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You cannot—the young woman may have accepted a proposal this very morning.

Barclay’s gaze found the roof of the cave to inspect the composition while Aurora walked up behind Jane, also panting as she released the skirts she had been holding up to speed her progress. The women must have jogged through the woods as he had done. “Ta … tiana! You … scared me … to death … child!” Indeed, his mother had a sheen of sweat across her overheated face, but she looked overjoyed to see her granddaughter.

“I know how to look after myself,” protested the girl with an indignant squaring of her shoulders.

“Of course you do, child. But you cannot stop us from worrying after you. Thirty years from now, we shall still worry after you as if you were but a babe.”

Tatiana groaned. “Adults are so fearful.”

“It is true.” Barclay spoke from the interior of the cave, pulling those ice-blue eyes of the woman he loved to rest on him. He could not read her thoughts, because those windows to her soul were shuttered, revealing nothing.

Was Jane aware he had dissuaded Tatiana from spending time with her—a further insult it embarrassed him to have committed? Fortunately, it did not seem to have affected the relationship between her and his daughter. He had not the right to have said what he had to the child—to interfere in their friendship, which had done nothing but bring Tatiana respite from her grieving.

Aurora looked between Barclay and Jane, her curiosity evident. “So, why are we here?”

Tatiana grabbed her hand to pull her into the cave. “It is a grotto, and it is magical. Come see the other statue.”

“I have been here before,” Aurora responded. “I have seen the statue. Is that why we are here?”

Jane and he both were silent. He raked his hair once more before responding. “Tatiana wanted me and Jane to speak.” He flung his arm up to gesture at the interior of the cave. “She felt we might work out our differences here because … it is magic.”

Aurora tilted her head and turned her eyes up to the roof, back at Persephone, and then toward the hidden entrance to the second cave. “I can understand that. Love has grown here before, for at least one party. The other party … he is dining at the devil’s table in the halls of hell.”

Barclay grimaced. He had done his best not to ponder the question of where at Saunton Park he might have been conceived, but he feared he could now guess the answer. He could imagine a young Aurora having her head turned in such a romantic spot, especially if the old earl had been as handsome in his youth as his younger sons, with their striking green eyes and sable hair.

“Shall I take Tatiana back to the manor?” His mother did not meet his eyes, aware she had offered something improper.

He cleared his throat. “I would appreciate that. Jane and I should talk perhaps … before we return.”

Tatiana clapped her hands. “First you must come see!”

Tugging on Aurora’s hand, Tatiana led the way to the second cave. As they entered, Barclay was again struck by the eerie solitude of the second statue standing in its private cave, with dappled light stealing in from the opening above.

She led them to a bench in the back, where a hamper and blanket rested. Taking hold of Jane’s hand, Tatiana led her forward to sit on the bench. “We did not see it before, but look.”

Jane sat, then turned her head in the direction that the girl pointed, gasping in surprise. “There is a verse etched on the wall of the cave.” She bent from side to side. “It is lit by the sunlight, and it can only be viewed from this bench!”

“What does it say?” Barclay’s curiosity got the better of him, the question spilling from his lips before he could stop himself.

Aurora gazed at the statue in the middle, not looking at the verse but speaking its lines from the recesses of her memory.

“Doubt thou the stars are fire,

Doubt that the sun doth move,

Doubt truth to be a liar,

But never doubt I love.”

Barclay smiled. “Tsar.”

His mother smiled in response. “Indeed. He certainly loves his Shakespeare. I would have done well to recall that this was Tsar’s creation, not your sire’s. I confused the two, but”—she turned shining eyes to his—“the sentiment holds true from a mother to a son, which is why I shall never regret my time here.”

He inclined his head, touched by his mother’s support. She stepped forward, taking Tatiana’s hand from Jane. “Come, little one. Your father and Jane should talk while we return to the manor.”

“I got them here!”

“You did, child. Well done.”