He should realize this. He had changed himself. He had made himself from a sickly boy into a strong, vibrant man. He had sacrificed in order to do it—cutting ties and avoiding connections lest he surrender some part of himself vital to the person he needed to become. And she, too, had sacrificed. To become this person she needed to be—a woman unafraid to build a garden to her own tastes; a woman confident in her right to honor her own desires—she had sacrificed him.
Only . . . the thoughts in her head did not feel as though they belonged to such a woman. They circled some dark pit she had looked into before, when loved ones had been lost to her.
He was alive, but she was mourning him as though he were dead.
She closed her eyes. She would not cry.
The sound of footsteps came from behind her, emerging from the house. Glad for the distraction, Gwen rose. “Lady Anne,” she said. Her voice sounded like gravel.
“Gwen!” The girl looked radiant, glowing in her spangled day gown. She came forward to give Gwen a light kiss on the cheek. “What a magnificent house,” she said. “And what a cunning garden!”
Gwen managed a smile. “It will be more cunning yet.” She would redesign the garden now, in the evenings, when her thoughts would be most inclined to wander, to turn toward him, to wonder where he was, if he was already leaving her behind, letting her grow ever smaller in his view and memory, like the dark shadow of the coast in the wake of a ship.
She took a breath. The garden would be beautiful. She envisioned a rolling wooded parkland, near to natural, only a slight bit of landscaping. She would thread it through with wildflowers. She had never minded wildflowers; it was only the hothouse variety that bored her. And maybe, by the time she was done with this project, she would have planned out a use for some of these rooms, particularly that deserted nursery above. Maybe she would open an orphanage.
It was a bold idea, but she did not feel brave. She felt . . . battered. Already broken.
“Will you have something?” The question emerged stiltedly. “Tea, of course, but have you lunched yet?”
“Thank you, I did,” said Lady Anne. “I promise, I am not so ill-bred as to appear uninvited and demand to be fed!”
The very fact that Lady Anne admitted the possibility that an earl’s daughter might be ill-bred was enough to surprise Gwen into brief silence. Nobody had ever called Lady Anne beautiful—her nose was too prominent, her jaw wider than her temples—but she truly was glowing. “Do you have good news?” Gwen asked cautiously. Was a marriage in the works?
“I would not call it good news,” Lady Anne said. “But news, yes. That is . . . I have come to do you a favor—one that I think you will gather I was very grateful for myself.” She paused to draw breath, and her expression grew very serious. One slim, gloved hand settled atop Gwen’s knuckles. It’s to do with Alex, Gwen thought. But no, it couldn’t be. What truck did Lady Anne have with him? Still, she felt her pulse bump and begin to speed as Lady Anne continued, “Brace yourself, dear.” The girl’s hand delivered a squeeze. “It concerns the Viscount Pennington.”
Gwen’s hopes deflated. “Oh? What of him?”
Her flat tone visibly surprised Lady Anne, who then misinterpreted it entirely. “Is it still so sore a subject? I had hoped Mr. Ramsey—is he about, by the way? One hears such delicious rumors about him, I had hoped to see him in person, to beard the devil, as it were! Joking, dearest Gwen—oh, he isn’t? Pity. What was I saying? Oh yes, I had hoped—but ah, well, I know how slow hopes are to heal.”
“Very slow,” Gwen murmured. Painfully slow, she feared.
“Yes,” Lady Anne said soberly. “You did gather, I think—that is, you may have gathered that for a brief period, before of course the gentleman fixed his attentions on you, that I was rather . . . taken with him myself. Which is why I say with full confidence that it may comfort you to know why the viscount fled so ignominiously from the altar.”
Gwen blinked. Alex had said he wasn’t responsible, and she believed him. The cause therefore seemed thoroughly immaterial to her.
But Lady Anne was clearly waiting for some reaction. And perhaps it was a mark of her own addled state that she felt no curiosity. She cleared her throat. “Oh, dear,” she said.
“Yes, it is just that shocking,” Anne said righteously. “I am afraid, Gwen, that the viscount has found himself in an . . . indelicate situation . . . with a certain man, a very wealthy German from Baden-Baden, who blackmailed him and threatened to expose him to prosecution—if he should go through with marriage to you.”