A flash of disappointment lit her eyes like lightning during a bleak winter storm. Appearing quickly and gone, leaving him to wonder if it had ever been. “No, none at all. Do what you must.”
Leaning back, he called up through the small opening in the roof to the driver. “Deliver me to Abingdon Park. Stop at a flower shop on the way.”
When they arrived at the garden cemetery, with his arm cradling an abundance of colorful blossoms that could only exist this time of year in a hothouse and had no doubt cost him a small fortune, he promised to return to the residence before Althea was to give her first lesson. With the grace and agility that she’d come to expect of him, he leapt out of the conveyance.
After paying the driver additional coins, Benedict told him where to deliver her. As they started off, she glanced back to see him trudging through the gated entrance, his gait slower than she’d ever seen it, and she was struck—as she’d been the night she watched him walk away from her shabby little residence—by the loneliness of him, but something had been added to deepen it. A forlornness hovered around him. And why shouldn’t it? He hadn’t passed through the gates in order to enjoy a spot of tea.
They barely reached the next street when she ordered the driver to circle around to where they’d been. After instructing him to wait, she clambered out of the vehicle and stood on the precipice of indecision. Should she simply wait for his return or join him in order to offer whatever support he might welcome as he visited whoever it was now lost to him? Would he be glad to see her or angry at the intrusion?
In the end, she decided it was worth the risk of garnering his anger on the off chance that he needed her solace.
As she walked along the path, she couldn’t deny the area contained a peacefulness, a quietness, a calmness. A rustling sounded as the slight breeze toyed with the last of the tenacious leaves clinging to the trees. A briskness on the air made her breath visible.
Passing by a statue of a huge stone angel, she noted the words carved at its base indicated it watched over the Duke of Lushing. His widow had married a Trewlove.
Rounding a corner along the path, she spotted Benedict with his dark head bent, kneeling on one knee at the foot of a grave marked with a small, simple headstone, his beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers resting against the black marble with its gilded lettering.
Sally Greene
June 15, 1841
August 5, 1866
Waltzing now with the angels
Stopping far enough away so as not to intrude, but near enough to read the words, she felt a sharp pang of sorrow, wondering who the young woman was and what exactly she’d once meant to him. She wondered at the shade of her hair, the gentleness of her soul. Although she couldn’t quite imagine him with someone who wasn’t as strong, bold, and daring as he.
It was several long minutes before he finally stood, settled his beaver hat on his head, and turned to face her.
“I apologize if I disturbed you,” she uttered with all sincerity.
“You didn’t, but you were supposed to take the cab back to the residence.”
“This area isn’t exactly teeming with cabs. I decided it would be better to return here and have the driver wait for us in order to ensure you’re there when I meet the ladies. I’m a bit anxious about my first encounter with them, to be honest.”
He studied her for a full minute before nodding. “You have such confidence it hadn’t occurred to me you might be experiencing a spat of nerves. You were right to bring the cab back. We should be off.”
“Did you love her?” The words were out before she could stop them, before he could leave, and she realized she already knew the answer. It resided in the flowers, the manner in which he’d been kneeling, the somberness, the sadness that now clung to him like a well-worn cloak.
Shoving his gloved hands into the large pockets of his greatcoat, he looked up at the graying sky. “It was hard not to love Sally. She often complained that her mouth was too wide and her teeth too crooked, but when she smiled, her dark eyes sparkled, and it was like a thousand tapers had been lit to brighten the world.”
Such profound, poetic words. Her throat tightened, and she wondered how she might explain the tears stinging her eyes. She was rather certain that the Earl of Chadbourne had never spoken so passionately about her or held her in such tender regard, for if he had, surely, he wouldn’t have broken things off after her father’s fall from grace. Surely, he would have stood by her. “Sally was a fortunate woman indeed to have such devotion. But she died so young. Had you plans to marry her?”
He met her gaze. “My affections toward her never ventured beyond friendship.”
“Friends seldom leave such an abundance of flowers.” Costly ones at that.
“Ah, those... My attempt at easing my guilt. I’m the one responsible for her death.”
Before the words had fully settled like an anvil on her chest, he removed his watch from his pocket, flipped open the cover with a practiced flick of his thumb, studied the time, and tucked it back into place. He jerked his head toward the path down which she’d traveled to arrive here. “We’ve lingered long enough.”
A tenseness threaded through his voice, as though he dreaded her response to his earlier confession, regretted making it, was hoping by moving on to another topic he’d never learn her thoughts on the subject.
“I don’t believe for a single moment you killed her.”
“Not directly but I may as well have.”
He started to move past her, and she stopped him easily with a hand on his arm, an arm thick with firm muscle, the strength of it clear even through his greatcoat. “You can’t possibly believe you can say something like that and not clarify.”
