scrap of fur. She still cared enough to send him salve for his scratches.
“That is because she was a fool,” Hyacinth decided, nodding her head as if her pronouncement was the final word on the matter.
He raised his wine glass to her in a salute. “From where I stand, I was the fool. I was chasing after a woman who never returned my feelings. I ought to have known better.”
Yes, he bloody well should have. As he looked back upon his time with Nell, he could see, so easily, that she had been conflicted all along. Her ceaseless need for distraction had been the mask of a broken heart. And she had been seeking, all along, the one man who could mend it.
That man had never been Tom.
“Regrets cannot change the past.” Hyacinth cut into his troubled musings, pragmatic as ever. “Do you know how much time I wasted berating myself for not persuading my father to wait until I had more suitors to choose from? Or how badly I wished I had run when I had the chance? In the end, we cannot undo what has already been done. All we can do is learn from our pain. Let our wounds heal into scars so we never forget.”
How was she so wise, beyond her years? He had been drowning himself in his sorrows and self-loathing ever since the day Nell had returned his ring to him. All it had required was one woman to arrive in his life, bringing with her the rays of the sun, to shine through the murk.
“You shame me, Hyacinth.” He drained his glass of the rest of its wine. “You suffered far more than I ever have. And yet, you are resilient.”
“Not so resilient, I think.” She finished her wine as well.
He refilled both of their glasses. “The most resilient woman I have ever known, aside from my own mother.”
Tom did not customarily speak about his beloved mother with anyone. Her death still stung. That he openly brought up the subject with Hyacinth he put down to the wine he had consumed and the general satiated glow that had infused him since he had made love to Hyacinth until he was little more than a quivering blob of aspic atop her luscious body.
“You do not speak of her often, your mother,” Hyacinth observed, not prodding or probing. Simply making a statement.
“She took ill several years ago,” he said through a thick throat, surprising himself with his desire to speak about what had happened. “It was unexpected. A vicious lung infection she could not shake. She was once the queen of London’s stage. My father fell in love with her when he saw her portray Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew. They married less than a month later. It was quite the scandal of their day.”
“A hopeless love match.” Hyacinth’s smile was sad. “I am sorry you lost her too soon, Tom.”
“As am I.” He took a deep gulp of his wine, attempting to keep his emotions from overrunning him. “My father has never been the same since her death. I doubt he ever will be whole again. As we speak, he is traveling the Americas. He could not bear to remain here when she was not. London was her, he said.”
And Tom could not fault him; he felt it, too. His mother was in every fond memory of his townhome and Arrington House. He could still hear her laughter. Could still recall the last words she had told him, before she had become too ill to speak, before the lung infection had claimed her.
Always follow your happiness, my Tom. Never settle for anything less than what will make your heart full.
“Oh, Tom, you must miss them both dreadfully.” Hyacinth reached out, tangling her fingers with his. “My parents are both gone as well, but they left me long before they left this earth. My pain is only a fraction of yours. I mourned them before their deaths, as they had turned their backs upon me.”
He gripped her hand, grateful for her reassurance and comfort. “Because of your marriage?” he guessed.
“Yes.” Her sensual lips compressed as the demons of her past returned to haunt her for a fleeting moment. “They both approved of the match with Southwick. Later, when we were married and I came to understand the full extent of his cruelty, I went to them and begged them for a haven. They would not harbor me. I was forced to return to