Amelia paused, sighing. How could she explain what she felt? How could she say that she wanted nothing more than to stay here and become Nicholas’s wife in earnest—to be healed and sane andloved?
I will regret this, she thought, biting her lip.
“If what you are saying is true… Then you may take a message back to Nicholas,” she murmured. “And if he does not come… Then I will know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“What did she say?” Nicholas asked as George came into view.
George returned with his head bowed low, and Nicholas braced himself for the worst. He swiped one of his tired eyes, glancing at the stage on the other end of the playhouse. Every seat was filled. The gaslights had been turned down low. The show would begin soon.
“She refused to give me a concrete answer for her silence,” George replied, sinking into the shadows beside Nicholas. He glanced at the awaiting stage. “You are certain you do not want to speak to her face-to-face?”
“It is not aboutwanting,” Nicholas corrected, voice catching in his throat. “I will not force my presence on her if she does not agree to see me.”
He was surprised by the emotion his words summoned within him. The last week without Amelia had been torturous. Painful more that she had refused to see him. He admitted that he had been wrong in lying to her about his trip. But it had only been so that they could move forward—together, separately, whatever they chose—in peace.
How strange, he thought, as an anticipatory silence settled over the playhouse.Is it not always the case in life that we realize what we want most when it falls outside of our reach?
Nicholas had not described to George the full extent of his suffering. He did not need to know about the chain of sleepless nights, the apathy, the self-loathing that consumed him inside out. He could not risk George taking the fact of his desperation back to Amelia and forcing her hand in the matter.
She will come to me tonight if she wants to. And if she does not, then I will know that I have burned the bridge between us without repair—and society will judge me fairly for it.
“There is… more,” George whispered as the first child appeared on stage. His eyes were round with concern. Nicholas knew before he spoke what he intended to announce. “She said that she is leaving tomorrow morning with her brother.”
“What?” Nicholas felt the blood drain from his face, averting his eyes to the floor. “I-I imagined it would not be long before she left with him. But… no.”
“I am sorry, old boy,” George said, his hand tightening for a moment on Nicholas’s shoulder. “But there is a chance yet.”
Nicholas swallowed, dizzy and sick, loosening his cravat and looking across the audience. It devastated him that Amelia was somewhere nearby, and he could not even speak with her and beg her to remain.
“In a few hours, she said she will return to the orphanage, where you first met, to pack the last of her belongings. If you mean to speak with her, then you will find her there.”
“To say what?” Nicholas growled, eyes stinging. “Goodbye?”
“Perhaps. Or to change her mind.”
A flicker of light in the dark.
He supposed it was something.
“Then that is where I must go,” he muttered resolutely. “It was only necessary for the guests to witness my arrival. I would not cast a dark shadow over her efforts by remaining here.”
Especially not when there is so much more at stake.
George did not try to stop him as he left early.
The hours crawled by in agonizing inertia.
Nicholas checked his watch again, tilting the face toward the gaslight beyond the carriage window.
Almost midnight.
The Jericho Playhouse had emptied an hour ago, the last stragglers dispersing into the cold soon after. George’s carriage had rattled away fifteen minutes prior, carrying Miss Ashwood with it.
The road was quiet now. Amelia must have already gone.
He rapped twice on the ceiling, and the carriage lurched forward into the dark streets of Oxford.
