regretted a life without passionate love than he would have regretted the temperature of the North Sea. It hadn’t been within his power. And Jack couldn’t blame him for that any more than he’d have blamed the sea for being cold.
He split from the graveled path before the house, taking a less-worn but ever familiar track onto lands that had once belonged to Marianne’s father. Now they were his.
Beehives and all.
The hives were cultivated in sawed-off logs mounted upright, a shortened forest abuzz at this hour with bees returning for the night. On top of some were little house-shaped structures, a newer sort of hive hinged and cunningly divided so the nest would form up the middle and the honey and combs be constructed along the sides.
The bees were dedicated and predictable. This was what made them survive.
He’d been dedicated and predictable too, to Marianne. He’d reacted to protect himself, to hoard the little drops of honey, because he thought he’d never get more.
The things he’d done with the past eight years were good. Though he didn’t give a damn about Latin and would happily forget it, he liked the fitness of his body, the quick understanding of the problems his land developed. He liked being able to understand when people were talking about him in another language, as if it were a secret code. He wouldn’t end these things.
But they weren’t enough—not for others, but for him. And if he wasn’t enough for himself, how could he ever be enough for Marianne?
He hadn’t really become the sort of man he wanted to be, the sort who trusted he could have what he wanted. The things money couldn’t buy.
The things one had to deserve, to earn. The things one couldn’t win with a bribe of a treat, or a week and a half of hard work and deep pleasures.
The things one received by being present, by being real, by being devoted and honest and true.
Marianne was right: He’d tried to buy his way out of the trouble he’d foreseen. And in doing so, he’d earned himself a problem entirely new.
He watched the bees find their hives. Homing in, knowing their place. But if their hive was upset, they’d build a new comb. Store more honey. They wouldn’t give up; if they did, they wouldn’t live.
There were worse examples. Even if his figurative hive lacked a queen.
So he thought about where he’d been most content. Not happy, brilliant and flashing, but content. Surviving and living and growing. Doing good.
And the answer was: with his hands in the dirt, making it easier for something to grow. With someone to talk to all the while at his side about anything from life’s deepest questions to whether that cloud looked like a naked breast.
Ah, well. His lover and best friend lived in London now. She’d chosen London over him, cooking over home, the academy girls over her mother. That was her choice, and it angered him not to be chosen, but he had to forgive it. Without needing her to apologize for it, because she’d the right to make it.
But maybe he could bring a little of London to Lincolnshire. There had to be more women like her, like Viola, who wanted to learn more than they had. Daughters of impoverished merchants and tradespeople, too fine for service but unlikely to wed. Women who wanted to stand on their own.
One might even call them exceptional young ladies.
He wouldn’t stop hoping for the return of the queen, but he couldn’t force her to love him. To choose him. So he planned something else.
And he told the bees, in that old tradition, and asked for their blessing and their joy.
Chapter Eight
SHORTLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT, Marianne pressed a hand to the small of her aching back and saw the last dish stowed by the scullery maid. She bade the girl good night, sending her up to the attic quarters with a candle, then took a moment to admire the newly peaceful room in solitude.
After three days of frantic activity, the kitchen was calm again. Dark, save for Marianne’s lamp and a crescent smile of moon through the high-up window. Clean from flagged floor to plaster ceiling. The staff was proud but weary to the bone.
And they would all be up early to make breakfast and do the whole round of meals and chores again, and yet again.
The Donor Dinner had come off without a hitch—as far as the guests knew, and that was good enough for Marianne. They’d