Page 72 of The Duke’s Masked Wallflower

“I never intended to hurt Rosalie,” he said before he could stop himself. The thought of her crying was almost too much to bear. “She is... She has become...” He could not meet her eye. “I could not tell you what she has become to me.”

“No? Because you do not know yourself, or because you want to spare me the pain of hearing that my daughter was only a distraction to you?” Lady Winthrop looked weary. “Forgive me for that. I warned you that I loved fiercely... and sometimes it makes us speak venomously. What do you intend now that the truth is out in the open? You must know about her and Mr. Sinclair...”

“Yes.”

“And I know about your plans of travel.”

“Yes,” he repeated.

Lady Winthrop smiled for the first time that morning, reaching out to straighten the lily in his jacket pocket. She patted his chest, and Gabriel could have cried at how maternal the gesture had been, how much she reminded him of Rosalie.

How much had he lost, not because of the cruel onward march of time, but because of his own reluctance to march onward with it?

“She and Anna left for Scotland this morning,” she said without decoration or emphasis. “They left half an hour ago. I believe they are taking the road through Oxford and will be stopping for lunch at the Blue Boar Coaching Inn. From there, I do not know where the road takes my girls, my Rosalie. I know only that the distance between them and us grows larger by the minute.”

She stepped away, not even looking back at Gabriel as she wound through headstones on her way back to his aunt.

She left, Gabriel thought. She has gone to Scotland with her sister—and why should I not believe she has done this out of hurt and shame, which I have caused?

The bouquet on his mother’s grave. The inscription reading, Omnia vincit amor, that he had never wanted to examine too closely, that he had felt was a lie.

But maybe it is not a lie. My love for my family has transcended time. And perhaps... perhaps...

Moments later, Gabriel found James at the altar rail. The church was slowly filling with guests, the light beginning to shift outdoors, finally strong enough to pierce through the stained-glass windows.

“You will forgive me for going,” he said.

James did not hesitate, reading Gabriel’s unspoken explanation in his eyes. He smiled and hugged him, and said, “Then, go.”

The coaching inn outside Oxford smelled of smoke and hay, and it tickled Rosalie’s nose as she stepped down from their carriage. There was the ordinary business of arrival: trunks unloaded, horses watered, a private parlor found for lunch. She listened to the menu, sitting with her own thoughts, while Anna ordered them pie, and they ate in relative silence.

“I think I should lie down for a while,” Anna said once they had eaten what either of them could stomach, her face a little pale. “The road disagrees with me much more than it used to. I noticed it first on the journey down. Our midwife in Dumfries tells me it is normal in these early months... Would it be a bother if I went upstairs?”

“Take as long as you need,” Rosalie said, finishing her water. “We are in no particular hurry.”

Anna came around and kissed her on the head. “I am sure you will find something to occupy yourself with. And you must. All this thinking is not good for you.”

Rosalie helped her sister up the narrow inn stairs and saw her into a room. Restless, she went back down and out through the yard, past the stables where the ostlers were already unhitching the horses. Fields stretched out behind the inn. The grass was tall and soft, and she ran her hands through it as she proceeded down the walking path through two fields.

The wind was warm. The sky hung low and colorless over the hedgerows, but on the horizon, light was breaking through the clouds. Being outside suited her better than the parlor. She walked forward, her coat open, boots solid against the hard earth underneath. And she let her thoughts go where they had been wanting to go all morning: to Gabriel.

Passage to France. His hands in her hair. How much she missed him. How final and yet unresolved it all felt. She thought of her father in his sickroom, the promise she had made him to come back soon, once she had cleared her mind. Her mother wanted them to go to Cornwall indefinitely. What life would Rosalie have there? A spinster, forever. Exactly where it all started.

But I am so different, she thought. Emily and Thomas found true love. I was so jealous and sad for so long. But I am stronger now. I know what I want. I will not settle for anything else. I taught myself this by releasing Mr. Sinclair, by pursuing Gabriel with all my heart. There is a lesson in the pain. I am enough on my own.

She stopped in the middle of the fields and stared at the sky. Her eyes were closed. The sun emerged from the clouds to kiss her. She smiled up and sighed. She barely heard the rider approach, stop too fast, before the voice came.

“Ros?”

She turned. Gabriel. It was Gabriel. She blinked, convinced she was imagining him, until he dismounted and began walking toward her. The sun cast him in light. The blue eyes. The dark hair. The mouth she had kissed and loved.

Love, she corrected herself, staring at him, aghast. I love him still. How could I have ever thought that space, some time, would remove him from my heart?

“Are you...” Her words made him stop in his tracks, a yard from her. She began walking toward him, eyes smarting. “You have ridden a long way to say goodbye.”

He walked toward her so she could see him fully. His pale face was nipped by the wind, and his hair was tussled. Her breath caught in her throat. How was he so lovely, now, when she should have despised him? Why had he come?

“For fact,” he murmured, “I have ridden a very long way to say the opposite.” His horse blew hard behind him, and what was visible of his shirt was almost transparent with sweat. “Rosalie, I am not going to France.”