With a glance at her, Greydon asked, “When are you going to stop blaming yourself for what happened with John?”
“I don’t think I ever will,” she admitted softly. How could she? It was all her fault that she had fallen for his charms. She should have been better and seen through his lies.
“That is a sad way to live.”
Enid shook her head. “I am still dealing with the consequences of eloping with John. My father hates me and thetongossips relentlessly about me.”
“You need to focus on what you can change.”
She tossed her hands up in the air. “What can I change?” she asked. “Need I remind you that the only reason why my father agreed to have me come home was because my brother blackmailed him? He doesn’t want me there.”
“Do you want to be there?”
“I do, because it gives Marigold a home.”
“Then who cares how you got there?” he asked. “Your father might never change, but that is on him, not you.”
A brief smile came to her lips. “My father came to see Marigold and I suspect that he has done it before.”
“That is wonderful.”
“It is,” she agreed. “I am hoping my father’s heart is softening towards his granddaughter.”
“I hope to meet Marigold one day.”
“You will, at least when the time is right.” Enid turned her head and watched the people walk along the pavement, skirting the vendors who were hawking their goods.
Greydon spoke up, drawing back her attention. “Are you close with your mother?”
“My mother is a saint, and I adore my brother, Malcolm,” she replied. “They have been rooting for me this entire time.”
“It is good when you have people that you can rely on.”
“I agree, wholeheartedly,” Enid said. “I should have come to my brother straightaway when John started beating me but I was too embarrassed to admit that I was wrong.”
“I can understand that.”
“You?” Enid asked. “You do not seem like the prideful type.”
Greydon chuckled. “My father was furious when I started working as a Bow Street Runner. He threatened to disown me over it, but I didn’t care. I refused to let my father tell me what to do. I was going to prove him wrong, even if it killed me.”
“My father disowned me because he wanted to distance himself from the scandal.”
“No one knows that I worked as a Bow Street Runner,” Greydon said. “And who would have even suspected such a thing?”
Enid bobbed her head. She had to agree with him there. “It does seem rather far-fetched that a son of an earl worked as a Bow Street Runner.”
“As a younger son, I had more leeway than Phineas did. His life was mapped out from the moment he was born. I didn’t want that life,” he admitted. “I wanted adventure.”
“Did you find it?”
Greydon offered her a boyish grin. “I did, and then some,” he said. “I was forced to put my life on the line more than once.”
“That sounds rather terrifying.”
“Says the person that dared to defy her husband and tell him no,” Greydon said with a knowing look.
Enid shrugged. “I had little choice in the matter. I didn’t want him to control me anymore.”
