A few months wouldn’t be fast enough, but that hardly mattered. Based on his responses to my questions, David wouldn’t be involved in my life much longer. “And what would our relationship be during those months?” I asked.
David’s jaw moved, sliding to one side and then back into place. His arm shook around my waist. “Anna, I don’t know. I cannot marry you.”
Something deep inside me cracked. I’d put all my cards on the betting table, and I’d lost. I lifted my chin, determined not to show how broken I’d just become. “Then you need to stop trying to take care of me, David. If we are ending our relationship today, you have no right to that responsibility.”
David’s eyes closed, and he took one staggering step backward, almost as if I’d pushed him away. When he opened his eyes, they were dull, the bright blue shifted into a cloudy gray. He took two slow and heavy steps away from me. “I can’t, Anna.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “I wish ... I wish ...” He stiffened his back, even though the coloring in his cheeks made him look as though he were going to be sick. His eyes fixed on a spot on the cottage behind me, and slowly, the shaking I’d felt when his hand was around my waist stopped. “We need to go into the cottage and tell your mother about our decision.” A muscle twitched in his brow. “Now.”
I reached a hand out to him and stepped forward. He caught the movement with hard eyes and stepped away from me. My hand dropped.
I had my answer.
If I’d told him I needed to marry him only so I could pay Mr. Green, would he have done it? My heart sank at my foolish pride, yet I couldn’t manipulate David into marrying me because of his kindness.
He walked me back to the cottage but kept four feet of space between us.
It felt like an insurmountable distance, but it would be the closest I would ever be to him again.
We entered the cottage together and informed Mama of our intention to end the engagement. Somehow, even Mama’s eyes remained dry while we discussed the plans for removing to Lincolnshire. Everything was done in a businesslike fashion, patterned after David’s formal stiffness.
After he left, Mama and I spent an hour packing our clothing into trunks. We didn’t have much. My hands shook only once, when I pulled the lilies David had given me out of the vase and tossed them in the bin.
They were dead now anyway. My engagement had lasted almost exactly as long as cut hothouse flowers.
“It is over, then?” Mama asked when I started up the stairs to go to sleep.
I stopped, but I didn’t turn around to face her. “It is.”
I shut myself in my bedroom alone, grateful the Prestons’ cottage had enough room for me to have this private space to mourn for what I’d lost, even though I’d only ever had shadows of it in the first place.
W
Chapter 14
“Sometimes, when everyone else around me thinks the world is being silent, I can hear her singing.”
David Tate, 1842, age 15
I awoke with bleary eyes and a headache to the sound of banging on the cottage door. There was only the slightest bit of light coming through the window, so dawn must have arrived only a few minutes ago.
The banging sounded again. It was too early for Mary to have stoked the fires or helped us prepare for the day, so whoever was outside would have to be either ignored or greeted by Mama or me.
I threw on a wrap and crossed the small corridor to Mama’s room. I opened her door without knocking and found her sitting in bed with eyes at least as bleary as mine.
“Who is at the door?” she asked with an edge of irritation.
“I don’t know. But it seems urgent.”
Mama nodded. I grabbed her wrap from her wardrobe and handed it to her. Then we darted down the stairs, Mama mumbling about what she was going to say to whomever was behind the door.
But when Mama pulled it open, David stood there, his fist raised to knock again.
He looked worse than either of us did. His coat was half opened to the bitter wind, and he seemed to be wearing the same clothes he’dworn the day before. The stubble that had adorned his cheeks when he’d returned from Lincolnshire was back again.
He dropped his hand and glanced between us.
“Dav—” I began, but his eyes, fierce and icy, stopped me.
He held out a piece of paper in his left hand. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said with such force that he might have been declaring war on a sovereign nation. “Anna, I’ve changed my mind. I do want to marry you. If you are willing.”
