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Sophronia stepped toward him, her heart feeling as if it had taken a blow from a blacksmith’s hammer and only held together because the pieces, like a tree cut at the base, had yet to decide which way to fall.

Something about the Baron’s rejection had opened an old wound in him that she had never seen before now. And atop that was the fresh wound of losing Giles. Rowden always retreated when he was injured. He was like a wounded animal in that respect. Whenever he and his uncle fought, she would find him in the far corner of the stables where the barn cats had their litters, or hidden in the cellars among the onions and turnips, or crouched in the granary where the corn was stored.

“I love you,” she said. “Deeply and entirely. I have loved you for most of my life, and I want to spend the rest of it with you.”

The despair, the bleakness in his eyes as he looked down at her made the pieces of her heart fall open. The pain was enormous, but what she felt of his pain was worse.

“Are you certain I am worth that?” he said in a low voice.

And there it was—that deepest fear he had hidden from the world. That secret but absolute belief of a child that if he had been more worthy of their affection, his parents would not have died.

And Sophronia had only proved this belief true when she abandoned him to marry Hinton. He had thought she chose another because Rowden was not enough, all on his own, to deserve her love.

“I did not choose you before because I did not think I could,” she said. She slid her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. He trembled in her arms, yet he was so solid, so real. She wanted to soak up his scent, absorb as much of his warmth as she could, to hold her through the coming days when her own grief would surround her and leave her drifting, like that ancient mariner abandoned on an empty ship, a dead weight hung around his neck.

“I was being practical.” She tasted salt on her lips: her tears. “I thought choosing my path out of love would be foolish.” She lifted her head to look into his eyes. “I am wiser now. I will cling to love.”

At last he softened, his arms closing around her in a sure embrace, his lips meeting her in a kiss full of promise and tears. “I will return for you,” he vowed, moving his mouth to kiss her temple, speaking into her hair.

She shuddered, trying to give him what she could of her own strength. Praying she would be enough to make him want to return.

“I will hold you to your promise,” she said. “You shall marry me. I have chosen your bride for you.”

“I need to be gone for now, when it is all fresh.” His voice was low and rough. “I hate to leave you. Aunt Dobbs will be bereft. But I cannot…”

“I know.” She squeezed him. He needed to retreat, to heal. He needed for no one to see his hurt and his weakness, not even her. She had not earned back his entire trust, not yet. He needed a task he could accomplish, a problem he could fix, because to stay here caught in the grief over Giles and the Baron’s condemnation would drive him howling mad.

“I shall come back when things are settled, and I shall marry you, Ro.” He pulled back to look into her eyes, his face blazing with passion. “Wait for me.”

“I will.” She dragged the back of her hand across her cheek, pushing away the flood of tears. “This time, I will.”

He pressed one last burning kiss onto her mouth, a promise, a seal. Then he turned back to the wardrobe, and Sophronia helped the man she loved pack his things to leave her.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HUNGERFORD, BERKSHIRE, OCTOBER 1798

Lily poked her head into Sophronia’s dressing room. “We are ready.”

“All of you?” Sophronia asked.

“All of us.” Lily stepped into the room. “You look lovely, Soph.”

“Do I look like the respected headmistress of a girls’ academy where parents of taste and distinction will send daughters they want to give the best start in life?”

Sophronia smoothed her elbow-length kid leather glove, dyed in saffron orange. It, along with her hair, was a note of vibrant color against the plain dove-gray twill of her walking gown. She had worn half-mourning for Giles and found the subdued colors added a note of authority when she was interviewing parents of prospective students. But she allowed herself a small burst of brightness with each ensemble because when Rowden returned, she did not want to look entirely poor and plain, as if her spirit had left her.

How she longed for his return. The ache of missing him had grown with the passage of time, not eased. Her tears for Giles had been shed, and her tears for Lily, and for the Baron, who had become so sunk in grief he was but a shadow of his former self. But her longing for Rowden was a spring that eternally renewed. She was like Prometheus chained to his rock, growing a new liver each day only for the eagle to tear out his innards.

This unceasing pain was exactly why she had held herself apart from love. Who could bear the loss of it?

But bearing it she was. Each day she rose again, strong as ever, determined to see to the tasks before her: building her school, looking after her father, making a place for herself as a widow of stature in Hungerford, a new pillar of the community.

She enjoyed those tasks immensely. It felt strange and a bit guilt-inducing, that she could take pleasure in these aspects of her life when Giles had died so tragically young, when Rowden was gone. But she had loved and he had left, and it had not killed her. When he returned, she would be here, waiting with open arms.

Perhaps also a smack on the cheek for his having been away for so long. But open arms. And kisses.

Lily regarded Sophronia from the top of her gray twill bonnet, bound with pink silk ribbons, to the toes of her blackened half boots. “You look the picture of a respectable headmistress. One would never guess that you are a bit unorthodox in your teaching styles. And in your staff.”