The Way to a Gentleman's Heart - Theresa Romain Page 0,26
with your uncomfortable truths hidden in your pockets until they don’t fit anymore. So it’s clear that we don’t belong together.”
No. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be it. “You’re ending it? After all this time waiting?”
“You haven’t been waiting for me. The person who leaves isn’t the one who waits, and you left me the moment you agreed to marry someone else.” She smiled, but it was nothing like an expression of joy. “I left for London years ago. Now it’s your turn to walk away. Odd how I am the one left behind, whether I depart or show you the door.”
How was she so calm? He was a roiling mess of feelings that he couldn’t put a name to. “You say that as if I mean nothing to you. When the kitchenmaids arrived”—damn those kitchenmaids—“I was trying to tell you how I feel about you. That you’re my choice, and I love you.”
“You are certainly free to do that. I can’t change your feelings. Nor can I make you trust me, or think of the power you have when you hold someone’s heart and dignity in your hands.” She turned her back to him, tracing the line in the door where two boards were joined.
“I hold your heart? But you never said—”
“Forget what I said or didn’t say. What I’m saying now is what counts. I won’t let you ruin another place for me. I won’t place my trust where it isn’t returned.” She was turning the handle now. “I have a life here, one that I created myself, and I don’t have to rely on you. I shouldn’t have let myself do it at all.”
“But I want you to. You can.” He knew she would hear the words as hollow.
Indeed, she shook her head. “The only thing I ask of you is to leave if you’ve a mind to. And don’t plan to come back again.”
She opened the door of her chamber; the air of the kitchens was comparatively cool on his face. She pushed past him and, with skill and speed, took charge of the four new maids.
She didn’t trust him anymore, and it was his own doing. If his heart was cracking into bits, that was his own doing too.
He drew himself up. Retrieved his hat and coat. And then, because he’d never been able to deny Marianne anything but his hand in marriage, he obeyed her wishes and left.
Chapter Seven
AFTER THREE DAYS IN his carriage, Jack was a mass of thwarted energy and wonderings and worries. As soon as the wheels turned from the main road and rolled past the low red-brick wall that edged this side of his property, he was knocking to his driver to pull up. Then he was opening the door, bounding down, arranging to have his things brought on to the main house, and haring off to the dower house.
The Grahames had always owned a great deal of land, though it hadn’t produced well until the Wilcox money had allowed for improvements in drainage. Now, as the carriage trundled on along the graveled drive to Westerby Grange, he cut through tidy fields and passed beneath trees, fresh and spring green. Here and there, the land was still wild, and he slopped through the edge of a waterlogged fen. Thinking, wondering, with every pumping stride. Had it been worth it, leaving London and Marianne? Was his mother well? Had he done right?
A small distance separated the dower house from the main building, and Jack’s path had been the most direct. Let the carriage make its ponderous and proper way; he’d thunder through one more copse and—there! The smaller copy of the Grange was square and sturdy red brick, with a bowed front, and...and thank God, there was no black crepe swagged over the windows. If Mrs. Grahame was gravely ill, she yet survived.
He strode to the front entrance, now feeling every bit of the heavy sog of his abused boots, and caught his breath before he thumped the knocker. The butler who answered wore his usual uniform of severe black and white, his usual mien of unflappable politeness.
“Mr. Grahame, good afternoon,” said Trilby. “May I say, sir, welcome home?”
“You may, with my thanks,” Jack said, still slightly winded. “Is my mother well?”
“She is almost herself again.” The butler stood aside to welcome Jack into the little entrance hall. Trilby, a long-loved and now elderly servant, had moved from the main house to the dower with Jack’s mother upon his marriage.