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She found that irresistibly funny. “To scare people?”
“No, it was more the quiet that provoked me.”
They came to a stone bridge that crossed the Serpentine Lake and led south. It was a graceful, classically designed structure with stone balustrades along the sides.
“Shall we cross the bridge,” Pembroke asked, “or continue on this road?”
She shook her head. “We would end up at Rotten Row. Let’s turn around.”
To her relief, he didn’t try to persuade her otherwise. “Aye, ma’am.”
As they headed back in the direction they’d come from, Reina said, “The urge to hide isn’t just cowardice. I have four half sisters, and I don’t want to hurt them.”
“Hurt, ma’am?”
“Yes, they’re all respectable women. If there were ever an encounter—if any of them were to come face-to-face with me—it would put their reputations at risk. And if they know about me, which is quite possible, it would be very painful for them. Because I’m a reminder of their father’s indiscretion. Our father. You understand.”
“I do.” Something in his face made her think he might understand even more than she had explained.
“I’ve had nightmares about being seated near one of them at a formal dinner,” she said. “I have to be careful about accepting invitations, in case they might be attending. It’s kinder to them if I help preserve the illusion that I don’t exist.” Now she couldn’t seem to stop talking. “I’ve met people who knew my father. But no one ever mentions him to me, because it would make everything so uncomfortable. So I’m never able to discuss family, or my past, or anything that would help people come to know me.”
During the silence that followed, Pembroke seemed to be holding back a comment he knew she wouldn’t like.
“What’s your opinion?” she asked.
“I have no opinion, ma’am.”
“Oh, don’t say that. Tell me what you really think.”
“I think,” he said slowly, “you never left Walters Street. Not fully, at any rate. Part of you is still there, living as a small ghost at the window.”
Reina was shocked into silence.
“The Welsh understanding of ghosts is different from the English,” Pembroke continued. “It comes from knowing the spirit world and the living world aren’t entirely separate. They lap one over the other in places like rolled blankets. The spirits of the living can haunt, just as the dead can.” He paused, amusement lurking in the corners of his mouth. “There was a time I was fearful of ghosts. My sleep was troubled. I jumped at every shadow until I finally asked Mam what to do.”
“What did she say?”
“The only way to banish a ghost is to march right up to it and ask what it wants.”
“Did it work?”
“Aye. It revealed my ghosts were hatstands and window drapes. But had there been a real ghost, I’ve no doubt it would have worked on that one too.”
Reina laughed uneasily. “I’m afraid this is all too metaphysical for me.” Worried she might have sounded dismissive, she added, “I do appreciate your opinion.” She didn’t like the way that sounded either, like a prim little girl.
Pembroke must have thought so too, for there was a glint of mockery in his eyes. But there was also a tenderness that weakened her very foundations. She felt breathless, and scared of something she couldn’t even name, and full of yearning that didn’t seem to have any direction. It threatened to consume her from the inside out until she was nothing but cinders.
She urged her horse into a trot, and then a canter, riding away from the bridge she would never cross.
Chapter Twenty
Mi Hombre Pembroke
Did Belinda help to prepare my breakfast?” Reina asked one morning as Pembroke cleared away her plate and cutlery.
“She assisted in slicing the ham, I believe.”
“Please tell her that I remarked, unprompted, on what a lovely and perfectly even slice of ham it was, and how delighted I was to discover the rind was trimmed.”
