Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

B ut sleep did not keep its hold on Allan for long.

He could tell by the position of the sun in the sky when he next opened his eyes that he had only been asleep for about an hour, and he wondered why he had woken. Surely, his exhaustion was more powerful than this. It didn’t make sense for him to be awake now after having been up all night as well.

Then he heard the sound of a knock at his door. So that was what had woken him.

He thought of telling whoever it was to leave. He wished them to leave. But there was too much happening right now, and he couldn’t ignore the possibility that this might be news of Lady Edwina. If it was, he wanted to hear it, so he went to the door and opened it, feeling like he was trudging through sand.

His grandmother stood on the other side. “Here you are,” she observed, eyeing him hawkishly. “I’ve been knocking for several minutes.”

“I was asleep, Grandmother. What is this?”

“Well, let me come in, and we’ll discuss it.”

Allan sighed and stepped back to let her into the room. His grandmother came in, looked about the place, and went to the curtains. She took hold of them and flung them open.

Allan flinched. He had left them open only a crack overnight so that he might allow the barest amount of sunlight in—so he could have some concept of what time it was without his room filling up with light. Now, though, it did, and he felt like a creature that had been living underground for too long without seeing the sun, incapable of coping with it.

His grandmother turned to face him.

“You cannot do this,” she said. “You cannot hide from the world.”

“I’m not hiding,” Allan protested.

“Oh, really? Returning to your room immediately after breakfast?”

“I hardly slept, Grandmother. I feel unwell.”

“You can’t fool me. You feel unwell because of the news about Lady Edwina, so let’s you and I have no misunderstanding between the two of us about that,” his grandmother said. “I know what’s happening here. I know you’re distraught because of her sudden departure. And I don’t blame you for it. But I do blame you if you choose to hide from it.”

“Grandmother, what would you have me do? She’s gone.”

“I would tell you to go after her. She hasn’t vanished into the mists, Allan. She’s on the road to her country house. She will be the easiest person in the world to find, if only you choose to make the attempt. You should go now before it’s too late—before she makes up her mind that she never wishes to see you again.”

“She’s already made up her mind,” Allan said. “She has told me several times that she has no desire to see me.”

“Lady Edwina is very young,” his grandmother told him. “It doesn’t surprise me to learn that she struggles to understand what she wants from life and from the world.”

“You think you know better?”

“I think we both do. I think you know as well as I that she wouldn’t have left the way she did if she wasn’t running from something. You are not the only one who knows how to hide, Allan.”

“Perhaps it’s Lord Kentrow she’s running from. He’s the one who proposed marriage to her last night.”

Allan’s grandmother snorted. “That man? No one would run from him. I’m confident that when she turned him down, he smiled at her and thanked her for her time, told her to have a nice night, and went to get himself a drink.”

“You don’t think he cared for her then?”

“I’m sure he cared for her, but I’m just as sure that there was no real passion there.”

“You certainly seem to think yourself the expert on everyone else’s business, Grandmother.”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” his grandmother allowed. “But I have lived a long time, Allan. And in that time, I have discovered a few things. I know that real love, real passion, is a very rare thing. I know that when it occurs, it ought to be honored.”

She gave him a sharp look.

“What are you getting at?” he asked her.

“You love her,” his grandmother informed him.

The odd thing was that, as of last night, Allan would have given anything for someone to provide him with the answer to that question. He would have loved to be told.

Now, though, he felt irked. How could she claim to know? How could she say it so easily, as if she was telling him the color of his eyes or whether or not it was raining outside? This question that had tormented him, she answered as if it was nothing at all.

“You can’t know that,” he told her.

“I can, as a matter of fact,” she countered. “I’ve seen you around her, Allan. I’ve paid attention to the way you are. And what I see is that knowing her has changed you. You’re not the same man you once were. You think of her all the time. All the choices you make are centered around what would be best for her.”

“I don’t know that that’s true,” Allan countered.

“Well, I do. And you would too if you truly paid attention to yourself, Allan. Just look at what you’re doing right now. You haven’t chosen to go after her. Why not? What’s your real reason for hiding in your room instead of following her? Because it isn’t that you don’t want to follow her.”

“How can you claim to know that?”

“Answer the question, Allan.”

“She’s asked me not to go after her. She’s asked me to leave her alone.”

“And in spite of your own feelings about her, you intend to do that.”

“How could I do anything else?”

