Priscilla squared her shoulders and cleared her throat in the most quiet, ladylike manner. “Do you know how many suitors I’ve had since... Shaw?”
Tess frowned and shook her head. “Of course not.” Though looking at Priscilla’s pretty face and imagining the size of her dowry, she guessed. “Quite a few, I suspect.”
“Six.”
Tess blinked, yet it wasn’t an unbelievable sum considering her beauty and wealth. “None of them suited you?”
She closed her eyes a moment and then looked up as if she’d bolstered herself. “One did quite well. I can admit now that I loved him. Truly loved him.” Her voice broke and a tear slipped down her cheek.
Tess dug in her pocket for a kerchief, but Priscilla produced one she’d had tucked in her sleeve.
“I knew I’d need one,” she said with a chagrined smile. “I realized in the weeks after I’d refused Robert’s proposal that I made a terrible mistake.” Biting her lip, she looked out the same window Tess loved looking out, where the old oak stood protectively watchful. “I thought I was guarding my heart, but it cost me a chance at love.”
Tess knew then. Priscilla had come with a cautionary tale, and it hit her with all the impact she’d likely intended.
She reached for Priscilla’s hand as the young woman dabbed at her eyes with the other.
“Could you not reconcile with him?”
Priscilla sniffed and shook her head. “By the time I learned how to overcome the fear, he was engaged to someone else.”
Tess tried, for the flicker of a moment, to imagine Dominic proposing to someone while he was back in London and immediately felt as if she’d cast up her accounts.
“I’m sorry. He should have had more patience,” she told Priscilla vehemently.
“I never told him about Shaw. He didn’t understand why I pushed him away.” She gave Tess a wry smile. “But yes, I often wished he would have tried just a bit harder. Or that I’d been a bit braver.”
Tess understood that desire entirely. “You will be the next time.”
Priscilla took a shuddery breath. “That’s what I tell myself too.”
For a moment, they simply sat together quietly.
Then Tess asked, “How did you overcome the fear?”
Priscilla gripped Tess’s hand tighter. “I wanted a chance at joy more than the comfort of all the ways I told myself I was protecting myself. And...” She turned and focused on the photograph of Tess’s father on the mantel. “Did you know your father had me read Aristotle?”
At the swift change of subject, Tess shook her head. “It’s not surprising. He loved Aristotle.”
“I’m going to bungle this but... ‘the courageous endures fear and dares the deeds that manifest courage.’”
Tess understood. Her father had written out his favorite quotes from ancient philosophers and pinned them to the wall next to his desk.
“One builds courage by daring to do things in spite of fear. That’s how I always interpreted it.” Priscilla watched Tess, her gaze fierce, as if willing her whatever courage she could.
“Thank you for coming and teaching me a lesson.” Tess grinned. “My father would have loved that you managed to work in a bit of Aristotle.”
They both laughed. Then they drank their tea and talked of Tristan’s news, of Priscilla’s father’s investment in a new publishing venture that interested her, and, finally, of the train times to London and that the fastest train was from Norwich.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dom remained at the Prince town house on his first night in London. He’d slept in the rarely used bedchamber set aside for him because he loathed parting from Allie and Benedict.
Not only were they a heartwarming example of a thriving marriage, they were eager to hear more about the dig, the challenging Van Arsdales, and, of course, Tess. And he could never tire of talking about her.
Allie was half convinced she should accompany him back to Norfolk just to meet her, but he vowed that if all went as he hoped, she and Tess would be more than acquaintances. They’d be sisters.
The following day, he made his way back to The Metropole to speak with another journalist the Van Arsdales had contacted. The bespectacled young man awaited him in the elegant, high-ceilinged lobby of the lavish hotel. He was accompanied by a sketch artist, and the young lady sketched him as he answered questions about the Norfolk dig.
