He was waiting when she arrived, standing beneath a trellis of climbing roses, his pleasant face drawn with apprehension.
"Lady Vanessa." He bowed over her hand. "Your note was... unexpected."
"I know. I apologise for the irregularity, but I felt this conversation should happen in person."
"I see." He released her hand and took a step back. "I suspect I know what you have come to say."
"Do you?"
"I saw you at the Castleton ball. With Lord Montehood." His voice was quiet, resigned. "I saw the way he looked at you during the supper waltz. The way you looked at him." He managed a small, sad smile. "I would have to be blind not to understand what that meant."
Guilt twisted in Vanessa's chest. "Lord Deane…Christopher…I am so sorry. I never meant to…"
"Please." He held up a hand. "Do not apologise. You cannot help whom you hold affections for you, any more than I could help holding affections for you." The words were simple, without bitterness or recrimination. "I had an inkling…even before the ball. I knew that your heart was elsewhere, even if I hoped I might change that."
"You are a good man. The best of men. You deserve someone who can cherish you as you deserve to be."
"Perhaps." He was quiet for a moment, gazing at the roses that climbed the trellis behind her. "May I ask…is it official? You and Lord Montehood?"
"Yes. As of this afternoon."
"Then I wish you joy." He said it simply, sincerely. "I mean that, Lady Vanessa. Whatever disappointment I feel is my own burden to bear. It should not diminish your happiness."
"You are too kind."
"I am realistic." A ghost of his usual warmth flickered across his face. "I knew, when I began courting you, that I was competing against something…someone…I did not fully understand. I simply hoped that constancy might prevail where passion had not."
"It might have. If things had been different…"
"But they were not different. They were exactly as they were." He took her hand again, pressing it briefly between both of his. "Be happy, Lady Vanessa. That is all I ask. Be happy, and do not waste another moment on guilt or regret. Life is too short for either."
Her eyes were burning. She blinked rapidly, refusing to cry. "I will. I promise."
"Splendid.” He released her hand and stepped back. "And now, I believe I shall take myself off to the country for a few weeks. My estate has been neglected, and I find I am in need of fresh air and solitude."
"Christopher…"
"Do not worry about me. I am not as fragile as all that." His smile was steadier now, more genuine. "I shall recover. I always do. And who knows? Perhaps in the country I shall meet a young lady who thinks discussions of agricultural reform are romantic rather than merely tolerable."
A laugh escaped her, watery but real. "She would be very lucky."
"I like to think so." He bowed again, formal and correct. "Goodbye, Lady Vanessa. I hope our paths will cross again, when time has softened the edges of this conversation."
"I hope so too."
She watched him walk away, his shoulders straight, his step steady. He did not look back.
It was, she thought, exactly the sort of dignified exit she would have expected from him. Graceful, honourable, without atrace of self-pity or recrimination. He was a good man,perhaps too good for the world he inhabited.
She hoped he would find happiness. She hoped he would find someone who could appreciate his quiet virtues, his steady heart and his earnest devotion to things that mattered.
She hoped, most of all, that she had not hurt him too badly.
***
The evening brought another gathering at the Wayworth townhouse.
Word had spread quickly,as word always did in the ton and by dinner time, a steady stream of visitors had begun to arrive. Friends, acquaintances, curious gossips hungry for details they came in waves, filling the drawing room with chatter and congratulations.
