Chapter 21

C hapter 21

It was decided that we would leave at first light, and we spent the afternoon preparing for the journey home. Nathaniel went into the village to secure a carriage for the next morning. I helped Mrs. Spencer assemble a basket of food, insisting Elizabeth spend time with Rose, playing with her toes and cooing at her little noises. I smiled to see it even as my heart hurt. Despite my reassurances to her earlier, I did not know what their future held.

When we finished preparing the food, I slipped out the front door. I needed some air. Some space to think.

I rejoined the lane that had brought us to Rosemont Cottage and continued farther west. A charming row of cottages with cheerful thatched roofs and blooming flower boxes ran to the right of the lane, while a lazy brook wound along the left. A small stone bridge arched over the stream, shielded by the thick foliage of the trees around it. I stopped here, perching on the edge of the bridge as I stared down at the slowly moving water.

Elizabeth had a child. An illegitimate child.

Even as shocking as it was, my mind did not struggle to accept what I’d learned. It made too much sense. It explained everything that had happened over the last few weeks and months. But even as my mind accepted it, my heart wrestled. How could something so beautiful and joyous as a child come from such pain and heartbreak? I ached for Elizabeth, imagining the last year of her life: keeping her pregnancy a secret from her parents, hiding in the country and delivering the child, leaving Rose to return to London. I wished she had told me, but I could not blame her for it. A secret like that burned a hole in one’s heart.

I heard footsteps. I looked over my shoulder to see Nathaniel walking the lane toward me. He spotted me in the same moment and removed his hat, riffling a hand through his hair. In this dusky light, his auburn hair took on the hues of the sun, his skin golden. I felt a mess in comparison. I hadn’t so much as washed my face in two days.

“I found a driver willing to take us as far as Wimborne,” he said, setting his hat beside me on the bridge wall.

I nodded. “Genevieve will no doubt lend us her carriage for the remainder of the trip.”

“Your sister-in-law seems a generous sort.”

“Indeed,” I said with a smile. “She is a very good influence on Jack, and he needs all the good influence he can get.”

Nathaniel returned my smile, though it soon faded as he gazed at me. I did not like the look in his eyes—a look that warned that I was not prepared for the conversation to come.

“You should not have promised Miss Harwood we would catch the blackmailer,” he said quietly, half sitting on the bridge as he crossed his arms.

“I know,” I said. “But I could not help it. She is so afraid, I wasn’t sure she would even agree to return to London with us.”

He nodded, seeming to accept that. Then he turned and sat fully on the wall, facing away. The silence seemed to hover around us, heavy and full.

I broke it first. “You did not seem surprised.”

He scuffed his boot along the stones. “About your father?”

“Yes.”

He sighed. “I’ve had suspicions for a while now. The way you spoke of it with my mother.”

I should have expected this. After all, his life’s work revolved around discovering the truth. But my stomach still lurched, and I felt the mad desire to run and hide in the trees beyond the bridge.

Nathaniel sent me a searching glance. “Will you tell me about him?”

I stared across the meadow, where a few cows idly grazed. “I know very little myself,” I admitted. “He met my mother early in her career, and she fell in love with him. But he was too well-placed in Society to consider marrying an actress.” I fidgeted with the long sleeve of my dress. “Jack was born, and then I came a few years later. My father has since married, and Mama invented the story of her widowhood to maintain her reputation—and mine.” I exhaled a long breath. “I’ve met him but twice, and he seems to have very little desire to know me better. The feeling is quite mutual.”

“I cannot imagine that.”

I snorted. “The man is a puffed-up aristocrat. You would feel the same, I assure you.”

“No,” he said. “I cannot imagine why anyone would not want to know you better.”

It felt like a warm breeze stirred inside me, lifting my heart.

“I am sorry I did not tell you sooner,” I said, shifting my weight on the bridge, not allowing myself to try to read his expression. He knew who I was now, my history. “I ... well, you know better than most that I am the cautious sort.”

“You generally have good reason,” he said.

“Especially in this case.” I gave a sad smile. “I’ve told a few people over the years, friends I thought I could depend upon. But I only ever found myself abandoned or whispered about, and so I learned to keep it to myself. It was safer.”

“But lonelier,” he mused.

I lifted one shoulder. “It might have been worse.”

“Ah,” he said. “A properly British refrain.”

That coaxed a smile from me. “But it is true. At least my father provided for me. I daresay many girls in my situation are not so fortunate.” I bit my lip. “That is one reason I wished to become a thief-taker. I hate depending on his money.”

“Or upon anyone?” he asked. “Is that perhaps also why you find yourself opposed to marriage?”

I closed my eyes. Oh, how this man seemed to see straight through me. “My mother waited for him for so many years,” I whispered. “She had her heart broken again and again. I have no desire to subject my own to such torment.”

He did not speak for a long moment, and the air around us filled with birdsong and the smell of moss and the slant of the lowering sun. “I cannot say I blame you,” he said finally. “A heart is a fragile thing without trust.” He reached for my fidgeting fingers, slipping his hand around mine, holding it softly like he feared to break me. “Do you trust me, Verity?”

I looked up at him, pulse stuttering. How did he do that? Pull me apart by the seams and then stitch me back together in the same sentence. I had no defense.

He was asking so much with that simple question. Oh, how I wanted to answer him. But that was akin to declaring myself, and my throat seemed to close over.

It was too much, telling him all that I had over the last day and night. I couldn’t calm my racing heart, the panic that gripped me. For years, I had told myself I would never be swept away by love or passion, never marry, for the man’s sake as well as mine. Now, the possibility tormented me, made me doubt everything.

Nathaniel was like a sudden burst of wind spinning wildly into my life. And while he brought light and hope, he also threw everything I thought I knew and wanted into terrifying disarray. I did not want to promise anything now, not when I did not fully know my own mind.

I stood, pulling my hand from his. “I must go,” I said, my voice somewhere between a croak and a rasp. “Elizabeth needs me.”

I thought I might see disappointment cross his face or perhaps hurt. He only watched me with a steady expression, as if he had expected my response. But then, I’d always retreated from him. Of course he would expect this.

“I am not going to give up,” he said in a low, deep voice that reached into the very center of me. “Even if you tell me that my pursuit is hopeless and your mind is set. Because my mind is just as decided, just as certain. There is something between us that I cannot deny, and neither can you.” He smiled crookedly, a slow spread of his lips that made my insides melt like butter in a hot pan. “And I have no intention of letting you get away, Verity Travers.”

His words lit inside me, tugged at the barricade around my heart. I wanted so badly to tell him I felt it, too, that I wanted to trust him. But the wounds my father had left on my life were still healing. Too many years of holding myself back had locked such words deep inside me. They weren’t ready. Yet.

I stepped back to him and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. His hands came to my elbows, holding me there. I let my lips linger for as long as I dared, then I pulled back.

He let me go, staying behind as I disappeared into the twilight.