They had, however, nothing else to talk of. There was an embargo on every possible subject, and they fell to a lingering silence so uncomfortable that after a time, Elizabeth began to regret accepting his invitation. Surely, a short farewell would be a less painful memory than this!
It was William who broke the dismal shroud of silence at last. “You know, Richard… I have always thought highly of him. He is one of the best men alive.”
She looked over at him. “Yes, I know.”
“And he will make a… a good husband.”
She nodded.
“And a good… good father.”
Elizabeth’s eyes were entirely filmed over. Any moment, she would crumble. “William,” she choked, “why are you doing this?”
He cast his gaze over the hilltops in the distance, shaking his head and gesturing vaguely as his throat bobbed. “I have to. I have to believe you will be well, or… or I do not know what. I do not think I could carry on in life if I could not think that somewhere in the world, you were well and safe. Happy—Elizabeth, youmustbe happy, or I swear to you, it will kill me!”
Her lungs squeezed—tight bands constricted her voice, and she merely looked ahead, trying to accept his words.
“One thing I have not said,” he continued. “I have not begged your forgiveness.”
She blinked dewy lashes and stifled back a deeper breath. “For what?”
“For making this more difficult for you. For trying to tempt you away, for trying to hold you myself… for loving you in the first place.”
“No,” she replied softly. “Never apologise for that. You made me, William. Loving you has been the finest hour of my life, the sweetest privilege I have ever known. The rest of my years, I will cling to this, for no matter what comes, how I grow to… to love Richard, it is you who have defined my being.”
He drew up his horse. “Elizabeth, are you sure of this? Going with him? Are you sure you can endure being cut off from everyone and everything, and be content with him as your only comfort?”
She sniffed and looked down. “No.”
“Then, why?” He stepped his horse sideways and came close enough to reach out. His hand hovered beside her cheek, over her riding veil, then touched softly on her shoulder. “Would you come with me instead?”
She gasped a broken laugh. “I would follow you to the moon and back, much good that would do us. We both know—”
“Hang what we both know! I mean it, Elizabeth. If you are so willing to hop on a ship with Richard and depart to Lord knows where, would you do the same with me? We could… oh, we could follow Anne and your cousin around the world, or buy some nice little piece of land in Canada. If you mean to start over somewhere else, why not with me?”
“William, please don’t do this again,” she sobbed. “It is not aboutwhereI am, or evenwhoI love. It is acting with honour, looking my Maker in the eye at the end of my years and knowing I did the right thing. Do you really think I could live with myself or love you as I ought if I felt guilty for being with you?”
His hand fell, and he nudged his horse forward again. “No,” he said after an ugly, stricken silence. “I know you could not. Then it is to be Richard who tastes Heaven on Earth. And all for the simple fact that he met you first.”
“Even so, I am glad of it.”
William looked back at her. “Glad? You are glad?”
She swallowed and nodded. “Had I not married him, I would never have known you. My life is richer for that.”
She heard him sigh… once, twice, and then a final, quaking moan rent his breast. “So am I, my love.”
“Ibelievethatsettlesit.” Reginald blotted the page before him and set the pen aside. “I'll have this drawn up and dated for last year—just for appearance’s sake. As to the money, I have enough presently in my strongbox that we shall not need to go to the bank. It should be sufficient for a good start for you somewhere.”
Richard rose from the desk in his father’s study—now his brother’s—and allowed himself another full look about the room that had defined so much of his boyhood. “I never thought,” he murmured, “that when I came back to this place—ifI ever came back—that Father would have gone before me.”
“His heart was simply finished,” Reginald answered quietly.
“His liver, you mean. He drank too much and too often, but I still believed I would see him again, for all that.”
Reginald nodded and began to rearrange the pens on his desk. “It was a terrible shock to us all, and worse when we got the telegram about you two weeks later. I thought it would kill Mother. As it is, I think it has taken five years off her life.”
“I imagine it has. Do you know, she told me after all that, Elizabeth was her saving grace. Fancy that!”
