Page 68 of How to Wed a Courtesan

The door opened and she twisted her hands—that old habit she’d never quite lost. She looked behind her at the rising townhouse, then back at him. ‘Good evening,’ she said softly, and gracefully exited the carriage.

He watched as she strode up the path to her home and thought of all the things that stretched between them. There was still so much left to say, to discuss, but the events at the cottage had been taxing on them both.

She loved him.

That affirmation at their daughter’s grave had been something of a balm on his wounded soul.

He waited until the carriage pulled away from her home before he slid the drawer under his seat open and withdrew the paintings. Though it was dark, light flickered in through the window from the gas lamps, allowing Evander to look again at the images of their daughter.

He ought to have married Lottie before he left on his quest to save the Westix estate. At the time he’d been too foolishly hung up on the notion that only a grand wedding in the opulence of St George’s would do. If only he’d known then what he did now.

Upon arrival at Westix Place, he removed himself from the carriage and trudged up the two short steps into his home, before wending his way to the study. He sank into the fine leather chair behind his desk and opened the bottom drawer, intending to put the paintings of Lily inside for safekeeping.

The small diamond chip ring Lottie had thrown at him at Comlongon sat there, atop the deeds to Huntly Manor. He’d purchased the property some time ago, fully intending to give it to her as a gift. Except there had never been an appropriate time to do so.

The same with the ring. He’d kept it with the hope of asking her to marry him again. He reached into the drawer and retrieved it. It was such a diminutive thing—hardly the sort of tribute an earl would give to his future Countess. And yet he knew Lottie better than anyone else. This would still be the ring she would want above all others.

Perhaps it was finally time to offer it to her once more.

A cold, empty house greeted Lottie upon her return. While she’d been at the cottage she had craved the familiarity of her townhouse and all the fine furnishings she’d used there, to try to fill the empty space Lily had left behind.

But seeing the comparison between the homes—feeling the comparison—made her realise how much more she had preferred that small cottage full of love to this townhouse full of wealth.

Her footsteps rang out on the tiles and echoed off the walls around her, and suddenly she missed Evander’s presence with a visceral pang.

When she had been at the cottage when Lily was alive Lottie had had to be a pillar of strength. There was no one strong to lend her support, no one like Evander.

She recalled how he had put his hands to her shoulders to brace her against the worst of the agony wrought upon her by seeing the cottage again. How he had fortified her as she leaned against him. Even as he suffered.

A fire had been lit in the drawing room, and Lottie followed the warm glow like a beacon. The fire had clearly been lit some time ago, its logs now little more than crumbling embers awash in the grey powder of ash. She lifted another log from the ornamental metal bin by the hearth and set it atop the dwindling flames, sending glowing sparks scattering upward.

Heat blossomed from the hearth once more, and she held her hands to the invisible wall. Memories from the cottage overtook her exhausted mind. A little girl, giggling and pushing her cold toes towards the fire. Evander cradling Lottie’s hands between his own.

Evander.

She exhaled deeply and the fire licking over the fresh log wavered at the movement of air.

She recalled how he’d gently put aside Lily’s pictures before bowing his head into the large palm of his hand and weeping. For their daughter.

Her heart flinched.

He had never met Lily, yet he loved her. It had been evident not just in his tears, but in the flash of pain in his eyes when he opened the door to the room Lottie had shared with their daughter, with that terrible unmistakable odour of camphor.

It made her hurt for him to have understood fatherhood and loss on the same stark day. At least she’d had two and a half years to revel in the joy of parenthood before losing Lily.

Lottie’s initial fear of hating him again after their time at the cottage was unfounded. Rather, it had been quite the opposite. Seeing his love for their daughter only endeared him to Lottie more. Still, she should not have told him she loved him. Not the day before, when she mourned their daughter on the anniversary of her death, nor at her grave. Not after all this time of having been so successful at keeping him an arm’s length away.

Now he knew she loved him he would never stop his pursuit of her.

But she did love him. She always had. Even when she’d been enraged to find he had returned home, she had been relieved to see him alive after so long, fearing he might be dead.

No, she had never stopped caring for him.

And that was exactly why she could never be with him.

‘Gracious,’ Sarah exclaimed behind her.

Lottie spun round to find Sarah with her hand pressed to her chest and her face red.