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The next day, she had paid him a scant five-minute call to tell him that their engagement was over, and the day after that, she had returned to Inverley.
“I owe you an apology, Miss Seton. I should never have subjected you to such treatment. You deserved the sanctity of the marriage bed, and I was presumptuous in the extreme. I cannot fault you for ending things.”
“I do not blame you in the least,” she said, which was entirely true.
His smile was rueful. “I hope that eight years has lessened the sting for you as much as it has for me. Without the loss of you, I would never have gained the hand of my dear Lucy nor had the joy of my two daughters.”
“Lucy?”
“Ah. You knew her as Miss Smith, if you may remember. I am sad to say that I am a widower of five years now.”
Miss Smith had been a sweet girl that Arabella had often sat next to at church. “I am sorry to hear of your loss,” she said.
“Thank you. My daughters were devastated, and so was I.” He frowned down at his hat.
Arabella sighed. There was no putting it off. She welcomed him into the parlor, but he declined to take her offer of tea. She hoped it meant that his visit would be short.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“My doctor recommended Inverley after a bout of lung infection this past winter. I certainly don’t mean to make things awkward for you. So much time has passed that I didn’t even recall that you were from this part of England. When I saw you in the tea shop, I thought I should pay my respects, but you looked so horrified when I approached. I tried not to single you out for attention.”
“None of my friends know that I was once engaged,” she said. Especially not Caroline. Her tales of her long-ago year in Bath withher aunt and uncle had been light and silly, focusing on mishaps at private balls or tripping over one’s hem.
She hadn’t told anyone about secret kisses that failed to stir her heart. She had been lucky that no one had found out her indiscretion because she would never have been able to bear marrying, even had she been caught. Her name would have been ruined.
She had lived with that fear for years after returning to Inverley. Every letter from her aunt and uncle in Bath would send her into a panic, and it was a long time before she accepted that her secret was safe.
“Is this your art?” He gestured at the table spread with her paintings. “I remember you showing me your sketchbooks in Bath, but I had never seen your paintings. They are fine.”
Heat crept up her throat.Fine. Arabella remembered when her aunt and uncle had brought her to London for a week that long ago summer, when Mr. Worthington’s work had been accepted to the Royal Academy. They hadn’t known about the engagement, but they had known she admired his work, and they had thought a trip to London was a treat for a girl who had never been to the capital.
She had stared up at his work in awe. They had earned well-deserved praise from everyone walking through the Royal Academy, where his work was hung at eye level amid the hundreds of paintings on display. She could still remember the vividity of color, the bold brushstrokes that lifted off the canvas, the emotion, the composition. The brilliance.
And this man said her local watercolor seascapes werefine.
“I am proud of them,” was all she said, struggling not to sound defensive.
“As well you should be. I must take my leave of you, Miss Seton. I do hope my presence here will not cause you undo distress. May I have leave to claim acquaintanceship the next time we chance upon each other?”
It was nicely done. She felt churlish at the thought of refusing, so she nodded. “Are you here for long?” she blurted out.
“I have not yet decided. I am renting rooms for several weeks, but if the air is agreeable then I may extend my stay.”
Arabella balled her hands into fists and went outside after Mr. Worthington left. With fog swirling as opaque as walls, it felt private in the garden. Like the world had dwindled to nothing but herself and the crash of the waves.
In many ways, she worried her worldhaddwindled.
Her life in Inverley was the same as always. The same views, the same paintings. Her year in Bath had been a whirlwind of a different life, but it was so long ago that it almost felt like it had happened to another person, and it had brought her no more happiness than she found here in Inverley.
Being confronted with Mr. Worthington again was bringing all of her old dreams to the fore.
Dreams of finding something that belonged toherself. Dreams of finding someone else to love, someone to cut the desperate ties that she had to Caroline, whom she knew she could never have. It hadn’t worked, so she had tucked away most of her other dreams.
Dreams of marriage.
Family of her own.
Ahomeof her own.
