Page 64 of The Earl and His Lady

She didn’t expect to do any such thing today, but her finer gowns required help to do up their buttons. Today, she wanted to slip from the house as quietly as she could, without fanfare or notice.

She twisted her braid into a knot at the back of her neck and pulled a black bonnet over it. Her gray shawl went over the whole and she left her room. Tip-toeing through the house, she saw no one, and slipped through a side door into the damp morning air.

The church was a mile and a half away. Cutting across country, Virginia knew she could make good time there and back to Heatherton Hall.

She didn’t wish to tell anyone of her going to avoid their looks of understanding, their words of half-meant sympathy. She wanted no questions before or after. Seeing Charles’s grave for the first time must be something she experienced on her own terms.

The grass was damp along the path she walked, brushing against her skirts to soak them with dew. Or had it rained in the night?

All the heavens do is weep this summer. Virginia looked up at the sky. Lucas worried over the amount of rain. It was too much, too frequent, and not enough sun to dry it up again and wake the plants from slumber.

Virginia passed over the bridge where Charles would stand to fish with the boys. They rarely caught anything, but Phillip had loved to lean against the rails with his fishing pole.

She swallowed a lump in her throat and kept going, through a stand of trees and across another field. The church’s bell tower came in sight and her steps slowed.

Could she make it any farther? Did she truly need to?

Yes. Charles’s memory kept her moving forward. She loved him. She wished to pay better respect to his memory, to see his final resting place, to do her duty by him.

In the distance, a rooster crowed. The world was otherwise very quiet when she entered the churchyard.

The Heatherton barons had not been nobility long, in the way England measured time. Their small church did not have room or the ability to bury people within its walls and under its floors. But the family had a generous portion of land near the eastern wall of the building. It was there she went, steeling herself against seeing the new gravestone.

It looked like all the others. Rows and rows of them, rectangles set low to the ground, with curving tops and deeply-carved names, to stand the test of time and the wear of weather.

Charles Macon, Baron of Heatherton. August 1780 - February 1812.

His life, everything he was, noted in the coldest and most formal manner. Her eyes pricked with unshed tears. After all, he was not here. His immortal soul was gone home to heaven, if she believed what she heard the vicar preach from his pulpit. And she did. She must. To think of Charles as gone forever—it would be too much.

She laid a flower down on his grave, plucked from the meadows as she came. It was a meager offering, but Charles had never been one for flowers.

Lucas’s words came back to her, from days ago. Before their argument.

“It helped, to ease my thoughts, to express them and imagine what Abigail might say back to me if she was present.”

Dare she try the same?

Virginia glanced up, looking around to ensure she remained alone in the cemetery. She took in a shaky breath and whispered words she had not spoken in months. “Hello, Charles.”

Her heart burned within her, behind the walls she’d built to protect it.

“I miss you.” Her voice cracked and she swallowed, composing herself. She could not break. Not here. “The boys do too. They are well. Happy, even. They are learning to ride, and you would be so proud of them.”

Closing her eyes, imagining Charles standing beside her instead of somewhere beneath the earth on which she stood. He would stand near her, his head tilted to one side as he listened to all she said, his expression tender.

“Phillip is struggling with his place in the world, I’m afraid. He has taken burdens upon his shoulders he shouldn’t bear. Edward only wants to make the people around him happy. They both remind me of you, every day. They remind me of what I’ve lost.”

“You will never lose me, Virginia.”

She kept her eyes closed. The words came from her memory, from weeks before Charles had passed, when she held his hand and they spoke of what was to come. The doctor had given them no hope, had left them with a promise to return. Virginia’s heart had fought against the prognosis while her head knew it must be true. Her husband had been failing in strength and health for a long time.

What else had he said that day?

“I will remain in your heart, and the boys are a part of me and a part of you. They will be here, they will be a comfort to you. Watch them grow and know I will watch them, too.”

That was a different day, a different conversation.

Truly, she had been blessed to have time with him. They planned together, spoke of what her life would be when he was gone. Of course, he hadn’t known what his brother would do. He hadn’t known Virginia would have to wed another.