all. Sometimes giving up was the right thing to do. Sometimes trying a different approach wasn’t the answer; walking away was.
Because sometimes an ending gave way to the beginning of something even better.
Chapter Eight
“It is a duke’s privilege always to be in the right! While you or I, gentle reader, cannot navigate the cataclysmic currents of life without often pleading for pardon.”
From How to Ruin a Duke by Anonymous
After four long, jolting, weary days, Simon descended from the coach on a street that seemed hardly to have changed in thirteen years. There was the grocery, there the butcher, there the dressmaker and milliner. And the church at the far end of the main street, its steeple freshly painted white.
Simon had spent his early years in the small vicarage behind the church, the only child of his parents. They were buried in the churchyard, and he strode in that direction to pay his respects.
Was he postponing his visit to the tinsmith’s workshop, or to Howard’s house? Probably. But he also owed his respects to Father McCrone, the widower who now served Market Thistleton as vicar and who had been Simon’s only correspondent in the village for years. To Father McCrone, he sent money for Howard. From the vicar, he received bits of news.
He was pleased, as he pushed open the gate to the churchyard, to see the vicar there. The churchyard was peaceful and green, with headstones both new and worn with age. Flowers adorned many graves, while ancient trees shaded the space, leaves whispering comfort in a slight breeze.
McCrone was clipping at a vining plant and didn’t notice Simon until he’d drawn near. The old man, still hale and strong, squinted at Simon from beneath an unruly thatch of white hair. “Help you?”
“You already have,” Simon replied. “I’m Simon Thorn, Father.”
“Simon Thorn.” The vicar dropped his clippers. “In the flesh. Well, now. This is a surprise.”
“It surprises me too. But it was time.”
“Past time, I think.” Stern gray eyes regarded him for a long moment, then McCrone clapped Simon on the back. “Yes, past time. Sorry I didn’t recognize you, but then, you’ve changed a fair bit since you were last here.”
“You haven’t.”
“I know, I know. I’ve looked old my whole life. Now my years have caught up to my looks.” With a grace that belied his statement, the vicar stooped to retrieve his clippers, then trimmed off another leaf with a flourish. “Come to visit your parents?”
“And a few of the living.” Simon took a deep breath. “Father, can you grant me absolution before I call on the Howard family?”
McCrone examined a rogue bit of vine, then clipped it off. “You’ve always had it for the wanting of it. Is your heart finally ready?”
“I think it is. It might be.” Simon told McCrone about the letter from Howard. He left out Rowena’s role, though the merry twinkle in the old man’s eyes showed he suspected there was more to the story.
“I heard about that,” said the vicar. “I hear about everything, and Howard doesn’t get a lot of mail from London.”
“Did he write the reply himself?”
“He did indeed.” McCrone pushed at the clippings with his foot, making a neat pile of them. “Going to see him next? At this hour, you might find him at the workshop.”
Simon blanched. “The…tinsmith’s workshop?”
“Well do you know it.” McCrone eyed Simon narrowly. “Will you permit yourself that absolution or not?”
Hell. Simon had never wanted to return to the tinsmith to whom he’d been apprenticed. He didn’t want to see Howard there, struggling with tasks that had once been simple for him. He didn’t want to be faced with the contrast between what was and what had been.
But he hadn’t come all the way to Market Thistleton only to turn back. “I’ll try,” he told the vicar.
McCrone didn’t look entirely pleased by this, but he didn’t press the matter. “Your parents’ roses are blooming well,” was all he said. Gathering up the clippings, he bade Simon a good day and left the churchyard.
Alone amongst the sun-dappled graves, Simon made his quiet way to his parents’ plots. They had both died of a fever, separated by only a day, and they rested now beneath the same stone. Behind it, a sturdy rosebush leafed and bloomed.
“It’s still here.” Simon set down his satchel, reached out a forefinger, touched a ruffled red-pink flower. He had planted the bush when it, and he, were no more than sprouts. “I’m glad it’s been with you this whole time. Mum.