“Edward and I met in England,” she began softly. “We were barely more than adults in society’s eyes. Back then, I was Victoria Ashbury.”
A small smile touched her lips.
“He was there for the summer, apprenticing at a vineyard in Kent. He’d saved for years to make the trip. Edward had this dream of turning his father’s little patch of farmland in Western Australia into a vineyard.” She gave a gentle laugh. “Wildly ambitious. Completely unheard of at the time.”
She stared out the window, as though seeing it all again.
“Margaret River wasn’t famous then. It was barely even on anyone’s radar. Just whispers from agricultural reports claiming the climate might rival Bordeaux.”
A faint, wistful smile touched her lips.
“He spoke about it with such fire. Most men I knew talked about inheritances. Edward talked about soil, sunlight, and what he wanted to build with his own hands.”
“I was staying with relatives in Surrey, and my aunt insisted on hosting endless soirées in hopes of marrying me off before I turned twenty-one.”
A distant look entered her eyes.
“We were introduced at a dinner party neither of us wished to attend. He stood near the French doors the entire evening, staring longingly at the garden as though he’d rather be pruning the hedges than speaking to any of the guests.”
Her eyes warmed with fragile memory.
“And then he spilled his wine on the tablecloth. A full glass of Merlot. Everywhere.”
Noah choked back a breath. “That sounds… exactly like him.”
“Of course it does,” she whispered, a small tremor in her smile. “He blushed scarlet and immediately apologised to everyone within five metres, even to the footman who had absolutely nothing to do with it. Then he confessed the whole incident in front of forty people because lying, even socially, was not in his nature.”
She let out a broken laugh. “It was the most honest, mortifying thing I’d ever seen at a dinner table. And it was the moment I fell in love with him.”
Her fingers drifted to the brooch, tracing its edges with reverence.
“He was impossibly earnest. And kind. And utterly, devastatingly sincere. He spoke to me… not the way young men of society usually did. He wasn’t trying to impress me. He wasn’t trying to assess my worth or determine my suitability. He simply… saw me.”
Her voice thickened with emotion.
“He had this way of looking at you, directly, without flinching, as though anything you said mattered. As thoughyoumattered.”
Something in my chest melted.
“We began to see each other secretly,” she continued. “He would wait for me by the rose garden after supper. I would pretend to take an evening stroll with my cousin, then slip away when the maid turned her back. We’d talk for hours beneath the wisteria trellis, whispering about our lives, our hopes, our futures.”
Her expression relaxed for a fraction.
“There were stolen moments at the edges of crowded rooms, his fingertips brushing mine as he passed a glass, the slightest glance across the table that made my heart pound. Letters slipped under doorways when neither of us dared risk speaking aloud.”
Her voice lowered, becoming almost humble.
“And our love grew. Slowly at first. Then all at once.” Her chin trembled, just once. “He made me feel young. Alive. Free in a way I had never allowed myself to be. Not as an heiress. Not as a daughter expected to marry well. But as myself.”
I felt Noah exhale beside me, painfully, as though he could see his grandfather in every word.
“And he loved you?” I asked, enraptured.
Lady Beaumont nodded, eyes shining.
“He did. And I loved him. He gave me this brooch as a symbol of our love. He had our initials engraved on the reverse side, E and T.”
A shadow of memory crossed her face.
