“Yes.”
She glanced back at the coach and nodded. “Then, I’m too late.”
“Yes.”
Daphne continued to stare at the coach as if she wanted to see the woman who had, after all these years, reached and redirected Seger’s heart, but the curtain was drawn. “She must be very special.”
“She is. And she is the reason why you and I must say goodbye to each other.”
Daphne shuddered visibly. Then she nodded. “I understand, but first, I...I want to give you something.” She reached into her reticule and pulled out a stack of letters tied together with a ribbon. “Take these.”
“What are they?”
Was this an outpouring of love? he wondered uncomfortably. Were these letters meant to make him change his mind?
She managed a smile. “You probably think they’re from me, but they’re not. They’re Clara’s letters to Adele. I took them. You should read them.”
He accepted the small stack and stared down at his wife’s elegant penmanship on the top envelope. “They’re not my letters to read.”
“Ask her permission first, then, because you need to understand some things about your wife.”
His eyes lifted. Trepidation rippled through him. “Such as?”
“Such as how much she loves you.”
Seger stared at Daphne, speechless.
She forced a smile that did not seem to come easily. “I knew,” she said, “that it would go one of two ways today. You would either take me back, or you would be faithful to your wife. I came prepared for the latter.”
He continued to stare at Daphne’s troubled face in the morning light. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because when I read those letters, I wept. I realized that she loved you more than I ever did, because I had selfishly allowed you to idealize my memory for eight years, when I should have proven to you that I was not the perfect woman you thought I was. On top of all that, I was ashamed of myself because I was willing to leave you, Seger. For money.”
He felt his heart throb with what he realized was an unprecedented sense of freedom. He had thought he was free before, never committing to anyone or anything, but he had not been free. He had been in chains, afraid to love. Afraid to let Clara into his guarded heart.
None of that mattered now.This...this new understanding of his misconceptions about the past was opening his heart and mind to the extraordinary gift he had in the present.
Still staring down at the letters, he recalled Clara’s patience and understanding when he had not been willing to give her his whole heart. He had never told her he loved her. He hadn’t known that he had, but now.... Yes, now he knew.
He had desired her from the first moment he saw her across a crowded ballroom. And every day since, that desire had grown until it matured into love.Love!Now that Daphne was here before him, he knew that he loved his wife, and he knew that she had been unwavering in her love for him.
“I don’t need to read these,” he said. “I already know how she feels.”She has shown me every day. She has persisted, steady in her constancy, while I have shut her out.
He heard Daphne’s voice as if it were coming from a great distance away. “You should know something else, Seger. Quintina paid Gordon Tucker to follow Clara yesterday. I know because I went to see him. He told me that Clara loathed him because he was a threat to what she had with you.”
Seger touched Daphne’s arm. “Thank you.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry for what I did to you, Seger. You’ve suffered long enough. You deserve happiness. Go and seize it.”
He stepped forward and took Daphne into his arms.
Clara peered out the coach window, saw Seger kiss Daphne’s hand, and knew she couldn’t bear to watch any more of this. Her fists were clenched so tight, she was surely going to draw blood. She needed air.
She opened the door and got out. She walked around to the other side of the coach—the street side, where she wouldn’t have to look at them, and where they wouldn’t be able to see her—and leaned her head back against the side of the vehicle.
What in God’s name was her husband thinking about and feeling right now? Had his love for Daphne come flooding back, and had he already forgotten the fact that he had a wife watching and waiting?
He had a wife.
