I can’t even look at you anymore.
He didn’t say it, but he didn’t need to. Charlotte heard the words echo in her head just as if he’d said them aloud. Her heart gave an agonized lurch. She couldn’t bear to see his pain, and she felt her mouth open, heard herself offer him the words he needed, the words that would let him leave her behind. “I’ll make the remainder of the journey to Bellwood alone.”
“No. I’ll take you the rest of the way. I made a promise to Cam.” He waited, but when she didn’t answer, he opened the door. “I’d appreciate it if we left as soon as possible. If we make an early start, I can be in London by this evening.”
“Yes, of course.” Charlotte’s voice was faint. “I can be ready in half an hour. I’ll meet you in the carriage, if that’s acceptable.”
“Half an hour, but I won’t ride in the carriage. I’ll travel the rest of the way on horseback.”
Before she could reply he slipped into the hallway and closed the door behind him, taking all her hope with him. Charlotte clenched her hands into fists, suddenly furious with herself, because a part of her had thought—what? That he’d gather her into his lap and cradle her head on his shoulder for the remainder of their journey? No. She’d never again feel his lips on hers, his arms around her, his hands buried in her hair, and the sooner she accepted it the better. Before the year was out he’d be betrothed, and she…
She wouldn’t stand in his way. He had a chance at redemption, and no one knew better than she how precious that was. To wish for him to turn his back on Jane Hibbert would be to wish he wasn’t Julian, and that—that she could never wish for.
She squeezed her eyes shut. No more tears. She’d cried enough tears to last a lifetime.
If she’d found Julian at last only to lose him again, well, life was made up of such moments, wasn’t it? Such heartbreaking ironies. Not just her life, either—anyone who’d ever loved had suffered. She mustn’t look on this as another punishment. She’d had one final night with him, and that was a gift. It was more than she expected, and more than she des—
Deserved.More than she deserved.
She stared down at her clenched fists. Hadley’s foolish trick on that horse—he’ddied, damn him, and left her with nothing but a heart full of regrets—but she’d forgiven him for it. She’d forgiven his mother, too, though the dowager’s mad rages had left her with wounds that still bled.
But never, in all this time and amidst all this forgiveness, had she ever tried to forgive herself. She wouldn’t wish her bitterest enemy to suffer the agonies she’d endured these past months, and yet somehow she believed she deserved it all.
Deserved to lose her child.
Despite her promise to herself tears rushed to her eyes, and they were bitterer than any tears she’d ever cried, because these tears were for Julian, for all he’d lost. A child, gone before he even knew he had anything to lose.
Her breath caught on a sob. He didn’t deserve to lose his child.
And neither did she.No one did.
If she could only believe that, if she could somehow find the faith and the strength to believe she didn’t deserve the one thing in her life that nearly broke her, then surely, surely she could believe…
She didn’t deserve any of it. If she could believe that, perhaps, just perhaps she might find a way to believe in herself again.
* * * *
If the first three days on the road from Hampshire to Kent felt interminable, the last leg of the journey passed in the blink of an eye. Before she knew it, the carriage had turned into the long drive that led to the front entrance of Bellwood.
The silvery ash trees arched toward each other from either side of the drive, one crown of spear-shaped pale green leaves indistinguishable from the next. Charlotte leaned her head against the window, just as she had done when she was a child, and watched the carriage pass under their sheltering arms. Those trees had stood guard over the drive for as long as she could remember, and like all of Bellwood, they never changed.
Home never did, did it? When one thought of home, they saw it with a child’s eyes, and it lived as such in their memories, forever the same. Every time she came home it was like walking through a dream into the past.
But the people—they changed. She’d changed.
A sad smile crossed her face as she conjured an image of herself as a child—a regular hoyden, with wild black curls, dirty frocks, and ripped stockings. Oh, Ellie was forever scolding her when they were young, plucking her out of one scrape after another, and hiding Charlotte’s many transgressions from their father.
The carriage came to a halt in the circular drive in front of the house. They’d arrived much earlier than expected, but Ellie must have stationed a servant to watch for them, for there she was, standing in the drive, Cam’s arm around her shoulder. Waiting.
Charlotte’s heart swelled with gratitude.Oh, Ellie. Always waiting, always ready, her arms open and stretched toward Charlotte, ready to catch her when she fell.
Perhaps people didn’t change as much as she thought.
And now, at last, she was ready to let her sister catch her. “Ellie.” Charlotte didn’t wait for the coachman, but wrestled the door open herself and stumbled onto the drive. “Ellie.”
Something in that one word told Ellie all she needed to know, and the pinched lines of her face relaxed at once. “Oh, Charlotte,” she murmured as she came forward to close her sister in her arms. “Oh, thank God.”
Charlotte let her head fall onto Ellie’s shoulder and thought how lovely it was, just for a moment, to feel like a child again.
