Mr. Houghton coughed. “I believe his exact words were that you could marry the sweep’s climbing boy tomorrow for all he cared, ma’am,” he said. There was a gleam in his eye for a moment.
She had never known that Mr. Houghton had a sense of humor, Fleur thought, smiling.
He would not stay for dinner or even for a second cup of tea. He wished to cover several more miles before darkness, he said.
Fleur got to her feet and clasped her hands in front of her. He would be gone in a few minutes. Until then she would hold firm. She would not ask a single question abouthim. Not one.
Peter Houghton coughed again, pausing by the outer door before opening it. “His grace could not go himself to London, of course,” he said. “He sent me in his stead.”
“Yes,” Fleur said. “I am grateful to you, sir. And to him.”
“He is making plans to take the duchess and Lady Pamela into Italy for the winter,” he said.
“Is he?” Wounds that had scarcely begun to film over and knit together were being ripped apart again.
“For her grace’s health,” Houghton said. “And I believe for his own too. He has not been quite himself.”
A sharp-bladed knife was scraping at the wound.
“The climate of Italy should help them both,” she said.
He reached for the knob of the door and turned it.
“I was instructed to make a purchase in London, ma’am,”he said, “and to make sure that it was sent on to you here. It should arrive within the week. I was to inform you that it is more in the way of a contribution to the school than a personal gift.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“It should arrive within the week,” he repeated.
And he bowed to her again, bade her a good day, and was gone.
She was left with the painful ache of knowing that the one small link with Adam was even then rolling out of the village. And with the knowledge that he loved her enough to have sent his secretary to London on her behalf. And that he was sending her a gift, supposedly for the school.
But really for her.
And with the knowledge that soon—within a few months—he would be gone from England. Not that it mattered. She would never see him again anyway. But Italy! Italy was so very far away.
Sometimes pain could be almost past bearing.
There was plenty to do to keep her busy, but she wished it were possible to keep her mind as effectively occupied as her hands and body.
She could not keep the thoughts of him at bay. And they were painful beyond belief. She would never see him again, never hear from him again. And yet she was to know and to believe for the rest of her life that he loved her. Twenty years later, if she was alive then and knew him to be alive, she was to believe that he loved her. And yet she would never be able to verify the truth of it. She would wonder—she was already wondering—do you love me still? Do you remember me?
In some ways, she felt, it would be almost easier to know that he did not love her, that he was happy somewhere else with someone else. At least then she would be able to set about the task of living her own life with a little more determination.
Perhaps. And yet, as she lay in bed at nights reliving thosedays of travel with him, when they had talked easily to each other and grown to be friends and sometimes sat quietly together in perfect peace and harmony, their hands clasped, she was not sure she would be able to live with the knowledge that he was happy somewhere else, that he had forgotten her. And as she relived that night, when they had told their love over and over again with their bodies, she did not think she would be able to bear knowing that there could ever be another woman for him.
And yet it hurt to know that he was unhappy, trapped in a marriage that was really no marriage at all, undertaken for the sake of a little girl who was not even his.
It hurt to know that the barrier that kept them apart, and would do so for the rest of their lives, was as flimsy and as strong as gossamer.
The culmination of her pain came with two events that happened on the same day, one month after she had moved to her cottage.
She was called from the school early in the afternoon to take delivery of a pianoforte, which had been brought all the way from London. There was a number of curious people in the street, and somehow all the children were out there too, swarming about the large wagon that held the instrument.
“A pianoforte!” Miriam gasped, and clasped her hands to her bosom. “For you, Isabella? Did you order it?”
“It is for the school,” Fleur said. “It is a gift.”
