for prominence.
“It was always supposed to be yours, my boy.”
“But Lizzie or Katie?”
“Have jewels that welcome them into their husbands’ families. This is to welcome Davina into ours.”
I’d always known that my mother’s ring was destined for my future wife. But now, seeing the graceful band, I could picture it sliding onto Davina’s lithe finger. And I knew it would never suit another.
“Thank you,” I breathed through the knot in my throat, hoping Mother would attribute the strangled tone to sentiment instead of what it was. I wasn’t even sure what it was, to be truthful. Desire, desperation, shame, loss, affection, fear—there was no word for that swirling combination and any of the hundred other emotions I couldn’t separate enough to name.
