Page 99 of The Winter Companion

The sight of him standing at the front desk of the tavern had fairly taken her breath away. He’d been garbed in a heavy greatcoat, his shoulders appearing at least a mile wide. He’d looked solid and strong and rather thrillingly disheveled—his blond hair windblown and his jaw darkened with a day’s growth of golden stubble.

He’d traveled straight through the night to get to her. Not even stopping to sleep or to shave. All because he’d thought she might need someone.

But she hadn’t known that at the time. All she’d known was that she wanted nothing more than the formidable safety of his arms.

He’d been more than willing to give it to her.

Great goodness. He’d left Devon. The thing he was most afraid to do. And he’d done it. For her.

But she couldn’t reflect on any of that now. The thought of how brave he’d been—the courage it must have taken—only served to make her more emotional.

“No. I didn’t make it up.” She gave a choked laugh. “Not but that I didn’t convince myself that I had.”

He looked incredulous. “You believed him…over yourself? Over your own knowledge of…of what happened?”

“Everyone else did,” Clara said.

They’d more than believed him. They’d vilified her. She’d been called a fantasist. An outright liar.

“I never said anything about marrying her,” Mr. Bryce-Chetwynde had declared to his father.

“You did,” Clara had insisted. “‘When next we kiss, it will be as man and wife.’ You said that to me in the meadow.”

“I said nothing of the sort, Miss Hartwright.”

“But you did, I know it.”

And he had said it—or some variation thereof. When next we kiss, we will be man and wife. Or: When next we kiss it will be the kiss of man and wife. Clara could no longer be certain of the exact phrasing.

“It was right after you kissed me,” she’d said. “I can’t have mistaken it.”

“You’ve mistaken a great many things, madam. A kiss? A promise of marriage?” His tone had dripped with disdain. “We were speaking of romantic poetry, not of reality. Certainly not of any romance between the two of us. Really, Father. This is too absurd.”

“Romantic poetry!” the squire had scoffed.

“Miss Hartwright has a love of poetry,” Mr. Bryce-Chetwynde had said, “and is rather prone to painting her own life in such terms. I regret I encouraged the habit.”

Clara hated to recall it.

“It made me doubt my own judgment. I began to accept that I’d embellished my encounters with Mr. Bryce-Chetwynde beyond all recognition. It was the only rational explanation. And so I believed it.” She paused. “Until today.”

Slowly, she related it all to Neville. Her meeting with Simon at the coffeehouse. What he’d said about his altercation with Mr. Bryce-Chetwynde, and what Mr. Bryce-Chetwynde had admitted to.

In light of Simon’s revelations, she now understood that there had been no reason to doubt herself. She might have been foolish—a romantically minded young girl caught up in all the attention—but she hadn’t been imagining things all those years ago. The flirtatious words. The teasing and innuendo. Encroaching familiarities that had never seemed wholly appropriate.

He hadn’t valued or respected her. To him, she was just a poor country miss. A young lady, to be sure, but one with no protection. Had his intentions been honorable, he’d have told her straight out that he found her beautiful. That she was intelligent. Worthwhile.

But Mr. Bryce-Chetwynde had done none of those things. He’d overwhelmed her young heart with poetry and flirtation. He’d had her dancing on a string, and had been in the process of reeling her in when Clara had blurted out the good news to her mother.

What she’d believed to be good news.

Had Mama not intervened, Clara knew now that she’d have ended up losing more than her reputation. More than her pride. She’d have lost her virtue.

Neville listened in silence, his expression growing stonier by the second. When she finished, he had only one question: “Where is he now?”

“Probably gone back to Magdalene. Or else he’s returned to the hunting lodge with Mr. Trent.”

“Not Simon,” Neville said. “The other one.”