It had been a childish response, she supposed, as she rubbed her forehead. Naïve. Because running solved nothing at all. It had merely exacerbated their problems.
He hadn’t come after her.
He had sent letters instead, stiff and formal at first, then biting and cold, requesting, no, demanding her return.
She had resisted.
Then the devastating news that George had died months before their wedding. Before she’d even arrived at Westwood Hall. Somehow, that had made everything even worse.
She had begged for a divorce. He had categorically refused. Of course he had. It would have meant ruin for his budding political career.
His letters had grown progressively colder, like gusts of Arctic wind.
And then came the last one. The one that made everything else impossible.
She had felt her heart shatter like glass into a million pieces, and the only thing that had kept her sane was writing, writing, writing. She had poured her fury, her sadness, her heartbreak into her stories. She had cast him as the antagonist, the enemy, and for a while it had worked. It had helped her forget.
Until Peregrine had found her.
The gauche, lovelorn girl had transformed into the wildly successful Selina Sable, writer of lurid romances.
Love had proved to be fickle, elusive. It betrayed, it hurt, it abandoned. If she could not experience the joy of reciprocated love herself, well, then she would let her imagination run free and write about it. She told herself that it sufficed, that it was all she needed.
Though, of course, her heart had told her a different story.
There were clipped footsteps echoing in the church, approaching, stopping right beside her.
He had come after her this time.
His face was a hard, stony mask. “I should have known you were here. I should have thought of this place first. Of course.”
Her eyes flew up, surprised. “You were looking for me this entire time?”
He did not reply; his eyes never left George’s plaque. Something stirred briefly in its depths.
“Why did you never come to fetch me, then?” She was not talking about now, but then.
He replied likewise with a question. “Would you have gone with me had I come?”
She opened her mouth in a heated retort, then closed it again. Would she?
“You told me not to,” he added. “In every single letter you wrote. And I wanted to respect your decision.”
It was true. She had written that. She had told herself that every day. Although it had been a lie, of course. She twisted her hands in her lap. Deep down, had she not waited? Desperately hoped he would come for her anyway?
Why did she not return to him, he had asked.
Why had she not written again? Insisted?
Deep down, was not that what she’d wanted? To return to him.
Until that last letter of his made it impossible.
Nine years of loneliness. Of yearning. Of waiting. What a ridiculously long time that was.
She’d tried so hard to hate him and failed so miserably at it.
“What did I write in that final letter?” he finally asked heavily.
