Page 49

Meg stepped back. She looked from her grimly frowning father to Jacob standing above her on Wellbourne House’s doorstep, and his insides gave a horrible lurch to realise that she hadn’t instantly refused.

Her father’s hand didn’t falter in its grasp on her shoulder. ‘I’ve come for you, Meg,’ he said gravely. ‘You don’t have to stay with these people any more. The one that wanted to hurt you is dead, and it’s safe for you to come home. I won’t leave you here to be accused without cause.’

Jacob felt his heart speed up. He was sure she must be able to see how much he wanted her to step back into the doorway to stand beside him, the rightful mistress of the house they now shared. His desperation was probably plain, and he wasn’t too proud to try to hide it, but then her eyes slid away from his.

At once he lowered his head to speak urgently into her ear. Surely she couldn’t really be considering going back to Hayworth? Not when barely an hour earlier she’d been in his arms, seemingly taking comfort from the kisses he’d been so happy to bestow?

‘There’s no need for you to go,’ he muttered intently. ‘I’ve told Isabella she has until the end of today to leave. Once she’s gone, there’ll be no one to speak against you any longer.’

Meg’s shock was clear. ‘You’ve done what? But I thought Celia isn’t strong enough yet to withstand the journey.’ She wavered, uncertain. Her father’s hand was still on her shoulder, however, and the weight of it appeared to sway her in the very opposite direction to the one Jacob had hoped.

‘Please don’t send them away on my account,’ she implored him. ‘It’ll make you look heartless if people were to think you’d tossed a widow and her baby out into the street. Not for a hundred pounds would I have you deemed so unfeeling.’

‘It would hardly be the street. Isabella’s parents have money and a great house of their own. She has somewhere to go.’

‘Even so.’ There was a hint of a tremor in her voice that cut him to the quick. ‘I’m grateful you’d take my part, but I won’t have you torn down for my sake. If anyone’s to leave Wellbourne House, it ought to be me.’

‘No. You don’t have to.’ Not caring that her father stood so nearby, able to hear every word, Jacob threw himself on her mercy. ‘You can stay if you want to. Neither Isabella nor your father should force your hand.’

‘You’re saying I’m free to do as I choose, without anyone coercing me?’

‘You know you are. You’re not a prisoner here.’

‘Then that’s my decision. Mine, and nobody else’s.’

Meg gazed fixedly at the ground, her fingers toying with the jet buttons on one black sleeve, and there was nothing Jacob could do to stop his hopes from draining away.

‘Oh.’ The sound that escaped him was barely a word at all, his dismay so intense he could hardly speak. ‘But of course. If that’s what you wish.’

Mr Wheeler wasn’t the kind of man to waste time crowing over a defeated enemy. With a brisk nod, he let go of Meg’s shoulder, sending her on her way with a gentle nudge.

‘Good. Go and get your things. I’ll wait for you here.’

She stumbled slightly on the doorstep. Jacob reached out a steadying hand, dying to touch her, but she moved away, disappearing inside the house without once lifting her head to meet his eye.

He swallowed painfully, his gullet lined with shattered glass. He hadn’t realised he’d been holding onto the door handle the whole time, and as he released it he felt how it had been biting into his palm, the sting of it nothing in comparison to the wound that had opened inside his chest. Mr Wheeler was standing like a statue, his face impassive, and Jacob wondered distantly whether the other man felt any triumph at all.

This doesn’t mean it’s for ever. Just because she’s chosen to go now, doesn’t mean she won’t come back.

That last spark of optimism was rapidly diminishing, and quite possibly was hopelessly naïve, but he clung to it all the same as an uncomfortable silence descended over the two men. It was difficult to know what to say to someone who was trying to snatch away his best chance at happiness, and in the absence of anything more brilliant Jacob reverted to the manners that had been drilled into him since he’d been just a boy.

‘Can I call the carriage for you?’ he managed to rasp. ‘I wouldn’t want the walk back to the village to do more damage to your leg.’

Mr Wheeler paused, but then he turned away. ‘No thank you, my lord. As I said before, all I want is Margaret.’

Jacob nodded bleakly. An immediate response had flashed through his mind and he had to act quickly to curb it, thinking the better of letting it issue into the chilly autumn air.

Me too. That’s all I want as well.

Chapter Twelve

The act of picking apples was tediously repetitive but it meant Meg didn’t have to think very much as she twisted and plucked, twisted and plucked, stretching up onto her tiptoes and down again as vacantly as a mechanical toy. Thinking was currently dangerous, so she endeavoured to do as little of it as she could, although of course it wasn’t possible to suppress every single thing that tried to cross her mind.

Jacob’s face was the worst offender and she steeled herself to resist as the memory of the last time she’d seen it attempted to assault her once again. He’d hadn’t looked happy as she’d brushed past him with her battered old travelling bag, and it was only her unshakable conviction that she was doing what was best for him that had stopped her from dropping her luggage on Wellbourne House’s doorstep and throwing her arms around his neck.

It was the right thing, though. Of that there can be no doubt.

The tears that never felt far away prickled behind her eyes once again. The conversation she’d overheard between the two funeral guests had shown her she had to leave, but knowing a path was the right one and having the courage to walk down it were not the same thing, and since her return to Lark Cottage she’d missed Jacob so much it felt as if she had been hollowed out. Each day of the past week had been harder than the previous one and her pain showed no signs of diminishing, no matter how she tried to occupy herself or to pretend that her heart wasn’t breaking in her chest.