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That was his fault. He could own that, and carry it for the rest of his life, and he would. But Lydia had been right, on the floor of her bedroom with her arms around him. Nothing he said in that room had stopped Eleanor’s bleeding. Nothing he could have said would have changed what happened on that bed. For five years he had gone over his words as if one of them must explain her death, because if the fault were his, then chance had played no part. If the fault were his, someone could have prevented it. And if someone could have prevented it, then the world kept order, and he could keep himself safe in it by never wanting anything again.

He had chosen guilt because guilt was easier to live with than the truth: sometimes a thing happens despite all the love in the world, and no one can stop it.

And then he had done the same thing to Lydia.

He sat still with the drawing in his hand.

He had decided for her. He had decided what she might want and what risks she might take with her own life, without asking her, in the dark, because he was afraid. He had made thier marriage a white one without asking. He had shut her out of rooms without telling her they existed. He had stood in the parlor this morning and shouted at her for wanting the very thing she had named in his own corridor, on the first day. As if she had tricked him. As if she had not been honest with him from the beginning.

She had been honest. He had lied. He had told her he did not want a wife, and he had wanted her from the moment he found her drawing a flower. He had told her he did not want children, and he had sat in the conservatory yesterday with Sebastian’s son asleep on his chest and felt his heart crack open.

Eleanor would never have asked him to spend his life alone nor would she have expected him to marry again. The decision had always been his to make.

He put the gloves back in the box, carefully, and the drawing with them. Then he opened the second box, and the third. At the bottom of the third box, wrapped in a shawl, he found the horse.

It was smaller than he remembered. A child’s wooden horse on a little wheeled stand, painted dapple gray, with a mane of real horsehair and a red saddle, its legs exactly as stiff as she had drawn them. One wheel had come off and lay loose in the shawl. The paint on its nose worn thin with age.He had carried it to her five years ago, so proud he could barely speak.

He held it in both hands a long time.

Then he set it on the bed beside him and put his face in his hands and wept, for Eleanor, and for the boy, and for the five years, and for the look on Lydia’s face when he said I should never have married you.

When it was over, the candle had burned to a stub and the window had gone black. He sat with his elbows on his knees and looked at the horse.

Loving Lydia could never mean keeping her safe. No one could promise that. No physician, no husband, no God. Loving her meant trusting her to choose him, knowing what he was and what he had been through and what he feared. It meant standing beside her and being afraid with her, with the door open. It meant letting her decide what she would risk with her own life.

He picked up the loose wheel and turned it over in his fingers. Then he went downstairs, found Pruitt in the stable, and asked whether there was any glue in the place.

He did not go home the next day. He did not trust himself to stand in front of her until he knew what he would say. He spent the day at the lodge with the boxes. He made no attempt to sort or dispose of anything. He simply opened each box and allowed himself to remember. He mended the horse’s wheel at Pruitt’s kitchen table and walked the woods until he was tired enough to think more clearly. By the time the light went, he knew what he would say to her, and that none of it would be enough unless he also listened to her answer.

Lydia left Ashcombe at nine.

She told Mary only that they were going to Brook Street, and to pack for a visit and leave the wardrobe full. Mary read her face and began folding the plain muslin gowns without a word. Lydia put the unfinished drawing of the conservatory between two boards. She left the finished studies on the conservatory wall, where she had meant them to hang. Taking them would have felt like carrying her work out of a place she still loved.

She wrote to him at the table beneath the east windows. The first sentence took her a quarter of an hour.

I have gone to my parents in London.

After that the rest came more easily. She wrote that she had asked him to stay and answer her, and he had left her alone instead. She wrote that she loved him. She wrote that she would not come back merely to make the house comfortable again, or because people expected it, or because his mother wished it. If he wanted her home, he knew where to find her, and he would have to come himself and tell her why.

She did not ask him to promise a child. She did not threaten never to see him again. Reading the letter over, she found one line that accused him of meaning to hurt her and crossed it out. She knew what he had done. She did not need to pretend she knew every intention beneath it.

Whitmore took the sealed letter in the hall without betraying surprise, though she saw his hand close carefully around it.

“Shall I send word to His Grace at the lodge?”

She thought about it. “No. He will come home. Please give him this when he does.”

Mrs. Bell came down while the footmen carried out the cases. She stood at the foot of the stairs in her apron with her hands folded and her round face working. She asked what Her Grace wished done about the cottage children, who were to see the conservatory the next afternoon.

“Let them come,” Lydia said. “Samuel knows which plants they may touch. The labels are on my table.” Her throat closed. “Thank you, Mrs. Bell. For the board on the drawing table. For everything.”

The housekeeper did not answer. She came forward and took Lydia’s hand in both her own and held it hard, then let go and turned away quickly.

The carriage went down the drive under the limes. Lydia watched the house until the trees took it, then drew the curtain halfway so Mary would not see her looking for it again. She had chosen this, the direction and the hour. Choosing it brought no sense of victory. It felt like walking out of her own life.

She reached Brook Street a little after dark. The footman who opened the door stared and fled, and a moment later her mother came down the stairs in her evening gown with her hand at her throat.

“Lydia.”