By the time Will took his leave, Rose had a list of tasks half as long as her arm. It was a relief to have so much to do. The last few weeks had been difficult. Losing the baby had left her in a deep mire of sadness. She wasn’t sure whether to call it grief. It wasn’t the same as the pain she’d felt when she’d lost her mother. Rather, an awful, empty regret. A profound disappointment. It sounded such a mild, inoffensive thing, disappointment. But now she knew what that word meant. Now she knew that disappointment could feel like a wave crashing down on you, crushing you and leaving you empty and wanting.
She missed Gil too. When she thought of him, she felt a yawning ache in her chest. She’d been missing him before she even left London. Before the night they’d argued about her father and she found out the woman he loved was Tilly Drayton. Before she lost the baby. She’d been missing him since he left her bed, weeks and weeks before she left him. Back when she’d still had a bit of hope left in her.
Hope was a terrible thing. It filled the empty spaces inside in you for a while, and then, when you realised your hope was misplaced, it felt worse than before. She wasn’t going to allow hope to fill the empty spaces again. Hope made you think that things that were irretrievably broken could be salvaged, when the truth was that some things could never be fixed and some actions could never be forgiven.
And so here she was, back at Weartham. Discovering that life went inexorably on, no matter what happened. It was much easier when finally you accepted that truth and stopped trying to stand against the current that wanted to push you forward. Today’s letter had made her see that. And her meeting with Will. And the list of things to be done she had written down during that meeting. Each task finite and achievable.
Rose looked down at the list and saw that the first task was to write to one of her neighbours about the crumbling drywall on the boundary between their lands. She opened the desk drawer and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper. Then she picked up her pen and began to write.
That night was Miles’s last night at Weartham. Harriet and Will joined them for dinner, and afterwards, Rose played the pianoforte while Harriet embroidered and the men played chess. It was companionable and pleasant, even though Rose could sense her father’s eagerness to leave. As the day of his departure had grown closer, his barely suppressed excitement became more and more apparent.
At ten o’clock, Will and Harriet departed. Will, ever the perfect gentleman, would escort Harriet back to Honeysuckle Cottage before returning to his own house at the edge of the estate. After waving them off, Rose returned to her father in the drawing room. He sat at a small table, playing Patience and sipping Port. When he saw her standing in the doorway, he put his cards down and leaned back in his chair.
“Well, now, Rosebud—” Then he stopped and looked at her reflectively. “You’re right. I really must stop calling you that. You’re a rosebud no longer. A full-blown flower is what you are.”
She walked to the fresh tea tray that had been brought in her absence. After pouring herself another cup of tea, she sat down opposite him. “Let’s hope I keep my petals for a while.” She smiled.
“Rose, there is…something I’ve been meaning to say—” He stopped and sighed heavily, then started again. “Before I go back to London, I wanted to tell you that I, well—I know I’ve been a rotten father. I brokered a bad marriage for you and left the country before I even knew you would be all right.”
Rose said nothing. In truth, she was surprised.
“All I can say is that I’d assumed you would be fine.” There was a long pause; then he added peevishly, “Why didn’t you write and tell me you weren’t?”
Rose suppressed her irritation at that final question—as though he’d have come back to England if she’d written! “There was nothing to be done, Papa. No use crying over spilt milk. We were married.”
She saw him flinch and couldn’t quite be sorry, though she added, “It wasn’t as if Gil beat me. He merely ignored me.”
Miles sighed. “Is there no chance you might try again?”
Rose stared unseeingly at the half-played card game on the table. “No. The way this marriage came about, Gil will always feel trapped. And I don’t want to be his gaoler anymore. I think that’s why he’s given me Weartham, you know. To release me from my dependence on him. And him from his obligation to me.”
And maybe that was why she felt all right about accepting Weartham? Because it wiped away the debts of the past—on both sides.