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“What did he do?” His eyes glittered. “What did he do that you can’t go back to him?”
He died. She wanted to scream it at him. She was stumbling muddy and hatless and blistered and scratched through the forest because the man she’d loved died. But that wasn’t it, and she knew it. Her intake of breath felt strangely hard, bruising her lungs.
“Lavinia.” Neal was staring. She could push back her straggling hair, but she couldn’t wave a wand and restore her beauty. Her cheeks were burned red by sun and swollen by tears. The state of her dress would have embarrassed a fishwife. She looked ghastly.
His face, though, didn’t register disgust. She couldn’t decipher his emotions.
“Did he lift his hand to you?” At last, something identifiable. Neal’s gaze had become dangerous.
“He betrayed me,” she said on a breath.
Yes, that was it. Betrayal, not death, had parted them.
George hadn’t been for her.
She hadn’t been for him.
“He carried on with half the women of London, and I was too blind to see it. I thought we belonged with each other, to each other. That was the first fairy tale I was stupid enough to believe. I should have learned something when that particular illusion shattered. Instead, I kept making wishes. I must be the stupidest woman you’ve ever met.”
She could feel her mouth making an ugly shape as she fought to smile.
His hand was suddenly gripping hers. Her fingers stretched around his, a sweet ache that caused something hot to flare within her.
“Because you believe in fairy tales?”
She could scarcely bear the tenderness in his voice.
“It’s hardly scientific.” There, she’d pulled it off. Some sort of smile.
“Science isn’t incompatible with faith.” He shrugged, but his grip tightened. “The world would be a poorer place if everyone believed the same things in the same ways. We need scientists. But we also need dreamers.”
“Is that what I am?” All at once her throat loosened and a sound slipped out, some mixture of a sigh, a sob, and a laugh.
How good it felt, the release of the pressure in her chest.
Not a snob. Not a ninny. A dreamer.
Suddenly, her foot throbbed so intensely she staggered sideways, free hand flying out, closing on his biceps.
“I need to sit down,” she gasped. He nodded, frowning.
“As far as botanical rambles go . . .” He hesitated, and she realized his disapproval was all for himself.
“This one was rather on the agonizing end of the spectrum.” He sounded grim. “To be frank, I didn’t think you’d keep going. My intention wasn’t to cripple you, but . . .”
“To teach me a lesson?” She pushed off his biceps, tugged her hand free, and started toward a clearing, the moss glowing emerald green in the sunshine.
“You should know I always keep going,” she muttered. “Lavinia is appallingly stubborn.”
He laughed as he used to laugh, the sound rich and warming. Back at Crawthevyn Inn, she’d thought him the least broody of men. Again and again, she’d seen this initial impression borne out. He was ebullient, warmhearted. Quick to admit fault and apologize.
Quick to forgive.
Thank God. Thank God for his fundamental goodness.
The moss cushioned her feet, thickening beneath her as she walked.
“So she is,” he said wryly, catching up to her. “I’ll never forget how you stared down that handful of worms. The worms blinked first.”
