“You have nothing to apologize for, my dear.” Mrs. Goldsmithreached across the table to clasp Della’s hand. “I am so glad for your mother, because this gift of hers is the first show of any affection I’ve seen from your family since you fell ill.”
Della’s head dropped low, as if in shame. She couldn’t meet Mrs. Goldsmith’s eyes. They were too forgiving, so much more than she deserved.
“Gwendoline and I have discussed it, and we’d love to come with you to Kinloss.” She squeezed Della’s hand once more. “As long as you don’t expect Scottish food. I’m afraid I’ve no idea what that is.”
Della laughed, as did everyone else at the table.
“You know that I am coming with you,” Clara said. Her grin was smug. “Even if you did not want me to join you, someone would have to pry me off the top of the carriage.”
“I would, unfortunately, be the poor fool peeling her off the top of the carriage,” Harry said, raising a hand in salute. It was a historic moment, Harold Stanton making a joke. Della hadn’t known he was capable of such a thing. “So I’d really rather we just go along with everyone else.”
Della smiled. Her eyes were becoming misty again, and she couldn’t stand it. She’d cried enough for this life and the next. Even if these were particularly happy tears, she did not want to waste any more time crying.
“I would love to join you as well,” said Silas, their quiet, overly formal jack-of-all-trades.
“You know,” Della told him, “we may very well need to hire more people. I don’t see a need for you to do the work of three men. You decide which position you’d best like to keep, and it’s yours.”
“Thank you, my lady,” Silas said, ducking his head in a seated version of a bow.
“Oh, none of that.” Della waved him away. “I am the same person I was when I last left this place, and I would hope you’d treat me as such.”
As Della spoke those words, she realized they couldn’t be further from the truth. The person who had returned to Westfield Manor was someone else. Not because of her title, those were just words. She was a different person because of Andrew.
The Della of weeks ago had been infatuated with him, nearly obsessed with his words and fascinated with extrapolating hazy childhood memories. She was in love with an idea. A very specific potential future.
Now, Della knew exactly how that future could feel, what it could look like. She knew the sensation of waking up next to him, of his lips on hers. She knew what it was to love him, and she thought she knew what it was to have him love her, too. No one had ever risked so much for her. No one had ever put her first.
Andrew was no longer a potentiality or an idea born from memory. For a fortnight, he’d been her reality. And then she’d left him. Guilt and regret and fear swam around in her chest, drowning her lungs and agitating her heart.
“Della seems... overwrought,” she heard Clara say. “Let’s give her a moment alone.”
Around her, everyone began gathering dishes and discussing plans for packing up the rest of the kitchens and renting carriages for the impending journey. They were talking about important details that Della ought to know, but she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t think properly anymore. Della sat for long moments, trapped in her own thoughts.
“What happened?” Clara asked, coming to sit in the chair next to her at the table. Della had no idea how long she’d been sitting there since everyone else had vacated the room. It was possible they’d packed up the remainder of the house around her. Perhaps the dining table and chairs were all that remained.
“I left,” Della admitted. It was a confession, an admission of but a small percentage of the guilt she felt.
“What do you mean?” Clara leaned in further, crossing her legs and leaning forward, her chin resting on an elbow she’d placed on her knee. “I know that you left, because you’re here now, but—”
“No,” Della huffed. Her anger at her own behavior began to boil over. She picked up her napkin, the only thing left on the table, and threw it to the floor. “I didn’t just leave London, Clara, I lefthim.”
“Why?” Clara asked. Her voice was a shocked whisper, and Della didn’t want to answer. There wasn’t an explanation that would make any sense. She’d felt how she felt, and she’d reacted how she reacted. She’d never regretted anything more, but she didn’t know how to tell anyone that.
“I was scared,” Della admitted. Once her anger faded, she was left with a mortifying sadness. She’d had the only thing she’d ever wanted in this life, and she’d left him behind. “But what was I supposed to do, Clara?” Her voice was exasperated, weighed down by sleep deprivation and complete emotional depletion. “I could not ask him to leave everything for me. He is selfless enough to do just that.”
Della rolled her eyes at that, like she was cursing her own words. Her own feelings.
“I had a problem, and he fixed it for me.” She sighed again, looking down at the fingernails she’d picked to death along the ride back from London. “And he cannot do it anymore. I won’t allow him to. He would do anything for anyone, and I cannot let him exhaust himself and...” She heaved an angry breath. “I cannot let him become another person who only cares for me out of obligation.”
Tears streamed down her face just as they had in the carriage, and Della gave in to the rush of feeling that poured out of her. She didn’t think she had anymore to give, but she should never have doubted her own ability to feel.
“I would so much rather be alone than have him tether himself to me out of a sense of duty. Or honor, or something. Because it’s the right thing to do. He would lose himself in caring for me.”
Clara picked up Della’s napkin off the floor and handed it back to her. Della knew she needed it. She could feel tears and snot creating a disgusting trail down her face. She wiped her nose and dabbed at her eyes, awaiting Clara’s response. She was waiting but a few more moments, though that response was not even remotely what she was expecting.
“My God, that’s bloody ridiculous.” Clara rolled her eyes. “Complete rubbish, everything you just said.”
“Clara!” Della almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all, of pouring out her heart and voicing her deepest fears and gettingrubbishin return. She wouldn’t, because she was mortally offended, but she did want to. “Have you no compassion?”
