Beau, consumed by the news he’d hoped for and the news that had clearly rocked him, was lost to his own torrent of thoughts, leaving Maddy to her own.
He probably hadn’t needed her at all—the only real threat he’d faced had come from Nelson, and he’d managed that quite well on his own. She’d tell Phillipa that there had been little need for her to be a part of this job, and she might has well stayed in Everwell and looked after her blighted roses.
Funny how there was no sense of victory in that.
The beautiful evening they had spent together, the offer he had made—and her rejection of it—had evaporated into thin air. Maybe she would have regrets later. Blessedly, there was too much else to do.
He would go back to Saint John, be with his sister, and take on the company. And she would go back to Everwell, her library, and her roses.
Maddy should have been satisfied with that. She’d spent the morning lost in the flurry of her training, working through a torrent of emotion she wasn’t sure she wanted to feel. Beau had made her the centre of his world, and she, too late, realized she was becoming accustomed to it. Becoming soft.
Every moment she sat beside him, that softness allowed regret to seep under her skin, pulling her down. She had to fight it.
“You go see the Chandlers,” she said, getting to her feet. “Let them know they no longer have a wanted murderer as a son and brother. I’ll start packing. We can be on the first train home.”
Her declaration seemed to startle him. She quelled the impulse to comfort him with a hand on his cheek, and as he rose and walked away, without looking back, she was struck by the sense of longing—and hurt. What had happened to her? The case was solved, and she could only hope that Veronica Turnbull would see her part of the bargain through. It was the only reason she’d come. Everwell would be compensated, she’d have her greenhouse, and Beau would be nothing but a memory.
It should be right. But after years of scraping by on enough, she found herself doing something she once thought impossible—dreaming of a life beyond Everwell. A life of her own.
And maybe, a life with Beau.
The cool water she’d drawn to wash herself helped shake her out of this maelstrom of feelings, if only momentarily. She pulled on her traveling dress and packed up the rest of her clothes. Selfishly, she thought about going back to the keyhole garden and picking out her favourite plant, taking a cutting or two she could take home with her. A souvenir. It wasn’t fair that a garden like that would go unloved for so long. Because she would have loved it.
Instead, she retrieved one of her trunks and took it to the parlour. One by one, she started packing her books. As the volumes of poetry, gardens, and most especially, her beloved novels were pulled off the shelves, her mind turned to the green recipe book downstairs. What a wonderful book to add to her library. All of that knowledge, the experiments with plants and that horrible recipe for forcing mustard greens that Rimple would be fascinated by, shouldn’t be sitting forgotten on a shelf for another twenty years. It deserved a good home.
She’d been so tempted to take it and tuck it away, as she had so many other books she’d found sitting unloved in dusty libraries owned by rich men who collected them as they collected so many other things—merely for owning them, not for the loving of it. Of course, that wasn’t entirely fair, and the memory of Beau’s excitement as they’d looked through it that first day he’d found it brought a smile to her lips.
It would stay.
Besides, having a reminder of that moment—the moment she’d nearly made an idiot of herself and kissed him—was not something she’d want in her library. There were fantasies, and then there were fantasies, and the latter would be far too painful.
Packing her books was not difficult, especially since she’d carefully arranged her small collection by subject, then by author. And though Beau did help himself to her small collection, he had always managed to put them back exactly how she’d arranged them. As she started packing up her poetry books, she found a volume on roses nested amongst them, as if it had been haphazardly placed there. She frowned as she pulled the book off the shelf and opened the cover. Her fingers grazed over the inscription—to my dear Madeline, on the occasion of her 16th birthday. With love from your grandmother Geraldine Murray.
It was the one thing she’d taken from home when she ran away. Her grandmother had given it to her—the one person growing up who seemed to understand her. Normally she kept it in her bedroom, somehow the volume being even too precious to keep in the library. Of course she had taken it with her. She went nowhere without it.
She set it in the chest along with all the other books. Before long, the shelves were bare, just the way they’d been when she’d arrived. And yet, Maddy couldn’t help but feel they were a little sadder now—like the empty way the front parlour at Everwell felt after they’d taken down the Christmas tree.
Her heart squeezed again. Why had Beau asked her to imagine a life here? Dreams were for other people—the nicer people, the prettier ones, the ones whom people simply seemed to like. Maybe he had meant Maddy to have the cottage, which in the light of day, without the heady rush of moonlight and possibly one too many glasses of Annie’s dandelion wine, was a patently ridiculous offer. This was his mother’s childhood home. He had once planned to sell it, sight unseen. And now he had family living next door, and a company to run and a sister whose life had been destroyed not once, but twice. He would forget her soon enough.
It had to be a trick of the moonlight.
* * *
By the time Beau arrived at the Chandlers, Hollis and Daniel had already hitched up the horses. They must have sensed the news, but even they were surprised at the betrayal of Beau’s brother-in-law.
“I’m sorry to be leaving this way,” Beau said. “I came here in a storm, and I seem to be leaving in one.”
“That can’t be helped,” his brother said, and Beau’s heart squeezed at the idea that Daniel was his brother. “We can take care of it.”
“I’ll pay you for your trouble,” he said.
“You’ll do no such thing,” Hollis said, putting his hand on Beau’s shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. “You’re my son. Give me the chance to help you, to make up for all the times I couldn’t.”
Beau swallowed back his emotions, which were far too close to the bone.
“I’m not sure when, but I’ll be back, for a visit at least. Maybe I’ll bring Jessica to visit. She could probably use the peace and quiet.” Or not, Beau thought. Jessica was her mother’s daughter. A socialite.
“Teddy and I will go help Maddy,” Annie said. “She must be sad to leave.”