“This is what I mean,” his grandmother said. “And this is what I think you fail to notice.”

“Explain.”

“You’re making your decisions, not based on what you want but based on what you believe she wants. Now, be honest with me—is that what you would have done even a year ago?”

“I’ve never been the sort of man to put a lady in a situation that would make her uncomfortable, Grandmother. You know I’ve always stopped short of that kind of behavior.”

“I know. And yet, the Allan I knew a year ago would not have been up here agonizing over whether the right thing was to chase down Lady Edwina or to let her go.”

“Who said I was agonizing over that?”

“Tell me you aren’t, then.”

He couldn’t, and when she saw that, she gave a triumphant little nod. He hated to have proved her right, but he also couldn’t lie to her. He had never been able to do that.

“A year ago,” his grandmother said, “you would have chased after her if you wanted to speak to her. And if you didn’t wish to speak to her, you would have let her go and not worried over it any further. You wouldn’t have been up here trying to balance your wishes with hers, trying to sort out which was the right course of action. You would have done what you wanted to do.”

“I’m sure you’re not telling me that’s what I ought to do now.”

“What I’m telling you is that you ought to notice the difference in your feelings,” she said. “You ought to look at yourself and realize that you respond differently to her than you ever have to anyone else. And you should ask yourself why that is.”

“And you contend that I’m in love with her?”

“Yes,” his grandmother said. “I do.”

“What if I tell you that I’m not?”

“You haven’t managed to say that so far,” she informed him. “I don’t think you can say it. You would have done it already. You wouldn’t be struggling the way you are if the answer was that simple, Allan. You would find another way to cope with the fact that you have lost her. But you can’t cope with it. You’re distraught over it, and I can think of only one reason why you would feel like that.”

“I think you’re giving me too much credit.”

“And I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough. Why don’t you think you might feel something real for this lady, Allan?”

“Even if I did—and I’m not saying that I do—you can’t possibly think that the right thing for me to do is to pursue her. Not after the life I’ve lived. Don’t you think she deserves better?”

“Oh, Allan.” His grandmother beamed at him. “All your life, you’ve chased perfection. You’ve always said that you’ll settle down when you meet the perfect duchess, and I’ve always feared that no one would ever be good enough for you. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you encounter someone and worry that you weren’t good enough for her . Doesn’t that answer your question? Doesn’t that tell you once and for all how you feel about her—that your love is true and real?”

“She shouldn’t be with such a scoundrel,” Allan murmured.

“That’s her decision to make. Your decision is whether or not you are able to devote yourself to her. And I believe you can.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Tell me this,” his grandmother said. “In all the time you’ve known her, have you ever experienced jealousy? Perhaps at the sight of her with another man?”

The answer came to him so quickly that it startled him. Of course, he had felt that. He felt it still when he thought about Lord Kentrow, even though he knew that Lady Edwina had rejected his advances, and there was nothing to fear from him. The mere fact that the other man had thought to propose marriage to Lady Edwina made him seethe.

If he was truly to be honest with himself, he would have to admit that he had never feared that Lord Kentrow would do anything to harm Lady Edwina when he had led her outside. That wasn’t the reason he had followed them out. He had done it because he had feared the very thing that had happened—that Lord Kentrow would declare himself to Lady Edwina. He had not wanted that to happen, and it filled him with bitterness to know that it had.

His grandmother was right. He was jealous.

She watched him, her eyes full of sympathy and understanding. “When you feel that way, it’s because you’re in love,” she told him. “That kind of passion only comes from love. You wouldn’t feel that if you didn’t love her. And that means you have to go to her—now, before it’s too late. If you don’t act, you risk losing her forever.”

Allan felt a chasm opening up within him. What if it was already too late? What if he had waited too long?

His grandmother was right about everything. No matter what Lady Edwina had said to him, and no matter what he thought about it, he had to go. He could not allow her to get away without telling her the truth about how he felt. She deserved to know, and he wanted her to.

His grandmother must have seen a change in the expression on his face. “Go,” she told him. “Take one of the horses. I’ll cover for you. I’ll make an excuse. You go to her and bring her back. Let her know the truth of how you feel. And Allan—good luck to you. I know that you can do this.”

Allan wished he felt anywhere near as confident. But at least he no longer doubted that he was making the correct choice.

He ran out of the house and down to the stables to ready a horse without looking back.