So very beautiful. His breath had caught in his throat as soon as he had seen her stooping down to hug Pamela. More beautiful even than he had remembered. There was a poise about her, a sense of dignity that was more pronounced than it had been before.
He was very aware of his own ugliness, of his scar. And he had to consciously resist the impulse to turn sideways so that she would not see it.
“I shall ring for some tea,” she said, “and for something to eat. It is luncheontime. Doubtless you have been traveling since breakfast, have you? You must be hungry.”
“I am not,” he said quietly. “Are you happy, then? Theschool seems to be a merry place. This is a cozy cottage, and larger than I expected.”
“Yes.” She smiled at him. “I am happy. I am doing what I like doing, and I am surrounded by my friends.”
“I am glad,” he said. “I had to come to make sure.”
“Thank you,” she said. “That was good of you. You must be very eager to be home, having been away so long.”
“Yes,” he said. “Very eager.”
And yet, he thought, he had not prepared himself well at all. He had thought he had. He had thought he was prepared for the worst. But his heart was a lead weight in his chest and he could not think of home or the winter ahead or of all the years after that.
Not without Fleur. Willoughby would not be home without her, or the future worth living. Not after a year of hope that he had tried to persuade himself was not hope at all.
She plumped a cushion on a chair quite unnecessarily and sat down, although he had not accepted her invitation to seat himself.
And she searched in her mind for something to say and kept her expression politely bright.
For a whole month—for eleven months—she had persuaded herself that he would not come, that he would forget about her, regret his hasty words of love to her. And yet for the past month she had expected him hourly and told herself and told herself that he would not come.
He was standing in her parlor, his hands behind his back, looking dark and morose, looking as if he wished to be anywhere else on earth but where he was.
He had come out of a sense of duty, because he had said he would come. Adam and his damnable sense of duty! She hated him again, wished him a million miles away.
“You have not been troubled by Brocklehurst or his family?” he asked her stiffly.
“No,” she said. “I have heard nothing of Matthew, thoughrumor has placed him anywhere from South America to India. Cousin Caroline is here, but I believe she intends to visit her daughter for the winter.”
“And the Reverend Booth and his sister are still your friends,” he said. “I am glad.”
“Yes,” she said.
She wished with all her heart that Lady Pamela had not gone on the ramble. She wished that he could leave without further delay. She wished she could start living the rest of her life.
If only he had not allowed Pamela to go with the other children, he thought. If only there were some way he could leave immediately. He could take himself off to the village inn, he supposed, but if he suggested doing so, she would think that she had failed in hospitality.
“Thank you for the pianoforte,” she said. “I have not had a chance to thank you before. You intended it to be kept in the schoolroom, of course, but both Miriam and Daniel agreed that it would be safer here.”
“You know that it was a gift for you alone,” he said.
And he watched broodingly as she flushed and looked down at her clasped hands. Her knuckles were white with tension.
He remembered her hands touching him, moving lightly over the wounds on his side. He remembered her telling him he was beautiful. He remembered her telling him that she loved him. He felt an almost overwhelming sadness. He strolled toward the pianoforte and stood looking down at the keys. He depressed one of them.
“The tone is good?” he asked.
“It is a beautiful instrument,” she said. “It is my most prized possession.”
He smiled, and he glanced up at the vase standing on the pianoforte and the letter propped against it. He reached out and picked the letter up.
“This is my letter to you,” he said.
“Yes.” She got to her feet, flushing, and reached out a hand for it.
