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He tilted his head back, gazing at the stars. “Seventeen… no, eighteen years ago?”
She stared. “And you’ve never hired a gardener since then?”
“There seemed no need.”
They stood in silence then. A cloud drifted across the moon. She wondered suddenly how many nights he had stood thus, alone and lonely, looking out over the ruin of his garden.
“Do you…”
He tilted his head. “Yes?”
“Forgive me.” She was glad the darkness masked her expression. “You’ve never married?”
“No.” He hesitated, and then said gruffly, “I was engaged, but she died.”
“I’m sorry.”
He made a movement, perhaps a halfhearted shrug. He hardly needed her sympathy.
But she couldn’t leave it alone. “No family, either?”
“I have an older sister who lives in Edinburgh.”
“But that’s not too far away. You must see her often.”
She thought wistfully of her own family. She hadn’t seen any of them—her sisters, brother, mother, or Papa—since she’d gone to Lister. What a price she’d paid for her romantic dreams.
“I haven’t seen Sophia in years,” he replied, interrupting her thoughts.
She looked at his dark profile, trying to make out his expression. “You’re estranged?”
“Nothing so formal.” His voice had grown cold. “I simply don’t choose to travel much, Mrs. Halifax, and my sister sees no reason to visit me.”
“Oh.”
He pivoted slowly, facing her. His back was to the moon, and she couldn’t see his expression at all. He seemed suddenly bigger, looming over her more closely—and more ominously—than she’d realized.
“You’re very curious about me tonight, Mrs. Halifax,” he growled. “But I think I’d rather discuss you.”
THE MOONLIGHT CARESSED her face, highlighting a beauty that needed no additional ornamentation. But her loveliness didn’t distract him anymore. He saw it, admired it, but he could also see past the surface camouflage to the woman beneath. A vivacious woman who, he suspected, was not used to labor yet had spent the day cleaning his filthy dining room. A woman not used to fending for herself but who had still managed to push her way into his home and his life. Interesting. What motivated her? What life had she left behind? Who was the man she was hiding from? Alistair watched Mrs. Halifax, trying to see the expression in her harebell-blue eyes, but the night shielded them from him.
“What do you want to know about me?” she asked.
Her voice was even, almost masculine in its directness, and the contrast to her extremely feminine form was surprising. Fascinating, actually.
squo;d made a ghastly mistake. Helen stroked Jamie’s sweaty head that night and berated herself. Jamie had cried himself to sleep, desolate over Lady Grey’s death. On the other side of the bed, Abigail was silent. She hadn’t made a sound since that single shrill scream in the dining room. Now she lay on her side, facing away from Jamie, her body a slight lump under the covers.
Helen closed her eyes. What had she done to her darlings? She’d taken her children from the safety of their home in London, from all they knew, all that was familiar to them, and brought them to this strange, dark place where sweet old dogs died. Perhaps she’d been wrong. Perhaps she could’ve endured Lister and the hopeless, imprisoned life she’d led as his forgotten mistress, if only for the sake of her children.
But no. She’d known these last years that it was only a matter of time before she offended him in some way and she would wake up to find the children gone. If nothing else, that had been the primary driving reason to leave the duke: she could not live without Abigail and Jamie.
She opened her eyes and got up, drifting to the dark windows. The view was less than comforting, though. The ivy on the outside walls so overgrew the windows that the moon was but a glittering speck. There was a small table under the window that she’d made into a desk to transcribe Lady Vale’s fairy-tale book. She touched the papers there. She really ought to work on it some more, but she was too restless tonight.
She glanced back at the children. Jamie was in exhausted slumber, and Abigail hadn’t moved. Just in case she was still awake, Helen rounded the bed and bent over her daughter.
She touched her shoulder lightly—not enough to wake her if she slept—and whispered, “I’m going for a walk, darling. I’ll return before too long.”
Abigail’s closed eyelids didn’t move, but nonetheless Helen suspected she wasn’t asleep. She sighed and kissed her daughter’s cheek before leaving the room and shutting the door carefully behind her.
