“I know I do not have a name to offer her. Not one she might be proud of. But under all that is holy, I shall protect her and care for her—”
“I said what do you wish me to say, Northwood?”
His mouth was dry again. “That you would bless such a match.”
“It is blessed.”
Relief filtered through him, ebbing away the strain—and when the viscount’s eyes crinkled with a smile, Felton breathed out a laugh. “Thank you, my lord.” He slammed the glass back on the stand, then whirled to leave.
“Northwood?”
Felton pulled the reins on his excitement and paused in the doorframe. “My lord?”
“Only one thing do I ask of the man who marries my daughter.”
“Anything.”
“Walk proud.” The smile left Lord Gillingham’s lips but glistened all the stronger in his eyes.
Felton grinned. “I will.”
She could not bear this.
Eliza pulled her cashmere shawl tighter, her cheeks already chilling from the wind in her face. She did not look at him. She blinked often enough and hard enough that any mist in her eye was only from the October cold.
Not what Minney had told her.
The gig rolled up the familiar hill, and at the rise, the ocean spread out before them. Deep blue water rolling with white waves. A gray, foreboding sky. A flock of seagulls and a half-torn net washed up on the beach.
Her shawl flapped in the wind as Felton swung her down. Still, she did not look at him, but her body went colder when his touch was gone.
He was as strange as she was. He had said nothing, not in all the time they had been riding. Even now, as they descended the hill to the beach, he did not speak.
Then they stood there, close enough to the water that the mist found a home on their faces, salty and cool. They had once played here. They had once loved here.
Or so she had imagined.
But that was all it was. Another story. Another make believe. Minney had nearly said as much, as she’d helped Eliza pin back her hair and don a bonnet.“Mr. Northwood be goin’ to leave, Miss Gillingham. I heard him say so when he first arrived. I hear lots of things, don’t I? He be goin’ to Cambridge. His brother be there. I knowed because I heard them say so.”
She’d shaken her head and denied the words were true. She’d told herself he would not run. He would not leave. Not now.
But the moment she saw him, she doubted. Why else would he have stayed away so many days? Why else would he take her on such a ride, if not to tell her goodbye?
Goodbye.The word formed, swallowed her, pulled her under. She was the mermaid all over again, and the rowboat was sailing away. How empty the waters would be in his absence. How terrible it would be to ever surface again, knowing the rowboat would no longer be there, knowing his kiss …
His kiss.She lingered there, frozen by the undoing thought, and glanced at him.
He watched the horizon, intent, wind whipping hair across his forehead. She knew he felt her stare, but he kept his eyes in front of him and left the silence as it was.
She slipped her arm around his. She shouldn’t have. Not now. But if the mermaid could reach once more through the water, touch his hand before he rowed away, hadn’t she the right?
“There is something I must ask you.”
She leaned her head onto his shoulder. “Please do not ask me. You must tell me.” The warmth of his arm soaked into her, a torturing pleasure. “You are always ordering me about everything, Felton, and you must not stop now.”
“Eliza—”
“Tell me to be brave, and I shall do it. Tell me not to cry, and there shall be no tears.” She forced herself away from him. Just one step, but the gap seemed an ocean. “There is but one order I could never obey, and that is to cease loving you. Even after you…after you …”
