“What?”
“You were needed. Your work was important and I was…a sheltered daughter of a duke, ignorant of realities. I attended balls and danced and wore pretty gowns while you prepared for what was to come because you had seen it before.”
“You were more than that,” he insisted.
Blythe shook her head as a tear leaked out of the corner of her eye. “I hadn’t understood then. I treasured our time together, our conversations, sharing of secrets, but each time word was received of Napoleon’s troops, you grew more concerned and tense. You had nightmares.”
“Is that what sent you away?” he asked quietly.
“No. I realized that what we had, what I thought we had, and my attachment to you was not real.”
He pulled back.
I was hiding in an inn because I was afraid of what people might say or think of me. I didn’t want to be gossiped about. My days were spent reading while I waited for you to return, where we would spend the evenings, as if we were the only two people in the world.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I did not want it to end. At one point it changed from me hiding to me not wanting to be parted from you or leave the comfortable corner we shared.”
She got up and began to pace. “I knew that it was wrong, Orlando. I had all these emotions, for you, but it was wrong, and then when I found out John died, I was eaten with guilt because I had wished that he would just go away so that my situation could change.” She swiped a tear away. “I never meant for him to be killed.”
If only she would have stayed long enough to explain to him. Things would have been so different for them.
“You could have waited. You could have told me goodbye.”
“Do you not see?”
“No. I do not.”
“You are so much more worthy than I could ever be.”
Where the blazes did she get such an idea?
“Your obligation to me, not that you truly had one, had come to an end. My husband was dead and with my own eyes, I saw how important you were. Far more than the pampered daughter of a duke who really served no purpose other than to be wife and possibly mother. I had lived in a world sheltered from reality where as you…I was nothing and I realized that, while you…you were and are so much more than any lord or son of gentry I had ever met, combined into one man. You did not need me. You never really did. It was your kindness that brought you to my side, but I was inconsequential, a nothing, which I realized as I took in the world that you commanded.”
“I never felt that way, Blythe.”
“Maybe not at that moment, but you would have in time. Your work was too important and I knew that when everything was settled that you would see me as nothing but a sheltered, spoiled lady who couldn’t begin to understand the grim reality that others are forced to endure.”
“I would not have,” he insisted.
“But that is how I saw myself,” she nearly whispered.
“You should have told me.”
“I did.”
Orlando pulled back. “I would have recalled if we had such a conversation.
“It was in my letter. A very long letter where I told you everything and explained and set you free of your obligation to me.”
“What letter?” he practically yelled.
Blythe stopped and turned to him. “The letter that I left for you on the bed before I left.”
“When I finally returned to the inn, the room had been cleaned and lent to someone else. Anything you may have left was gone.”
Blythe placed a hand against her heart. “Why would they destroy a letter meant for you.”
“They likely believed that I had left it behind at the time,” he reasoned. “Mrs. Desmit said that you had packed all of our belongings and left.”
Blythe’s eyes widened with horror as she placed a hand over her open mouth. “The letter explained everything, Orlando. I would never have left you without explanation.” She sank onto the settee. “I wrote a very long letter explaining. I swear that I did. I needed you to know and I needed to come home. I told you that if you wanted to continue our friendship or wished to seek me out that I would first go to my brother, Seth’s home, but if I was not there, he would know where to find me.” Tears filled her eyes. “When you never called on me, I assumed that I had been correct in my assessment and you no longer felt any obligation toward me.”
