She opened her eyes again, slowly.
No one had followed.
Part of her was grateful. The rest… wasn’t.
She could have returned inside, rejoined her friends, her trunks, the final farewells. But she had come here instead, walking the garden path she now knew by heart, her shawl drawn close and her breath caught between memory and uncertainty.
This was where it had nearly happened, where he had nearly kissed her. And now, without quite admitting it, she had returned.
Because if he were going to find her, if he was going to choose to then this is where he would come.
And despite everything, Isaac’s venom, her own doubts, the ache of leaving, she wanted him to come.
She was still facing the roses when she heard it, the quiet crunch of footsteps on gravel.
Not hurried. Not hesitant.
Her breath caught, but she didn’t turn right away.
“I was hoping I might find you.”
His voice, when it came, was low and unmistakably his.
Anna turned slowly.
A tremor passed through her, so small it might have gone unnoticed, but she felt it all the way to her fingertips. Her spine straightened instinctively, and her hand lifted as if to adjust her shawl, only to falter halfway.
Henry stood just beyond the trellis, one hand resting lightly against the edge of the hedge as though it were a threshold.
She took him in silently, the slight sheen of sunlight on his coat, the way he always seemed to carry stillness like a command, as if the world tilted slightly to meet his pace.
The breeze lifted a lock of hair from his brow, already mussed in a way that suggested he’d raked a hand through it more than once, impatient or distracted and that made her want to run her hands through it like she did the night before. His jaw was set, clean-shaven but with the barest shadow threatening its edge, lending him the kind of refinement that never asked for attention, only assumed it would be given.
There was a faint crease between his brows, not from frowning, but thought. And his eyes, steady and cool in that impossible shade of green, found hers with the quiet certainty of someone used to being looked at.
“Your Grace,” she said at last, because she couldn’t seem to say anything else.
He inclined his head. “Forgive the intrusion.”
She offered the smallest smile, her heart aching within her. “I hoped you’d come. It was either this or the corridor with my trunk. I thought this a more graceful farewell.”
He stepped forward. “I was hoping you’d still be here,” he replied. “I wasn’t entirely sure you’d stay long enough for goodbyes.”
“I wasn’t sure either.”
Something softened in his expression. “And now?”
“I suppose I’m not ready to say goodbye.”
“Neither am I,” he said quietly.
The breeze stirred around them, catching the edge of her shawl.
She looked at him, lips curving faintly. “You made a face.”
His brow lifted. “Did I?”
“In the window,” she said. “You looked directly at me and mimed my cousin’s entire monologue.”
